Do you like Dragon Fruit? I do.
They’re rather expensive; more so in the West than here, but even here they’re pricey. If things go as planned — and, you know, life always goes as planned — we will soon be the owners of a dragon fruit plantation. Not that I know a damned thing about growing dragon fruit, but I can learn.
Our search for our little piece of paradise has been ongoing for a long time and now, finally, we are a step away from the finish line. It’s not a done deal until money has changed hands and papers have been signed, but we’re that close now. We have the money sitting in the bank account, and our attorney is drawing up the Transfer of Title document. Hopefully we will soon be sitting down with the seller and the attorney to execute the transfer.
The key here, I think, is that we finally found an agent who listened to us and worked to find us the kind of property we wanted. We lucked into finding Camilo Pagurayan. We spent two days with him looking at properties before we found this one.
The property is about an hour outside of Iloilo City, in the municipality of Dueñas. One of the first things Inday mentioned to me when we learned we were heading to Dueñas is that the town is famous for aswangs (witches)! You might chuckle, but many Filipinos take such things very seriously.
The property is 1.68 hectares, or just over 4 acres. Much of it is sloping, forming a small valley which has recently been planted with dragon fruit trees. There is a well on the property, and electricity. I’ve no idea how reliable the electricity is out there. We might have to explore solar options to avoid the annoyance of brownouts.
There is a very nice, high, level spot where there is currently a bahay kubo and a small sugar cane field. This is where we plan to build our house. There is also another elevated, level spot at the other end of the property, and this is where Eden’s parents will build their house. They’ll be close, but not so close that we’ll be in each other’s way, and Eden and her parents can work together on the agricultural part of the enterprise. There is already the dragon fruit trees, and Eden has been talking about building a fish pond and developing a bit of the valley bottom as rice land. And of course a garden for vegetables, and chickens for eggs and meat, and maybe a carabao to help with the work.
Geez, I guess we’re going to need a name for our little farm! Any suggestions? Maybe The Garden Of Eden?
The way things look right now, we may be able to close on the property next week. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that all goes smoothly!
Here are a few photos of the land:
