Maggie!

Those of you who have been reading our blog for a while know that last March Will got his first dog. He had been waiting since he was about 2 for a dog of his own to love. We had put him off all through med school and residency. We told him when we arrived on the mission field we would get him a dog. So last March a beautiful golden retriever puppy named WAGs joined our family. We couldn't have asked for a better pup and our family be came a little obsessed with Will's new companion. Unfortunately, I don't think WAGs came to us very healthy. In the 8 months since March, he has been pretty sick 3 different times. Over a week ago, he became ill again and this time he didn't pull through. It was a sad day for all of us when WAGs died. Allan and I also hurt for our little boy. He was crushed. There were many tears as we buried WAGs with his favorite yellow ball in the backyard near where he played with the kids. Will told us that day that he didn't want another dog because no dog could replace WAGs. He is right, no dog could ever replace WAGs in our hearts and lives, Will did change his mind about wanting another dog. He decided he wanted another golden and quickly.

Shortly after letting his feelings be known, we knew of a puppy looking for a home. So we now have a 2 month old girl golden retriever that has come to live with us. Will has named her Maggie and she is precious. We are loving and hating the puppy stage. WAGs was 4 months old when we adopted him, so we missed this stage. Maggie is cute, funny, and trouble! It's like having a toddler again. As much as we love her, we miss WAGs alot. Her mannerisms remind us so much of him. We had been told that Goldens were similar in temperment and mannerisms and it is true. One thing is she has already taken to "WAGs pool" (you can see the little fountain from our front yard in the picture below). She loves the water just like he did!

Will and Maggie!

Happy Halloween!

Today is one of the biggest holidays of the year in the Philippines--All Saints Day. If you would like to read what it is all about you can read a blog I wrote this time last year -http://thegilmers.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_thegilmers_archive.html You will have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to Nov. 1.

Last night though was the American holiday of Halloween. This day is not really celebrated here, although the checkers at the grocery store were all dressed like pirates yesterday. I guess that shows some of the American influence. Since the kids were out of school today, we decided to have dinner with our neighbors last night and let the kids stay up late. For dinner, we had a great meal that is a common love between the 2 families--tacos. I had made a cake shaped like a pumpkin complete with orange frosting. After dinner, Emily and Will and the other kids watched a movie and then played with legos. Mary, the mom next door, happened to find some candy to bag up so at about 9:30 the kids dressed up and ran next door to "trick-or-treat". Since the door bell is out side the gates and wall that surrounds the 2 houses, the 4 of them just chimed "ding dong". It was really cute. They also took the dogs along for treats. I was surprised that Will didn't try to dress WAGs up too. It was a good night and a fun time.

The next American holiday we celebrate, Thanksgiving, my parents will be here-- less than 2 weeks until their visit!

On a humorous side note, just before we sat down to dinner last night, the dad from next door commented to Will that he had dressed in a costume for our Halloween meal. Will looked down in confusion at his camo shirt and pants and commented-"These are just my clothes. I wear them everyday." He's right. Will is still the same. If you came to see us in the PI, you would find him wearing some type of army get up in the yard every afternoon.

Super Typhoon

The month of October has been tough weather-wise for the Philippines. This morning a super typhoon (similar to a catagory 5 hurricane) moved inland about 200 miles north of us on our island of Luzon. While we are fine and are just experiencing heavy rains and cool breezes, the northern part of the island is suffering the effects of another typhoon.

Nurses Training

One of the most common questions I get from other missionaries is "Are you a nurse?" My response is usually the same--only by my husband's training. I have gotten pretty proficient at taking vital signs and checking urine-analysis strips. Having not been a nurse in the US or had any formal training, I often have to see and deal with things that are new. I actually make a terrible nurse when I observe and help take care of wounds. I always cringe and hurt myself whenever I have to clean wounds. I have decided that I really don't like puss. Allan and Ling must understand this because I am not asked to do this often. I have gotten good at pricking fingers to check blood sugar and hematocrit. I used to be really timid and wince when ever I pricked someone. I learned this only makes things worse when you have to stick them again because you didn't get enough blood.

There is one thing I am not sure even training could have prepared me for--watching someone physically deteriorate. In May just before Scott left, one of our patients came to clinic. Allan and Scott were suspicious that he had cancer. After a few tests and a chest x-ray the docs were almost certain it was lung cancer. Most of our patients can't afford treatment for cancer and the patient and his family chose not to have a biopsy to confirm this diagnosis. As I took his vitals the next time he came in, I thought he looked strong and healthy. Surely he wasn't as sick as Allan thought. He continued to come to clinic every few weeks over the summer. Each time his weight dropping more and more. If you read one of our our recent newsletters, you will know that in the Filipino culture it is not appropriate to directly tell someone they are dying. So while his family knew that he likely had cancer, I am not really sure how much he knew or even how much the family understood or believed.

Towards the end of August, while I was weighing him, he was distressed at his drop in weight. This quote is from an email sent to Scott in August: "Since you left he has dropped 4 kilos-about 1k a month. He was most distressed at this today. His pulse has also risen from about 80-88 back in April and May to 115 the last 2 months. He also doesn't look very good and his voice is weak and raspy. I of course have no idea if these things mean anything to you, but I thought I would let you know that he is visibly deteriorating." It was at that time that the family also accepted the fact that their father was dying.

Yesterday, his son and son-in-laws carried him in for a check up. I have never watched anyone visibly decline before my eyes over such a short period of time (5 months). He cannot stand without assistance. His breathing has become increasingly labored and Allan says the mass in the chest is obviously pressing on both trachea and heart. He is also in more pain now than before. Allan thinks he will not see Christmas. He gave him some medicine to help with the pain. It was so heart wrenching to see him struggle to even breathe. He was our last patient of the day and instead of our daily devotions, Ling, Allan and I just spent time in prayer for him and his family. I am not sure I could have been prepared for this even with training and experience as Allan and Ling were just as touched and upset over the situation.

Today Allan and I went to visit him in his home. Allan wanted to see how he was feeling and bring him the wheelchair from the clinic so that his family can push him around the house or out into the sunshine. The medicine had helped him to feel a little better and I think the family was comforted by our visit, especially his wife. While it was by no means a happy or pleasant visit, it was good for Allan and I to make a "house call". I think we sometimes forget exactly how our patients live.

