Jay, glad your trip went fine and your home safely. you made us all feel like we were there with you with your posts. Now get your Jalo over here and the ending will be complete. Hope to see you in Vegas in May when I'm there.....Jeff
Thanks Jeff,
My goal remains to get Jalo her U.S. Passport. With that she will be able to come and go from the USA without a problem. And most importantly be recognized as a U.S. citizen forever! After spending three weeks with her and Bunny, I see how attached Jalo is to her mother. I cannot separate them at this time. That would be the wrong thing to do.
I am assisting Bunny in getting her Philippine Passport, so she can also travel with Jalo to the USA. I would like to bring them here within the next year, maybe for three months (maximum visa allowed for Bunny) this first time. After that we'll see about bringing them both here permanently.
One step at a time is my plan now. I was impressed with how Bunny was handling her responsibility as a parent on this trip and I see the advantages she has with her large extended family to assist her in caring for Jalo. There are other things about living in the Philippines that I prefer to living in the USA, and I am currently weighing all my options. I can foresee the possibility of maintaining two residences, one here and one over there.
Perhaps the best way to go for Jalo, Bunny and me is to spend three months here, three months there and so on. That way I will be at home in the USA six months a year and living abroad in the Philippines six months a year. On this trip I actually seriously thought for the first time about this possibility. There are some subtle differences in our two cultures that make me appreciate the Philippine life style.
Number one, people in the Philippines are for the most part genuinely friendly and open. I see few artifices in their personalities. The filipino people (again for the most part) are not into shams and false claims about who and what they are. Yes, a trike or taxi driver may try to coax you out of an extra dollar or two but so what. If I can't handle that by now with my poolroom education, I haven't learned anything. They rarely, if ever, get over on me. And even if they do, 50 pesos is no major loss.
It's hard for me to put into words what it is that so appeals to me about life in the Philippines. True, our dollar goes so much farther. For instance I could buy a nice condo for fifty grand, or make payments of maybe $150 a month. Kind of like buying a home here in the 70's. The people are relatively poor, with wages of $5-10 a day being average. They don't have much but they don't complain about it either. There is something very real about life in the Philippines, at a very basic level. Again I don't know how to verbalize this just yet, but I feel it all the same. And I happen to like it. Also, there is something to be said for Jalo growing up with all her little cousins around her. They have a typical filipino family with lots of kids for her to interact with. And the kids don't grow up "soft" over there. They learn self reliance from an early age, a valuable lesson that can be missing over here.
I am basically a simple man at heart, with no need for luxuries or opulent surroundings. Give me a good pool or poker game (easy to find over there), plus a couple of buddies to hang with and I'm a happy camper. I've made several good friends already. If I want to go out for a good dinner or a movie that's available too. And the nearest mall has anything I might desire in the way of creature comforts, like big screen TV's or fancy computers.
What holds me to the USA is a close relationship with my daughter and grand kids here, an aging mother who needs me and a family real estate business that requires my attention. But at some point in time, the dual living arrangement may be made to work. Probably not while my mother depends so much on me. She was thrilled when I returned after being gone for only three weeks. I just can't leave her for three months at this time.
