My husband likes it here! Even more than me. I feel confused still with how things work. Have you heard of reverse culture shock? I had my sort of “romantic” memories of Philippines of the past and some of the bad part as always has been forgotten and now I am seeing the real Philippines. Somehow I have a new point of view now. It also makes it difficult that my family is not here, no usual family house to come home to. It’s all very new and different. I think I have a bit of trouble because I had some expectations about the Philippines but MrC doesn’t.
We’ve been looking at places also: Pioneer (Mandaluyong), Ortigas, Makati, we still have to visit Fort Bonifacio, Alabang, Quezon City and our house. We are meeting people tonight. I am excited about this because they were my former officemates in my last project before I left for the US. This week was extremely busy indeed! We’ve had several lunch meetings with people such as Rob, a guy; I’ve met through this blog. He moved recently from the US and is very happy with his decision. We enjoyed exchanging our observations of life here and abroad. I also net another friend of mine from the US who came back here.
We rented a car and tried to drive to Rockwell by ourselves, and guess what, we entered a one-way street at Makati Avenue and ended up being caught by traffic enforcers (locals told us they are called bwaya or crocodiles here – go figure). I won’t go into details, but to make it short, it was quite an unpleasant memory for me. One thing I noticed about people here is that they try not to take things to seriously here and always have a silly sense of humor to make it through the day and maybe I should become like this (again) someday especially towards things that are out of my control. Nevertheless, my mood was bad for a couple of days. Today, I believe I have recovered from that bad experience.
Yesterday, we were looking at condo apartments in Makati with the help of a relative of mine and a broker she knows. Today, I just told my relative that we don’t need the help of that broker. Both of us didn’t like the fact that she was the one who caused them to be late by 2 hours. She also made tactless comment about me having a nice looking white guy, like I didn’t deserve to have one just because I don’t exactly look like a model. Anyway, I was not surprised of her reaction; I was expecting to have this reaction from locals anyways.
Our Dutch friend has warned us of this and I’ve also read some stories about this in the internet of how badly locals seem to look down on the Filipina spouse like as if she was someone below the league of the foreign guy or something. Anyways, these are one of the things I am trying to adjust with now. Things I did not hear or experience when I lived here decades ago as a single woman. Anyways so what!
Today, we saw a nice place in Mandaluyong, Pioneer area, and a new business district that is developing. It was near the mall and several big companies have made the place their home. MrC and I are quite impressed of the potential of this new CBD and this is definitely one place we’ll consider. We are already thinking of renting a condo unit there. Today, I sit with him in the office of our Dutch friend.
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