Typhoon, flooding and now....

Earthquakes! Last night Allan and I experienced another phenomenon of living in the Philippines. We had just gotten into bed and turned out the lights when the bed began to jiggle. We both had the same thought—“what is he (she) doing over there?” Allan though noticed the windows were also rattling. After our bed quit doing a jig, he asked me; “did you do that or was that an earthquake?” Once we established that both of us had been lying still, we concluded that it had been an earthquake. Our deduction was helped by the fact that this wasn’t the first one of the evening. Earlier, we had been at a concert and afterwards our friends asked us if we felt the quake. Crazy us, we thought it was just vibrations from the music. The Philippines is a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire; a place where volcanic and earthquake activity are great. The epicenter of these quakes (there have now been 5) is an island just south of here called Marinduque where the quakes have been registering just above 5 on the Richter scale. They have been felt at about intensity 4 in Manila. So far there has been no damage reported. I am not sure how many miles or kilometers it is from here to Marinduque, but you can see the island on the map below. We are close to the big star by Manila and the red arrow points to the small island just south of our big island of Luzon. There have been other quakes in our time here, but they have only happened at night and we slept through them.

More Typhoon Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the Typhoon taken by our new neighbors:

Picture taken from the Nelsen's balcony during the storm

Trees and Bamboo blowing during the wind

A billboard fallen on a building

Signs and trees on the road to school

How sweet it is

Ahh, we have water. Well we have had water since Tuesday actually, but we now have full water pressure. Yesterday, I had a warm shower for the first time in over 2 weeks. Since we had been off swimming with the kids and it was overcast and cool, I was a little cold...well ok so cold isn't really the right word, but it's all relative. I was cooler than normal I guess. It was so refreshing! In hot season there were times I never even turned the hot water on in the shower, but usually I like to at least start with a little warmth. When it is completely cold, it is a shock to my system. Allan had actually gotten a hot shower earlier in the week, but everytime I headed off to the shower the water pressure was not enough to get the water hot. We have a different hot water system than we were familiar with. Our water heater is gas, but instead of having a big tank filled with water and kept hot, our heater passes the water through coils and heats it as it's used, similar to a radiator. While the down side is that you have to have enough water pressure to trigger the heater and keep it heating, the good news is that as long as we have propane in our tank, no one can use all the hot water! This is important since Emily really enjoys nice long showers and baths. You will have to forgive the fact that I don't have a picture of my shower to go along with this blog. Since I love to attach pictures, here's two of Emily taken by some friends recently at lunch after church.

Just a couple pictures:

Here are a couple pictures we took yesterday while out driving. I still hope to get the ones our neighbor took during the typhoon and just after. The clinic now has power, but we are still without water. Hopefully it will be restored by tomorrow.

So many houses have had roofs blown off.

Manila loves huge steel Billboards. Unfortunately, these caused tremendous damage. The winds toppled them onto houses, cars and people. It was particularly damaging to the many Squatter areas the are built beneath them. Fortunately this one fell into an empty field. So much devastation was caused by these, that the President is calling for a limiting or ban of these type of billboards.

Pray for our city

Please continue to pray for our area. Just days after a category 4 Typhoon caused significant damage around our island, torrential rains from another tropical depression have produced severe flooding. This past Monday, strong rains produced rapid and deadly flooding around Antipolo (the city where our clinic and houses are located). Six people drowned in these floods and the already damaged houses took another beating from the flood water. One of the national volunteers in our clinic had neck high flooding in her home. This dear friend is not a wealthy Filipino. Most families here live day to day and paycheck to paycheck, so there is not much money to replace the things that were lost.

After Monday night's heavy downpour and flooding, things look worse than they did over the weekend. Many trees, concrete power poles, signs, roofs, sheet metal, and other debris litter the roads and ground as well as thick layers of mud. Often the air is filled with smoke as people try to burn the leaves, sticks and debris swept from homes, yards, and roads. Many of our friends and fellow missionaries are still with out power, water, and phone. Some of them had their utilities restored, only to lose them again on Monday night.

Our family is doing well. We currently have power but no water service. The clinic remains without power or water. We continue to see patients but some services are limited without power. (Reading a x-ray by holding it up to the sun-lit window is not the ideal method taught to physicians). Many of our lab tests are also limited by lack of power.

Below are a few pictures we took on our street today. These pictures do not show too much destruction, but they give you an idea of what things look like here.

Mud and downed power lines in front of the clinic

Downed Cement power pole and trees

Xangsane

Well, we have survived our second typhoon. Last Thursday, the strongest typhoon in 11 years passed over us. It entered our island of Luzon as a catagory 4 typhoon. I am not sure what strength it was when it finally got to our location since we were out of communication by that time. It was actually a little surreal. After days of rain last week, we woke up Thursday morning to a cold breeze blowing through our windows and temps around 73. It was actually really nice. At 9 am the power was shut off as the rains began and by 10:30 we were in the midst of heavy rains and high winds. It's kind of funny that in the US we would have evacuated, but here, being an island, there is not really any place to evacuate. So we sat as a family on our screen porch and watched the weather rage. Since the storm was coming from the front of our house, we were safe sitting in the back. Thankfully the storm moved through quickly and after about 4 hours it was all over. Since we had no power or lines of communication, we kept thinking we must be in the eye, but by nightfall we realized things were over. We were without power and water from Thursday until Saturday, but if you read our blog this summer, you will remember that we have dealt with this before. Allan did manage to get our generator running for a few hours and that held the stuff in the refridgerator. As for personal damage, we had some minor flooding in our kitchen. With the gusting winds, all the seals around our kitchen windows and doors leaked, but since we have marble floors and cement walls there was no damage inside. The trees in the yard and across the ravine are somewhat stripped, but no real damage to the 2 houses or the clinic. Unfortunately, this was not the case in other places. Over 100 people are currently reported as having died, most from flooding and landslides. This number will probably continue to rise in coming days. Also many areas are still with out power or water. Our neighbor has taken some pictures of the damage around our area and I hope to post them here in the next few days.
The kids have enjoyed their time off from school. They had just gone to bed Wednesday night when we got the word that school was canceled for Thursday. I guess it was kind of like having a snow day. They asked if they could please get up and stay up late. Emily had wanted to stay up and watch her first Nascar race. She has been interested in racing since watching "Herbie, Fully Loaded" and "Cars". She stayed up until 11 watching a replay of the race in Delaware, cheering on the Nelsen's cousin who is a Nascar driver. It was very exciting as he was in the lead most of the race, but lost in the last lap when he ran out of gas. The rest of their 4 day holiday was spent playing board games and outside games like Capture the Flag with the 3 kids next door. When power was finally restored, I had to do a couple loads of wet, stinky, muddy clothes from all their days of hard play. They headed off to school this morning. Power had yet to be restored, but the school has generators to provide a limited amount of lights for the day. I am not sure the kids were ready to return to school this morning. I think they would have liked a few more days to goof off. They will get them though beginning Thursday when they start October break. School closes down in Oct. and April for a week and a half to allow boarders to return home and visit their families.

