A Worker’s right
Every employee in the Netherlands get financial support when they are disabled. The level of disability is calculated as a percentage and determines the amount of money the employee will get from the social security system in the Netherlands. E.g. If somebody cannot walk anymore but still can work behind a desk, he/she is said to be 40% disabled.
In the Philippines, it is also possible to get disability appeal if you have worked and paid your contribution to the SSS or Social Security System faithfully.
Buying a car
We recently bought a car in Manila and it was not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all, it took a couple of weeks before our car is ready because the color we wanted is not readily available but that’s not really an issue.
The problem is that we wanted the car be shipped to Palawan from Manila and the agent that we bought the car from apparently didn’t have much experience with this. I even think that this his very first sale because when I asked for car insurance quotes from the dealership, he encouraged me to just buy it from his because it would be cheaper. So I told him to give me a quotation, he says I shouldn’t worry about it because he will take care of it. I was a little bit skeptical and didn’t really find that very professional of him so at the the end we decided to just talk to his boss and tell him we want to get the insurance from the dealership.
One sleepless night in the farm
It was a typical Thursday night, after our dinner we walked back to the guesthouse and took a bath after our long day. Jules and I sat a little bit outside and talked about our plans and stared at the horizon.
At around 7 pm we went inside to watch a movie. Halfway watching the movie, we heard loud music playing. “It must be the Karaoke bar in the village”, we thought. We didn’t mind because they usually stop at around 10 or 11 pm. We went to sleep 9:30, I dozed off right away as I was pretty tired. At around 1 pm we were woken up by the music, I was surprised to still hear music so late.
We went to pee and went back to sleep. It was kinda difficult to sleep again but after awhile I managed to sleep again. At 3 pm we were woken up by a much louder music … “Oh my gosh, don’t this people sleep” I thought. I pitied those who were living closer to wherever they are playing music nonstop. Even if they had the finest matouk linen, I don’t think they could get sleep with so much noise.
It turns out, someone was about to get married the next day so they had a dance party the night before. I do hope that not everybody who would get married in the village will be like this.
Our house on the hill
The building of our house is coming pretty good. They have started putting the tiles in the bathroom this week and it’s looking better and better each day. We are really very happy to see our ideas materialize right before our eyes.
The materials used for building our house comes from our surroundings. The walls are made of river stones and the roof of our house is made of cogon – it’s basically grass that you can find growing in the fields.
The grass are cut and dried and tied together in a bundle. These are done by our caretaker’s wives. It’s a good way for the ladies in the farm to earn something extra. But when we have enough for our house, this ends. I hope I can find some buyer for this product so that the ladies can continue working.
I want to do so many things for the people here but for now I cannot do much as we have so many things to deal with first so we can settle in soon. That reminds me, I need to find a place where they do business card printing as hubby’s cards is running out.
