Christmas is giving to the less fortunate here!

December 5, 2013 by feyma

Christmas is giving to the less fortunate here!

Well Thanksgiving is over. Time for us to think now of the Christmas shopping. We are so lucky that we can buy even just a few presents for our kids and give some to our friends and family. Living here now for 13+ years, I’ve seen people – too many people here struggling to buy food for their Noche Buena for their family. It’s really sad but that’s the reality here. Noche Buena – A Filipino tradition for midnight dinner for the whole family on Christmas Eve.

I think you probably read here how we started the first Martin family tradition of giving away. We were just sitting on our office in our house one Christmas eve many years ago. Bob said to me that “Hon, I don’t feel the Christmas spirit here because I think I don’t feel the cold weather“. We kind of just smile to each other. Then after awhile he told me what if we will buy something like burgers from McDonalds and cookies and juices and candies from the grocery stores for the homeless people here in the city. So I called up McDonalds if they can provide me with 200 burgers and I will be picking it up in a few hours. I told them of my purpose for the burgers. They were so happy and so helpful that they said yes they will get it ready for me. They told me too that they will get some of the burgers from there other branches of McDonald here in the city. They also provided me with plastic bags so that I can put some of the other goodies in it. So we headed out to town and found homeless people in the city.

Then later we the headed towards Diversion Road and found so many beggars on the road. My goodness our burgers were gone immediately. But it was really fun giving away to them, since they’re not expecting it. We did it for a few years from our very own money. Of course it’s just limited since the funds were only ours and not so big. Until later when LiP was born. Bob started asking here from you guys our readers if you guys can pitch-in. And you guys did without questions. Now we got the LiP DRIVE. So really thankful that you guys did. We can now give out a lot and so many less fortunate people can put a smile on their faces.

I’ve encountered too many events during our giving away. A few of them really remains in my heart and it really humbles me. And it also taught more lessons to my kids. One of the events that stuck in my head was this event: A few years ago when we were giving out near BUDA (the Davao/Bukidnon border). On the way, we stop by at the road side because we saw an older lady, with her I think her daughter or a grand daughter. It’s really hard to say, she might just be looking older because of harder life. She’s getting ready to ride her horse, we stopped and and said hi to her and the little girl. We greeted her Merry Christmas and started handing her some food for the Noche Buena and some goodies for the little girl. She was shocked and didn’t know what to think, she just started crying and she said that “you guys are the angels sent from above” because she said she was praying for miracle because she didn’t know if they will have food for that night. You know what, tears were rolling my eyes and I know Bob too upon hearing her say that. Our kids saw it and I could see their sadness for the lady’s struggles but happy that at least they had food for the holidays. To be honest, It even brought tears to my eyes until now when remembering that day. Really we hear too many stories similar to that lady when we went out giving. Our kids really enjoyed doing it. They like to go to a little remote area and give there because those people never expect somebody like us to go there and just give. It’s good to give to people you don’t know and they are not expecting to get anything from anybody that day. The smiles and the sparkles of their eyes are priceless.

It’s been a good thing that we did give each year here. Our kids really know that too many poor people live here. I could tell by just watching them that they really care also for the poor people here. Our kids always look forward on every giveaway. They help out packing the stuff. It’s really a team effort by all of us. If you can help again this year, please send an email to: [email protected] and you will get full instructions on how to donate. Thanks to all of you that contribute.

We give 100% of all your donations to the less fortunate people here. I know that all of us struggles with the hard economy right now, but if you have some extra money, that amount can really feed to one of the poor family here in the Philippines. We are so grateful for your sacrifices too. More people will contribute, more people will have food for their Noche Buena. We can put a smile to the faces of the people here, the children especially.

From the bottom of my heart “THANK YOU SO MUCH” for helping our cause. To our LIP Family, I’m forever thankful to God for you guys.

A Merry Christmas to you all!!!

November 28, 2013 by feyma

Happy Thanksgiving Day USA!

It’s that time of the year again for a Thanksgiving holiday celebration in America. Today, I am writing about the way we celebrate our Thanksgiving day in our house here in the Philippines, and the food that we prepare.