A picture is worth a thousand words

This big seller in Taiwan has come to the Philippines. Most of the "tray cover" is written in English, however, note down in the left bottom corner is the Taglish (Tagolog + English) version of McDonald's slogan "I'm loving it"

Do I have 2 heads?

When I look in the mirror, I don't see a particularly odd looking person looking back at me. I consider myself about as average as average gets. However, to Filipino children who are being seen at our clinic, I must appear equivalent to someone with 2 heads. While all gawk at me, I've found they do so in very different ways.

The highly timid and shy ones will just grab onto their parent and stare with wide-eyes locked onto my every move ( I pray for them: that their eyes won't actually pop out of their heads as they appear to be on the verge of doing). The braver sort will venture a touch of the strange being in front of them. The most common touch is to sneak a hand down to my leg (usually as I am examining their other family members) and graze the hairs on my leg. I guess they think that I can't feel that. I can understand the fascination here. Filipinos don't have alot of body hair and certainly not blonde hair so sneaking a feel of this strange stuff is completely understandable. The most aggressive ones have developed a new tactic - to poke at me as if taunting a wild animal pinned in a cage. I had to draw the line at this one because I found it disrepectful (although I must admit that this interpretation is highly influenced by my "American-ness").

So when you visit the clinic (and you are welcome anytime) be prepared for some inquisitive probes, rubs, and maybe even a poke.

Ginger said that I had to clearly state that it was me who wrote this so everyone would not think she is the one with the hairy legs --because she shaves her legs (most of the time).

"It's the Holiday Season..."

Do you ever notice that a lot of my blog titles and blogs have parts of songs in them? I always seem to have some song running through my head and often these are triggered by events around me. My best friend, Amy, doesn't realize that when she has called or we talk about her, either Allan or myself break into the song..."Amy, what you wanna do?..." by Pure Prairie League(now there's a blast from the 70's). Well this weekend there are other songs running around in my brain and I wish they would get out. In case you aren't aware, it's a -ber month. No, that doesn't mean things are turning colder here in the Philippines. It means that the months ending in -ber are official Christmas months. So September is the kick off to Christmas. Friday afternoon after picking the kids up from school, we ran by the grocery store to get 2 things. We walked in the store to the sounds of "The most wonderful time of the year" followed by "Feliz Navidad". Emily groaned and asked, "Already?" Our tv stations are playing the annual Christmas movies. At the Antipolo, Civic Center the Christmas Carnival has begun setting up. The malls have begun decorating and by October everything will be in full swing. I guess it's fitting then that I did some of my Christmas shopping online this week. It's not that I am already in the Christmas frame of mind, but my parents are coming at the beginning of November and the kids want a few things that are either only found in the US or much cheaper there. So let me be the first to greet you with a "Merry Christmas!"

Clinic Tour; part 2

This is a continuation of a blog from a couple of weeks ago that is taking you on a tour of our clinic. In the first part I showed the waiting room and the first stop along the way to seeing the doctor--the nurses station, where we take vital signs. After one of our staff takes your vital signs, (hopefully if you are ever a patient, school will be out and you will be taken care of by the great nursing team of Ginger and Emily) our patients return to the waiting room and wait for the doctor. In our clinic we don't stand on ceremony so most often the dr. calls his own patient. It is then that our patients go to the exam room. It is in the other half of the room where we take vital signs and consists of a 10 foot long table and a lot of chairs.

Seeing the doctor

Dr. Allan explains how to take the medicine

Getting a second opinion

Stats

For the past year, Ginger and I have been trying to write about our everyday experiences in missionary service (OK, I admit it, Ginger does most of the writing but those who know us well already predicted that would be the case). Writing these takes a good bit of time and effort so when we first started I decided to put a site meter on our website that would keep certain statistics on who visits. Would you have guessed a former electrical engineer would be interested in the statistics?

After 1 year, here are some of our stats from the blog (not including Philippine Mission website):

1514 total visits to our blog
57 visitors this past week
8 visitors per day average
2 minutes 25 seconds average time each visitor spends on site
1.5 page views per visitor
2350 total page views
Not surprisingly, most visitors are from the U.S.

Here are the stats from the Philippine Mission website:
1856 Total page views
Other than the main index page, most people visited our photos with 190 views of "Family Fun" and 109 views of "New Tribes"

We appreciate those who take enough interest in our lives and our ministry to read our stories. Thanks so much for your encouragement to us that these numbers represent.

---> Add on: Thinking of numbers, reminded me that:
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Funny, huh? (or maybe, not)

Jomar

I received an email this weekend that asked if we were without phones once again. I realize my blogging and emailing has been sparse recently, but it is not due to phone or power related issues. I have been in charge of a bazaar at the kids' school and it has taken up a lot of my computer time in recent weeks contacting vendors and making preparations. The bazaar- called "Shoppers' Day" is a bi-annual event for the missionary community. All the soccer teams play a game against our biggest rival- the International School of Manila. Outside, there is food and fun put on by the Student Council, similar to a school carnival. In the gym is the bazaar with 70-80 vendors coming to sell Filipino Handicrafts(this is the part I was responsible for). It is a big event and a great time of fellowship for the missionary community. Since the event was this past Saturday, things are returning to normal for me this morning.

I also returned to the clinic this morning for the first time in many weeks. We have had two 4th year nursing students here from the States and so I was replaced in my job at the clinic by them. This left me free to take care of Shoppers' Day, but it was great to be back working with Allan and Ling and seeing patients. We saw lots of kids this morning and they are always my favorites. There was one 3 or 4 year old boy who came with his baby sister. He really wanted to be the patient though. He wanted me to check all of his vital signs and everytime I went out to the waiting room to call a patient he said "Hey, ako, ako", which means me, me. He also kept wanting to pat me on the back. He was so cute and had a great big smile, but as you can see, when I tried to take his picture he refused to smile. (pardon the blurriness, but I was having camera problems this morning)

As cute as that little boy is, he isn't the one that stole my heart this morning though. Jomar is a 9 year old boy who began coming to the clinic in July for epilepsy. I could tell when he climbed on the scale this morning that something wasn't right with his mannerisms and his eyes. As I took his vital signs, I began to wonder if he was mentally retarded. Some of the things he did reminded me so much of my cousin Jenny who is MR. He seemed a little shy at first, but he soon warmed up. When Allan shined the light into his eyes he got so tickled that he giggled through out the rest of the exam. As Allan went to fill his meds, Jomar and I began making goofy eyes at each other. After a few minutes, he began saying "Rain, Rain go away, sa (tagalog word) another day" in perfect English over and over. He was such a delight. What his dad then told Ling and I, broke my heart. Jomar had been perfectly normal until he was 7 years old. He was a bright boy and in school, but one day he hit his head and he has been having seizures ever since. His seizures became so frequent that his parents began schooling him at home. He is now very developmentally delayed. For the last 2 months, he has been on some medicine that was part of the donation from that US hospital that closed. His seizures have dropped from 1 or more a day to only 1 a week. I really wanted to take a good picture of him this morning, but my camera still wouldn't cooperate. He gave some great poses, but unfortunately they were blurry. So this is the best shot I have of him and his dad. We see so many single mother families here, that it is great to see a dad care so much for his son. Would you join us in praying for Jomar and his family? We only have about 7 weeks worth of seizure meds left for him and are hoping the med is available here for us to purchase more.


Allan's two cents: For the past few months the clinic has been well stocked with just about any medicine a primary care doctor could ask for. This abundance was due to the closure of a hospital in the U.S. and the medicines that were given from its stock. These are top-of-line type drugs that I was trained to use during residency in the States. It has been good to be able to provide some of the best medications (that I am familiar with) for certain problems. However, we are now starting to deplete some of the most heavily needed medications, such as those for chronic lung problems, which requires us to switch to second-line or even "distinctly alternative" choices. Please pray for us as I am learning and adapting to using medicines that may not even be available in the U.S.

The Clinic

For those of you who haven't had the priviledge of visiting our clinic (Ok so that is most of you) I thought I would post a few pictures so you can get an idea of what things look like. This will probably be a series of blogs over the next few weeks. Some of these pictures were taken the first time we were here and have some of the members of last years Village Health Training class.

The outside of the clinic

a patient, Pastor Buddy, Cindy, and Will in the waiting room

Taking vitals

Nurse Emily gets ready for a patient.
She can now weigh patients, take their temp, and heart rate
all that's left is blood pressure

Next time....seeing the doc

Oops--did I say that!

I remember when the kids were preschoolers we used to sing a song that went.."Oh be careful little mouth what you say. Oh be careful little mouth what you say. For the Father up above is looking down in love. Oh be careful little mouth what you say." This song is especially true when living in a different culture and learning a foreign language. Since Cindy returned to the States for furlough, I have been leading a Bible Study she has on Saturday mornings with 5 girls from the neighborhood. I have really enjoyed it and will be sad to let it go when she comes back. Recently, one of the girls had to bring her brother with her. He was about Will's age and had a great time exploring the yard and playing with Will's Lightsaber. As we were having merianda (which is a Tagalog word for a snack that is the equivalent of British Tea, or Kenyan Chai Time), I asked him a question. I started by calling his name. "Baboy..." Now to understand this you need to know that in the Philippines most people do not go by their given name, they go by nicknames. His name is David, but I didn't call him David. I called his nickname. Elena, the Nelsen's helper, who is there to help cross the language barrier if needed, asked me "What did you call him?" "Uuuhhh, the same thing you've been calling him. Isn't that his nickname?" Well, it's not exactly. His name is Boboy. Baboy is a pig. I was really embarassed and I apologized a lot. He was a good sport and took it in stride. He started oinking around the kitchen. His sister Diane says he gets called that on purpose sometimes and he never minds. I felt really bad though. Allan and I did laugh about it later. Ah the culturally sensitive missionary--that's me!
Blunders aside, our Tagalog has come far in a year, but obviously not quite far enough. Allan is able to get by in the clinic now because he asks the same questions over and over and the responses are similar. We can speak and understand very basic conversation, but often it seems so fast and we sound like 2 year olds. We keep pushing on. We have a new tool to help us. Rosetta Stone is a great computer language program used by the military, peace corps, homeschoolers and others to teach 40 or so languages by immersion. They just recently added Level 1 Tagalog so we have decided to review from the beginning with that. It is good so far.

On another language funny note, Filipinos think our dog has a really strange name. They pronounce WAGs -"Waug". This sounds the same as the contraction for the word Huwag which means "Don't". I actually think it is kind of fitting and we have taken to sometimes saying to him Huwag Waug. When delivery men or others who don't know us, stop by the house, they often ask our helper, Dhel, why our dog is named don't. They also usually think the Nelsen's dog, Bonnie, is named Bunny.

Happy Anniversary and Welcome back to School!

I have been so remiss in my blogging since we have returned to the land of communication. I think I just got out of the habit. Also it has been a busy couple of weeks. It is now official---as of July 30th, we have been here one year! It is weird to think we haven't stepped on American soil or seen our family in over 365 days. With the vonage phone it doesn't seem that long. Our anniversary passed almost unnoticed amid the breaking of the hot water heater and a major computer problem. I think after the month of July, the house could fall down and we wouldn't be too shocked.

