Bayahhihan, Snakes, Children and Transfers

Last time I posted a photo of a picture that hung in a families home of bayahhihan. The mission president's wife took this photo just outside the mission home. Someone is actually bayahhihan (moving house). There is a lot of new home construction going on in our area. It always surprises me to look beyond the trees and shrubs and see something new going up.

I borrowed some of the Mission President's pictures for this week. She saw this big snake in a field down the road where we live. I think it belongs to the guy in the red shirt and shorts. A couple of days after she told me about the snake and showed me her pictures I saw the snake wrapped around some guys neck and he was out walking along the road. An albino python maybe.

Pictures of school children riding a tricycle. Before and after school this is a very common sight that we see to and from the office. Jeepneys are for the highway. Then tricycles and habal habal's  (motorcycles) are used on the secondary roads. Some roads only allow c-cabs which are bicycles with side carts with seats.

Most children just play with sticks and stones. The children who live around the office come over and like to play in the parking lot of the church. They play with their flip flops. I can not remember the word for their shoes. Tossing them around. Yesterday they were playing a game where everyone's flip flops were spread out in an area then they would take one of their flip flops and try to bounce the others outside of the designated area by flinging the one in their hand at the pile. They also come and play with a ball of paper that has been wadded up and their flip flop by using their shoes like a bat to hit the paper wad. Some children are lucky enough to have sticks with a wheel on the end and they push it around. This child has a fun scooter someone made for him.

We had 23 missionaries arrive this month. It takes a lot of food to feed everyone during transfers. We went over to the mission home to help bring breakfast to the new missionaries. We were so rushed it took 3 people to scrap the scrambled eggs into a container. 

For lunch we had left over pizzas and scones to feed the crowd but no way to heat them up at the church except for solar heat. It took a couple of vehicles to heat all the food. It worked pretty good even on the frozen food that hadn't gotten taken out of the freezer. But then missionaries will eat almost anything that is provided for them. They are a hungry bunch on transfer day. We usually have about half the missionaries or about 100 come in for the transfer to meet up with their new companions.

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