Category: Province Life

Free Range Life In The Province

I’ve never been a city person. That doesn’t mean I don’t like cities; I do. Cities are amazing. Boston. New York. Dublin. London. Nairobi. Dar es Salaam. And even Iloilo City. These places offer opportunities and experiences and services that you can’t find anywhere else. But that doesn’t mean I want to live there.

In the province, the chickens and ducks are free range. In the province, the dogs are free range. In the province, the children are free range. And in the province, my mind is free range.

And when I say the chickens and ducks are free range, I mean they wander where and when they choose. Someday they will end up as dinner, but in the meantime they get to live fully as chickens and ducks. While they mostly stay pretty close to the house, I am often surprised to run across them in far reaches of the property. A few days after my in-laws brought the chickens from Barotac Viejo, two of them disappeared. The general consensus was that they had ended up in the dinner pot of one or another of the neighbors, which happens sometimes in the province. But some days later one of the neighbors was passing by and let us know that the chickens had been hanging out in their yard. So yeah, the chickens just went visiting and stayed with the neighbors for a week or so.

As for the kids, well, what better place is there to be a kid than out in the province, or, as we say in the West, out in the country? Since it is the summer school break, Edrian has been spending a great deal of time out in Dueñas with Mama Nec. Sometimes one or another of his cousins will be there as well, and their days are filled. There are trees to climb. There are bugs to hunt and capture. There are tadpoles in the old fish pond to be carefully studied. And there are the workmen building the water tower to be watched. And all of these things pull at their attention in rapid succession, such that no time can be wasted and they must move from one attraction to the next at a dead run.

For me, the property represents a lot. I expect it will be my last home. I look forward to building a peaceful, comfortable home where I can feel rooted and content. I love being there. When we drive out from the city, turn up the last dirt track to the property, and pull up and shut off the engine, I feel peace. I love working on the property and seeing the progress of improvement as we shape it to our vision. And I love that when I’m tired, or when I start feeling too hot to work, I am free to quit and go sit in the shade with a cold drink. But the best thing of all, the thing that makes me feel the most content and happy, is when I get to sit under a tree with Eden and we quietly talk about our plans and dreams for our future there. I’ve always preferred looking forward to looking back, and looking forward with a partner is best of all.

Powering Up

Our property in Dueñas has a small house on it, and electricity of a sort. There is no proper connection at the transformer, rather there is a jury-rigged power line, held up on some flimsy bamboo poles, that actually terminates at a neighbors house, and is connected/disconnected there. This worked okay for the previous owners, as the neighbor is a relative of theirs.

So we need to remedy this, and get a proper, and safe, connection to the grid, and our own power bill. Of course, this is the Philippines*, so it’s not a simple matter of going online and ordering service from the power company. Inday has so far spent two half days at two different offices of ILECO, the electric utility that serves our area. We’re nowhere near done with the process, but she has gotten far enough that we have had the master electrician for the utility come to the property to do his site survey and to give us a breakdown of what needs to be done and the cost in order to get hooked up. As part of this we have to install two poles to carry the wire from where it will hook in to the existing power lines, to the house.

To my surprise, the electric utility doesn’t just sell you these poles and charge you for installation. That would be far too easy. Instead the master electrician gave us a list of materials to purchase, and we had to hire a welder to construct the poles from these materials, and a laborer to dig the holes and set the poles. So this past Saturday we set off to the local hardware store to purchase two 20-foot poles, some rebar to be used to construct the foothold for climbing the poles, a couple of insulators to be welded at the top of the poles, and concrete and sand for setting the poles.

There was no way I was going to try to transport these 20-foot poles and rebar in our truck with a 4 1/2 foot bed, so I asked if they could be delivered. In response Inday walked outside and flagged down a passing tricycle driver and asked if he would deliver them to Sawe for us. The driver and the hardware store staff loaded the materials through the middle of the side car, tied everything down securely, and off we went.

In the afternoon the welder and his helper came by and got to work. They cut and bent the rebar as needed, and built the two poles. Meanwhile the neighbor we hired had dug the holes for the two poles, and my father-in-law cut some bamboo poles to use to brace the poles and hold them in place while the concrete sets.

Once everything was ready everyone set off to set the poles. Cement and sand were mixed on a cleared spot on the road, water was added, the poles were set and braced upright, and concrete was shoveled into the hole. A simple form was made from a piece of metal roofing for the part of the concrete that is required to extend above ground level, and the last of the concrete was shoveled in and leveled.

All in, materials, transportation, and labor, the two poles cost us about $100 USD. But we’re not done yet! There are several more steps to be accomplished before they will actually come out, string the line, and hook us up to the grid. Bureaucracy is a beautiful thing!

*This is becoming an oft-repeated refrain accompanying life here. When I ask silly questions like why we have to do all the work when we’re paying for some service to be provided to us, Inday replies with some version of “Sweetie, it’s the Philippines!”