Just 3 days after our anniversary, Emily started middle school. She was very anxious about this event. She kept telling me she thought she was coming down with something and couldn't start school. Our drive to school that morning was a little tense for Em. We parked and I walked Will to his class. As I headed back across the campus, there sat all the new 6th graders on a stone wall looking a little intimidated and scared. This same group of kids would come running out much more relaxed at the end of the school day. Emily's first words--"It was awesome!" She loves middle school. She likes having a locker and changing classes and having different kids in her classes. While she is not a big fan of PE, she loves going to the locker room to change into her PE uniform and the things that go along with that. Twice a week in middle school PE, they strap on a pulse monitor and run a mile. Emily likes this because they can bring a portable Cd player or MP3 player to listen to while they run. I thought they would run around the soccer field 5 times, but no, they run the campus which is quite steep and hilly.

Will is enjoying 4th grade and was glad his best friend from last year is once again in his class. Most of his other friends are in the other class though. He has made friends with a new boy in his class that he really likes. I think he misses seeing Emily at lunch and on the playground. Since we homeschooled in the states, this is the first time they have not been in the same school. After only missing one day of school last year to go to immigration, he has already missed a day this year. We had flash backs to July as he once again ran a fever yesterday and had to stay home. This was very distressing to him and he was glad to go back this morning. I am glad he likes school. I have no idea what time he got up this morning, but he came be-bopping into my room at 5:45 when the alarm went off and he was already dressed and fed. He was quite peppy and kept singing and being silly. This drove his sister nuts. She is not a morning person. It looks to be a good school year!

Nasaan sila Gilmers? or Where are the Gilmer's?

For those of you who are faithful to read our blog, you probably wonder if we have fallen off the island during the last month. Well at times it has seemed like it. The last month has been crazy for us. July is the official beginning of rainy season and it has begun with a vengeance. We started the month with 2 typhoons, followed by a 3rd one this last week. Since the rains began the first week of the month, it has rained every day. Most days it has rained all day. The first typhoon knocked out the phone lines, which were then stolen, and we were without phone service for over 2 weeks. One Saturday morning though, the lines were replaced and we had phone and internet again...for less than 24 hours. The phone lines were cut and stolen again that night, so we were once again phoneless until today. Beside no phone we have also spent the last 3 days without power. Thankfully everything seems to be up and running now, but who knows when the weather will knock it out again.

When the phone lines are down, we can get out and check our email at internet cafes. Unfortunately during the first week of no phone service, a virus with a high fever swept through the family beginning with Will and ending with Allan. Each of us was really sick for 10 days to 2 weeks. So we haven't gotten out much, Emily and I still have some residual cough and congestion.

Besides illness to fill our dreary, rainy days, we have launched a war against a platoon of rats that invade our home each night. In the states we one time had a little mouse in the house. We have never had rats--yuck! The rats have eaten holes in the screens and come inside. At first it was just in the kitchen windows, but when we started leaving those closed they came in through any window, including our bedroom--eeeewww! For 2 weeks each night before bed, Allan would set up his poisons and traps. We soon caught our first rat in a trap. Will arrived in our bed one morning about 6 to tell us there was the biggest rat we had ever seen dead on the kitchen floor. He was right! It was bigger than a guinea pig--double yuck! I was thankful Allan saw it as a man's job to clean it up. The Nelsen's dachsund Bonnie has killed one in the yard. Their dog Shila killed one behind our dryer. And not to be out done, WAGs killed one in the kitchen last week. Hopefully the others (if there are any) are dying off in their nest somewhere after they have eaten the poison packets left around the house. Along with the rats we have also had problems with ticks in the house and our usual collection of lizards. The lizard population has been diminished though with the sticky traps set out for the rats. Ah the joys of living overseas! I am sure my mother is really looking forward to being here with us this fall. She doesn't like lizards in the house and I can only imagine what she thinks of rats.

We are glad to see July winding down and hope August is a better month for us. School begins next Wednesday and Will is ready to go. Emily is a little apprehensive about starting middle school. On another good note, the missionaries, who are renting the Nelsen's house while they are on furlough, arrived this week. They have 3 kids. The younger 2 are close to our kids ages. One is a girl Will's age and a boy a year older than Em. The 4 of them have lived in the yard, running and playing with WAGs and their dog. It has been wonderful for Emily and Will to have kids right here. Emily and Megan have enjoyed doing girly things. While, Will and Mark have played Monopoly this morning and are now playing Stratego. We are enjoying having neighbors again after 2 months of the house next door being empty.

The great thing about the rainy weather has been that our temps have been cooler. Our highs have been between 80 and 82 with the nights getting down as low as 74. While to some of you that may still seem like summer, after living with summer for 365 days, we like the lower 80s and upper 70s. The kids have been wearing their long pants pjs to bed at night. We didn't even miss our fans when the power was out.

So here is the final count

rats killed-4
days with rain--24 and counting
days without phone-23
days without power-3
days with cooler weather-priceless!

Will's new Swimsuit

Ok for those of you who don't want to enjoy another of my shopping experiences here in the PI then this isn't the blog for you. First a little background info--About 3 summers ago, Will began wearing rash guards when he went swimming. My cousin Susan introduced them to me when we were at Gulf Shores. Will was so skinny that he had a hard time staying warm in the water and my cousin said this might help. Apparently rash guards are pretty popluar in New England where the water is a lot cooler. It really helped, Will loved it and we quickly learned the added benefit of protecting his pale white skin from the sun.

Yesterday, I went to our local grocery store which is kind of like a mini-Walmart (emphasis on mini). I was buying a few groceries and some toiletry items for the kids to take to a summer camp for MKs next week. While there I decided to see if they had anything that Will could wear for pjs since his are all getting a little too small. As I walked toward the back of the kids clothing section, I was stopped by an outfit hanging there that I knew I had seen before. It was a shirt, bathing suit trunks, and flip flops all packaged together. The brand name--Sun 'n' Sand. I knew this was a Walmart brand. I also knew these were not Filipino swim trunks because they had a liner inside and boy's bathing suits here are made just like shorts. There was a whole rack of boys swimsuits and tees that were made in the Philippines for Walmart, along with some Op suits that came with rash guards. I was so excited. I of course bought Will a new suit and shirt. Later that afternoon we went to the pool where I saw 2 other families who had also discovered my find. Allan thinks we all seem a little too excited about finding American bathing suits, but it is more than that. It is like finding a piece of home. I am sure he would feel the same way if we were driving down the street and stumbled across a Guthries or a Zaxby's.

