Day in the life of Rain

The view from Reneli's house. People would die for this view.

Previously, I asked Reneli, or "Rain," from Coco Vida if she wanted to hang out. Today she had the day off, so I hung with her the whole day. She wanted to go home, so, we took motorcycle about 10 km to her house. I was impressed by her house. She had a long driveway and on it the neighbor's cow was grazing. There were several buildings on their property and they had a spectacular view of the ocean. I met her two sisters, Lovely and Bing, and her stepmom and dad. Despite living a simple life, I don't really know if Reneli knew how lucky she was living on such a nice property.

Reneli's siblings -- Lovely, Bing, and Reneli

We hung out a little bit and I chatted with her sisters. For lunch, Bing, Reneli and I had to go to the market in Tagbilaran to get groceries so their stepmom could make chop suey. Since they didn't have a motorbike or anything to drive in, we had to wait at the jeepney stop and take a jeepney into Tagbilaran; more than 20 people packed into the jeepney. The grocery store was similar to a small grocery store in the US; the produce though wasn't as pampered -- carrots had dirt and mold on them, cauliflower was dirty. We bought pork and a bunch of vegetables which costed a total of 153 pesos.

We bought chicken feet from a street vendor for dinner

After getting groceries, I told Reneli that I wanted to look for contact solution which I was running low on. We went to a few street pharmacies which didn't have it. Things started feeling like my battery search fiasco. Though, we found a more mainstream pharmacy called Mercury Drugstore. There were three armed guards in the front with shotguns and you we had to check in our bag in the front; this place had money. Immediately the girl working the counter knew what I wanted and brought me a bottle of contact solution. For 360mL, it was only 85 pesos.

Reneli's stepmom cooked her chop suey on a wooden "stove" outside fueled by burning branches. It started raining hard but the stove was sheltered. Bing laid out plates, forks and spoons, rice and the chop suey. The food was delicious and all the groceries were enough to feed 6 people. After lunch, we watch a Filipino TV show called Wowowow where there were car mechanics dancing and singing. Even though I didn't understand anything they were saying, it was entertaining watching it.

Reneli and Bing decided to take me to a local karaoke joint down the street. From the street, it didn't look very welcoming as the local people there stared at us oddly (mainly at me). The drunk owner came out and wanted us to come inside and to not worry about the people staring at us. We sat down and looked at the song list while he was annoyingly talking to us. I felt more comfortable when a guy from the staring group came over to me and offered me a brandy and coke shot. This was a sign of acceptance and so I drank it, along with two other shots he brought over.

The drunk owner talked with us a lot and I could tell Bing and Reneli were getting a little annoyed by him. It started raining extremely hard and so we were pretty much stuck at the karaoke place. Bing and Reneli sang around 8 songs total while I sang "One" by U2. The worst time to realize you really don't know a song is while you sing it in public; that is what exactly happened to me.

Walking back to Reneli's home, we stopped at a BBQ street vendor to get some food for dinner. We bought chicken intestine, feet, and pork skewers. We took them back to Reneli's house and ate them there with rice. This time, everyone was eating traditional Filipino style -- no utensils, just with hands. I ate this way out of respect but didn't like it because I didn't feel my hands were all that clean. After dinner we watched some TV while we were waiting for a motorcycle to pick us up and take us back to Alona.

- jason