Rice fields and the harvest

 Rice is a major crop on Bohol Island. They dry the rice on the roads in front of their homes or on the Barangay's basketball court. Sometimes chickens find the rice and have a feast. Usually the rice is drying on tarps but sometimes they just lay it on the bare ground. People walk on it and sometimes even a motor will drive over it. The rice fields in this area are not on very big slopes. The fields are just slightly terraced. We often saw children playing, people harvesting, and people drying the rice and getting it ready for market. There was also lots of coconuts on the roads drying.

Children playing in the fields

Rice growing near some chocolate hills.

Harvesters finishing up for the day

Working in the fields

Using wooden rakes to spread out the rice

Rice on the basketball court drying

Carabao finished working for the day

Coconut drying on the road

Coconuts drying

Nipa huts sitting on the edge of the rice field

Cemetery on the edge of rice field

Carmen Bohol

The Carmen area is inland and up in the mountains. They grow lots of rice in this area. We went to church and then went to visit three of the families afterwards. Some of the members in Carmen pull their resources to come to church by renting a vehicle to bring them because they live rather far from the building. The members in this group are happy and a delight to be around.

Transportation for one family

Some of the members we  visited

Walking the path to their homes

The rice harvest is over and the fields are dry. They are having a drought in this area.
Some of the areas are without water. Which makes it hard for the missionaries to bath
 and especially to flush any toilets there are.

Visiting at the home. Two other families joined us.

This little boy pulled a rock around that was tied to a piece of rope.
He never tired of pulling the rock around. And then he found  another toy to
entertain himself. A plastic bag tied to a stick that one of the older children had.

 

Dad visiting a missionary before the baptism.
The Carmen group travels to Pillar for baptisms. 

Baptismal fonts are outside in these areas. They are in the mountains and so not
close to the ocean. The groups who do not have fonts often use the ocean. 
You can see how dry the grass is. Pillar is also having a drought.

A small truck load of people who came to the baptism

Carmen is a small group. Not big enough to be a branch yet.
These are some of the members who were able to make the trip
for the baptism.

Visiting the missionaries apartment in Pillar to fix the missionaries bicycles.

Service Projects on Panglao

We helped clean up a vacant lot for the owner. She is planning to build a restaurant on the lot. She wants to make it a cultural experience for the tourist by having music and traditional dancing at her restaurant. She is an excellent cook. 

Cutting back the vines and growth using a knife 

Taking a break, tossing a coconut around.

The owner makes the best empanadas ever. It is a family recipe. So delicious I ate more than my share.
I had eaten all mine and they were pretty quickly consumed by the missionaries.
So Sister Magdaraog let me take her picture before she finished hers.

Group photo of all the Dauis missionaries helping with the project. We got a lot done.

 Another project we worked on was the clearing and helping of building a new home. The mother of the family was home from her job abroad and wanted the project started. We cut down the trees growing inside the structure and leveled the ground, carried bricks for the workers and mixed up cement.

Children gathered to watch the work.

Coconut husks drying out. They are used to scrub floors and to start fires.

They feed the cows banana trees.The younger calves banana tree was chopped up. They say it is very nutritious for the animals. I am not sure on that fact because the animals look like they could use more food in their diet.

Everyone has these large benches by their homes. They are huge for as small as the people are.
But I guess large ones are better for lounging on.

Elder Detuya cutting up green mangoes for a snack. When green they taste a lot like a green apple, kind of sour. 

The children were very interested in the work. They needed a closer view, instead of just through the window.

I mostly just observed but Dad worked up a good sweat.

A cute little observer of the work.

Children teaching Sister Nalawas some Cebuano. They all sang the theme song from "Frozen" for us.
Children are pretty much the same all over the world, I am beginning to think.

Tagbilaran District work detail

Coconuts ready for making Buko juice

Jagna and Cortez

FHE in Cortez. We have enjoyed being a part of the FHE's  here. Neighbor children come by and are included by the families. Doors are always open and families include whoever comes by.

It has gotten very hot out. Umbrellas are used for shade as much as for rain. These are the sisters that are serving in Jagna. We love them.

Children playing in a hut they made

The sweetest kindest people you could possibly find. We played "Call Harry" and we all ended up with lipstick spots on our faces. Do you know how to play "Call Harry"?

They all get a kick out of  Dad's size and like to have pictures taken next to him.

We had very lami, delicious food 

Isn't this a great rocker. The seat and back float and then these big arms. Elder Talan likes his picture to be taken.

Clean Up and Tear Down

 We have been on several projects to help people. From tearing down homes to building homes to cleaning up their lots. This project was dismantling a home so they could move their materials to another location to rebuild their home. It was a pretty dusty job and I lost my voice for almost a week as soon as they started knocking down the blocks of cement.

Mr. Frog. The little boys, lalakai, tried to catch this frog. He was pretty big.

Pulling down the woven panels. The family will reuse the panels on their new home.

Dad doing his part.

On the path back to the car, one of the Elders climbed a tree and pulled down some pods. The sisters were pealing the outer covering and as they ate the contents they pulled faces. Telling me it was really sour. I tried a taste expecting it to be reallysour. But it was very good and sour. I will have to look up the name of it. It has a stone inside and then a sticky substance around the stone. You eat the sticky substance.

 We did a clean up of a  families lot. The people do have trash collection but burn a great deal of their refuge, however everything does not burn, including cellophane wrapped snack packaging, rubber, glass bottles and plastic. Yards have several burn piles and they never are completely burned. The people also have a habit of just throwing down their food wrappers. The people are always snacking and everything is individually wrapped so as they walk around they just drop the packaging as they walk by. Every morning outside of our gate there is discarded wrappings to snacks.  Jeepneys loaded with people will drive by and you will see people throwing their garbage out the windows. It is really kind of sad.

We picked up trash and  cut all the weeds back.

Saw this old iron sitting on a ledge. It is what the mother of the family uses to iron the children's school uniforms.

This is the kitchen area. She made us boiled bananas  

Boiled saba

They are very filling. I like them better dipped in some sugar. This was very generous of the family.

The work detail.