Here is the outfit that stopped me at Shopwise. It is listed for sale at the Walmart website.

Here is Will in his new suit.
The bottoms are a little big (surprise),

but he already had 2 others that match the shirt

Goodbyes

Time has slipped up on me and I just realized I haven't blogged in 2 weeks. I have been enjoying the kids being out of school and we have been working on our latest newsletter so I guess I haven't really thought about blogging. It is hard to believe that this time last year we were in the midst of saying goodbye to family friends. Unfortunately, that is a process that happens over and over again for the missionary. We have just recently had to say a short goodbye to our ministry partners. Scott and Cindy have returned to the US on furlough until at least January, maybe a year. Allan is now "in charge" at the clinic. The clinic is quieter and so is our house. The Nelsen's live about 10 feet from us so we are used to having someone always around. We really notice their absence at night when their house remains dark and no one pops by for a visit. At the end of July, we will once again have neighbors when another missionary family moves in until the Nelsen's return. The kids are looking forward to having kids their age from school to play with in the yard.

Besides saying goodbye to the Nelsen's and other families heading home for a year furlough, the kids especially have had a hard time saying goodbye to kids who are moving on--either back to their passport countries or on other fields of service. This year at Faith there seemed to be a higher proportion of kids who would not be returning than in the past. Emily and Will both made good friends this year who will not return. Emily's grade was particularly hit hard as almost a 4th left the Philippines for good. Making new friends and then having them move on was one of the things we knew was tough about missionary life.

Emily's new friend Katie who has left the Philippines for the US

Happy Anniversary!

Today Allan and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. We left the kids home and went out for a nice lunch at one of our favorite Filipino restaurants--a little place that serves American food called TGIFridays. We enjoyed one of Allan's favorite American foods- baby back ribs! This seems fitting since we spent our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, TN and ate alot of ribs that week. It was a yummy meal and we enjoyed spending time together. We have gotten to spend more time together in the last year than in any other year of our marriage.



TGIFridays at Sta. Lucia, Philippines







The restaurant we went to today is near the Marikina River. When most people who were born before 1975 think of the Philippines, they remember the tv images of the closet of Imelda Marcos and all those shoes. Marikina is the shoe making district of the Philippines and they pay tribute to Imelda with a shoe museum that contains about 250 pairs of her shoes. In the middle of the Marikina River is a barge with a large high heeled shoe.

Across the Marikina River, near the big shoe is a monument to the of history Marikina. Marikina was one of the largest private haciendas in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization. Its residents were comprised mostly of farmers. These farmers were quite productive allowing each family to own more than two carabaos. During that time, if you possessed several carabaos you would be considered really rich. This herd of 28 stone carabaos follows the old path taken by the carabaos from their owner's homes to the fields as a reminder that Marikina was once abundant farmland. I am not sure why one of them is white.

A Road Trip

There are some advantages to living in the Philippines that we didn't have in the US. One thing we rarely did when we lived in the states was go to the movies. It is just too expensive. Here we can go see a movie for under $2 a person. So it is a nice treat to see a movie. It is also one of the few places you feel cold and might need a sweater because they set the air conditioning so low.
Today after church we went to see the new Disney Pixar movie, Cars. It was like a little slice of America to fill our senses. If you haven't seen it, the movie itself is gorgeous. The animation is almost realistic. The music is fun and it is a great flick to see on the big screen. The message that others are more important than fame and money was a great one for the kids too. Will loved it too! He loved the cars and the fact that "nothing jumps out at you."
Early on in the movie the main character drives from somewhere down south to California on I-40. Allan and I both sighed and enjoyed the sight of cars moving across the American landscape at a decent pace. We just don't see much--well actually any, of the open road. Driving has definately been one of the biggest adjustments for us. For those of you who live in a big city and spend time sitting in traffic, maybe you can relate a little. In the places we have lived in recent years we had to make sure we didn't go too fast, not so here.
It was also neat to hear the Filipino family behind us explain or try to figure out some of of the American idiomatic expressions. At one point, one character states--"I having as much fun as a tornado in a trailer park." It was a comment much puzzled on by the parents behind us. I guess so since the Philippines has neither tornados or trailer parks.
So I highly recommend Cars if you are looking for a little slice of nostalgia. We enjoyed being transported back to the US via the sights along Route 66!

Do you have night sweats?

Back in September I wrote about modifying my list of standard medical questions after a patient said "the ants like my urine". Here's the link to the whole story:
http://thegilmers.blogspot.com/2005/09/self-diagnosing-diabetes-mellitus.html

Since adding this question to my standard list which doctors call the "Review of Systems", I have made a few other cultural adaptations to the question list (translating into Tagalog the most obvious adaptation). One of the questions that I have decided to drop from the regular use is: "Do you have night sweats?" The reason I decided to drop it is because most of our patients live in make-shift housing with cinder block walls and sheet metal roofs. Often they lack electrical power and thus no fan to move the air around either. Now even in our house which was designed to be cooler and has electricity for fans, it can still get pretty hot. Lately when we have been going to bed, it has been in the 87 - 90 degree (F) range. I don't know about you but that is enough to make me have night sweats whether I'm sick or not. So I have to question the usefullness of the information gained from this question...
Or maybe I'll just quit using it because I could never quite pronounce the Tagalog word for night sweats anyway.

More unexpected Visitors

The rains have come to the Philippines giving us a break from the extremely hot weather. While it hasn't cooled down completely, the evenings are once again tolerable. Unfortunately we will now have rain until September or October and things will begin to mildew and mold once more. The beginnings of rainy season brought many creatures into our house. We began to see large black centipedes crawling across the floor. WAGs wasn't even interested in messing with them after the first day so we have been constantly picking them up over the last 2 weeks. They are also not very photogenic. This was the best picture I could take.

We have had an invasion of other creatures too. One night upstairs there were small winged bugs flying everywhere. There must have been 50-100 of them. Allan brought up the bug spray and they began "dropping like flys". We were told the rains bring out the bugs and centipedes. While we have never had as many come inside as we did that night, we have had a few visit us every evening. Tonight though was a different story. A big winged bug that resembled the first ones upstairs began flying around the light. Soon it was 2, then 3, then 4, then....well you get the point. I began to kill the ones who flew down near the floor and soon there were none left. Before long, they began coming again. Allan and I discovered they were all over the screens trying to get in. Soon there were many slipping in through the screen, flying and swarming around. Allan thought they were flying termites and after a google search on the internet, I discovered he was right. We seem to have conquered them for the evening. Thanks to our handy bug killer spray. Ah the joys of learning to live in the tropics! I do hope they fly onto somewhere else tomorrow.

What a flying termite looks like

An unexpected visitor

For the last 2 weeks we have had a guest in our home. No it is not some wonderful family member or friend from the US--although we wish(hint hint). It has been a lttle dog named Scruffy. There are many things I thought I would do on the mission field, but babysitting a dog is not one of them. Being so far from home, the mission community becomes like your family away from home. While the transient nature of mission life makes making friends difficult, the friendships that develop tend to be strong. Will's teacher, Ellen, and her husband, Dan hold a very special place in our hearts--not just because they went to Auburn either. We have enjoyed getting to know them this year and do somethings socially especially during football season.

During the last week of school, Dan's father passed away. It is hard to imagine being far from home during the midst of a family tragedy, and Dan and Ellen made the tough choice to return to the States for a few weeks. Therefore, we are watching their little dog Scruffy. He is a tiny little thing, but he and WAGs have gotten along well. The kids were very excited to have Scruff come visit. It has changed the dynamics of our house a little as we have added a 4th dog to the yard. Every few days Scruffy sends an email and a picture about his life and trials in the Gilmer household. The Brooks have posted some pictures and a few of his letters on their blog if you want to check it out at-- http://www.brookslanding.com/

Isn't it about time for a Clinic update?

I want to apologize for the lack of blogs about the clinic recently. Ginger has been very faithful to write updates about our family and adaptation to the Filipino culture. There are a couple of reasons for my lack of blogging. During the last part of April and into this week in May, I have had several bad weeks of feeling miserable, running a high fever, unable to eat, unable to get out of bed. I truly felt like death on a Ritz cracker. The first week in May was probably the sickest I have been in many, many years. Fortunately, the memory of those 2 weeks now just blur together into one big, very long, terrible day. I am still not sure what my diagnosis was – it was a fever of unknown source. All my labs were normal except for a high White blood cell count with a high neutrophil percentage. I had a few ideas about the possible causes but lacked the proper lab tests to distinguish any particular cause.

I appreciate those of you who prayed for me. I know Ginger sent an email to some about my sickness and in return, we received many words of encouragement through email and phone calls. If I spoke with you or emailed you during that time, please forgive any incoherent statements or mumblings made.

As for the clinic, we have had some very interesting and some very difficult cases recently. It seems the severity of illness that we are treating is increasing. There have been an increasing number of extra-pulmonary (outside the lung) cases of tuberculosis with some showing signs of being resistant to our current supply of medications. I will discuss this more in one of our future newsletters. Some of our sickest heart and lung problems would certainly be hospitalized in the USA but we struggle to manage them through the clinic since hospitalization would certainly deprive them of many of the resources they need for food, shelter and the necessities of life.

One of our biggest blessings this month was the arrival of our ultrasound. This equipment came from the same hospital closure in Illinois that also provided us with an EKG recently. The ultrasound was so large that it had to be crated and shipped separately from the smaller items. In God’s perfect timing and planning, a non-profit group with world-wide logistics connections offered to ship our ultrasound here free of charge. This hospital quality ultrasound will provide a great benefit to our patients. The various imaging transducers will allow us to perform 2-dimensional echocardiograms (heart images), obstetric measurements (for the moms to be), abdominal and soft tissue imagines (such as liver, gallbladder, kidneys, etc).





Our equipment is first off the shipping container.










The packing crate was so big we had to disassemble it just so we could put the Ultrasound on the truck.













Finally on our truck and ready to head back to the clinic!

Isda anyone?

This morning I was awakened at 6:15 by a man walking down the street shouting "Isda.....Isda.....Iiiiiss-daaa". It is not uncommon for us to have salesmen walking down our street announcing their wares, but this was a little earlier than normal. So what type of things are for sale? you ask. Of course we have the Filipino version of the ice cream man, which is either a young boy carrying a Styrofoam cooler slung across his shoulder filled with ice cream, or a bike type push cart that plays a song as it rolls, but we also have other goodies for sale as well. Anything from Ice cream to balut (a Filipino delicacy consisting of a half formed duck egg), to men carrying foam mattresses to plastic ware and of course isda--which is Tagalog for fish. My thought at 6:15 am was-"Who wants fish at 6:15 in the morning?" Quickly followed by the thought--"Of course- fish is a breakfast food here". I am sure someone took the fish vendor up on his offering of fish and right now they have cleaned and cooked that fish and are sitting down to a nice breakfast of fish, eggs, and of course rice. As for me, I will just stick to my toast. After awaking a few minutes early this morning, I woke up the kids for the last day of school. I then decided to lay back down for "just a minute since I don't have to fix lunches." The next thing I knew the kids ride was here and they weren't ready to go. There was no lunch to fix or backpacks to pack. Yet, for the first time this year, they were not ready when their ride showed up. Will didn't even have a shirt on because he could not find his uniform and Emily had not even begun to de-snarl her hair. I quickly helped them finish up and get out the door. What a way to end the school year.

addition to the above blog: It is now 7:20 and it just dawned on me why the kids were late in getting ready for school and the reason I was awakened by the Fishmonger. We normally wake up at 6:00 not 6:30. No wonder the kids couldn't get ready by 6:45. Ooops! Do you ever have those little mental moments?

Fresh Pineapple!

The weather has cooled off a little since last weekend's typhoon. The rains have come and the clouds have kept it from being quite so hot. This afternoon(Sunday), Will, Emily, WAGs, and I enjoyed being out in the back yard. Will was busy doing his "workout" which consists of swinging, running laps around the yard, 50 pushups, chinups, and climbing up a rock wall. He began having a workout routine in Greenwood, where he also used hand weights. He is so funny when he does this. He says he wants to get big and strong. Emily spent her time visiting with the baby bunnies and swinging. WAGs spent his time chasing Will or the Nelsen's dog. Our yard is on a large slope and so the back yard is terraced. As I was sitting at the top of some stairs leading to a lower level I noticed something growing in what I had thought was just a tropical bush or plant. In the center was a cute little pineapple. How do you grow pineapples? Cindy told me that you cut the green part and about an inch off the top of a fresh pineapple and plant it. It takes 9 months to mature. I guess this pineapple was planted shortly after we arrived. One of the things we like about living here is eating fresh pineapple. I usually buy one each week-- my favorite variety is Dole super gold. It is very sweet and smells really good. There are many varieties, but this is one of the more expensive. It costs only a dollar a piece so we bite the bullet and get our favorite. I think over the next few weeks I will plant some more pineapple tops. I will let you know in 9 months how they turn out.

Emily checking out the pineapple

Will and our pineapple

This young coconut tree was planted when our house was built about 5 years ago.

One day it will provide some shade for Will's swingset

Our boy!

I just thought I would post this picture of Will. A friend took this picture of him at school and sent it to me today. I thought it was really good. He has changed so much since we moved here. The kids are growing up so quickly!

Our first Typhoon!

Well we have survived it--our first typhoon. Early Saturday morning a catagory 1 typhoon passed through. We knew it was coming from the news, but I am not sure I really believed it. We had done a little prep work of filling buckets with water and bringing some chairs in off the balcony. About 3:30 in the morning the winds began to really blow outside so Allan and I got up and shut all the windows in the house. Shortly after, the power went off.

The Philippines averages about 19 typhoons (a pacific hurricane) a year. I guess it is like snowfall in the US. When it snows a little down south, everything shuts down, but in the colder regions, it takes a blizzard. That is how it is here--like the northern US in winter. Emily's class was having a sleepover at school Friday night. No need to cancel that for some rain and wind. 8 am Saturday morning when she returned home, Jeepneys, trikes, and people were out in the rain going about their business. People went on with lives and work like it was just a long summer shower. Power outages are not rare here so even that didn't seem to slow anyone down. The grocery store just fired up their generator and continued business as usual.

As for the Gilmer clan, we stayed home and enjoyed the cool breezes that blew. It was a great day for me to curl up on the screen porch with WAGs and a book. Allan did do a little work on our generator and finally got it going in the afternoon. It ran for about 4 hours so we could didn't lose the food in the fridge. We also had one light for a couple hours in the evening. It turned out to be a nice relaxing day. By Sunday morning power was restored and it was off to church for Mother's Day! We went out to eat with another family afterwards and it was like nothing had happened. We are still having really cool weather. I hope it last, but know it won't so I will enjoy it now!

More Slumber Party Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from Friday night's big event!

Eating Pizza!

Hanging out on our roof!

We have a flat roof with a metal spiral staircase leading up to it. The kids love to play up there. Emily and Will often ride scooters there. I avoid it usually because I hate climbing down the spiral staircase.

The girls brought baby powder to make their faces white and "scare" the boys

Will's class

Last night our house was full. Will's class of 13 came to our house for a sleepover. He has an exceptionally sweet group of kids in his class and so his teacher wanted to do something really special as they wind down the school year. It began as soon as school was out with a couple hours of swimming at Faith. After that, everyone piled into our van and Mrs Brooks car and headed over to our house. The kids organized themselves into a game of capture the flag while we waited for pizza to be delivered. After dinner, we watched the original Little House on the Prairie movie from the tv series. The class has just finished reading "Little House in the Big Woods" and studying the American pioneer era. They were sufficiently worn out by this time to fall asleep just after 10. Boys stayed down stairs and the girls stayed in Emily's room.

It was great fun and the kids were all so well behaved. One of the nicest moments of the day came just before bed. He Min (aka Joy), a little girl from Korea, closed our day in prayer. This year, Mrs. Brooks has really encouraged the kids to pray in the language they feel most comfortable using when talking to God. It is good for those who do not speak English as a first language to feel free to pray in class in their "heart language". So Joy ended our day by praying first in Korean and then in English. It was very sweet. I wouldn't normally have 13 kids over to spend the night, but we have loved this class this year. It has been such a good class for Will to be in. He has made some great friends.

more WAGs Tails

A funny thing happened tonight. WAGs went into the closet in the office. There is an old mirror in there and it really freaked him out. His hair stood up on his back and he began barking at himself. Allan and I had a little fun with him. Al pulled the mirror out and WAGs kept circling it looking for the other dog behind the mirror. It was really cute. I am not sure he ever got it. Al and I are such exciting people that we can be so easily entertained by a dog. It reminds me of the days when Emily was a baby and we spent all our time watching her do exciting things like bat a toy hanging above her head- not that she in anyway reminds me of a dog.

Who's that in the mirror?

"Where did he go?"

Happy Birthday to me!

Today was my first birthday spent in a foreign country and it was declared a national holiday. The kids were off from school and we went for a swim in the afternoon. Later we had a cookout with the Nelsen's and another family. It was a lot of fun and good fellowship! It was nice that a holiday was declared in my honor. They called it Labor day, but I really know the truth! (Funny how in the US people have a hard time remembering if Labor day is in May or Sept)

For my birthday, Emily baked her first cake. She got the recipe out of an old American Girl magazine that belonged to Anna, who lived here before us and is now around 20. It was really easy and the taste wasn't too bad, but it wouldn't win any contests. I think Em was proud of herself, but a little disappointed in the taste. I explained to her that the recipe has a lot to do with how good something is and a cake recipe that lacks eggs, lacks a lot. I was so proud of how good she did with no help. We had a great laugh when I told her about the first time I made a macaroni cassarole for Allan's dinner as a young newlywed. I didn't know you were supposed to cook the macaroni first. Oops! It was a little crunchy. I think she was glad my cooking skills have come a long way. Anyway I am now....well I am not going to announce my age on the internet. Those of you who love me know how young I am.

Emily's cake with a beautiful flower candle!