Thanksgiving is celebrated every fourth Thursday of the month of November. Here at our house we celebrate our Thanksgiving on a Saturday, since during Thursday our kids has school (Thanksgiving is not a holiday in the Philippines). We want our kids to enjoy and can stay up later than bedtime, so we decided to move our celebration to Saturday then. We also want our kids to remember the reason we are celebrating Thanksgiving. We want them to remember the way Bob’s family celebrated the holiday tradition when he was a kid.

Decor to highlight the season

It was really a fun learning experience for me the first time celebrating with Bob’s family and the whole time I was living there in the US. I learned all about the Thanksgiving celebration and the cooking with the help of Bob and his mom. It was really a fun experience for me. Living now here in the Philippines, we celebrate the Thanksgiving the way the Martin family did with a little of my style in it. We are intending to keep it that way till Bob and I pass on.

The food that we are preparing will be the typical food in America during Thanksgiving Day. Me and my niece Glenda usually prepare everything, I mean the cooking and the table decorations and arrangements. But now with Jean taking off from school for a year like AJ, she’ll definitely help with the cooking too. She’s really a big help for me. She’s in-charge with one of the pies. We always do our pies a few days before Thanksgiving. We bake different kinds of pies. But of course the main pie that we will be making is the pumpkin pie. She will help me and Glenda on the pumpkin, but she’s in-charge with the chocolate chess pie and the pecan pie will be new for us this year to make.

Celebrating with friends and family

Living here in the Philippines, finding ingredients sometimes can be a challenge. Thank goodness for the sprouting malls for the past years. Not so hard to find ingredients, “sometimes I guess”. Well to make it easier for us I will just substitute it with the ingredients that can be easily find here. I am not going to wait few months or never before the next shipment of the items to come here in Davao. Sigh. LOL. I will give you details of the ingredients that I will be using for the menu during Thanksgiving that can be a bit harder to find sometimes or the mall might be out of it.

Making Pumpkin Pie with local ingredients

One of the menu is the pumpkin pie. Sure you can buy pumpkin pie in the restaurant. A few years ago we did order at one of the restaurants here. But it’s too expensive. We paid like 600-700 pesos per pie if I remember on that. And you know in my household 1 pie ain’t enough here. We have boys that can eat pretty well. So I have to order at least 2 or 3 (just one kind of pie) to satisfy all of us. So that got me thinking, if I don’t do anything, a big chunk of my budget will just go to the pie from the resto. So that’s when Bob told me that “I think you can cook the pumpkin hon, homemade”. He really had confidence in me. Thanks Honey. So I tried to research it and viola got the recipe and I tried it and it worked. At that time I was really using the pumpkin in a can (imported). So then, I realized that sometimes the mall doesn’t have shipment of the pumpkin in a can, I had to do something. I research again and invented a recipe of how to make pumpkin pie out from Kalabasa (squash that’s what we have here). Guess what it worked really good too. Bob and the kids love it. So it’s been 5 or more years now that I’ve been using the kalabasa for my pie. Way cheaper than before. I guess with the S & R now here in Davao, they are selling pumpkin pie for 300 pesos plus, you can purchase from there. But I’m just sticking with my kalabasa “pumpkin” pie. I can’t be so sure if S & R will have it when I go there the day before Thanksgiving. They might run out.

Table Setting

Another menu in mind that I’m using substitute: “Yams”, I found sweet potatoes in a can here before. It’s one of those thing, that the mall order it and will have at their shelves if they felt like having it. It’s not so popular with the Filipino families. So why stock when they are not sure they will sell the items as quickly as they want to. In our household, Thanksgiving won’t be complete without yams. So I had to do the thinking and researching again. Sweet potato in the US, I compared that to “camote”. At first I tried to bake the camote and do some tweaking to be so close to the taste the way my mother-in-law cooked there. With the bake camote, it’s not even close. It’s to dry, even I put lots of butter. It didn’t work. So that got me thinking, with the dryness what if I boil the camote and put some sugar to make it sticky a little and to sweeten a little bit before baking. I will just add more sugar as the cooking goes along. And you know what it work. I had it boiled and bake it later with marshmallow and wow it really work and it taste good. Even my mother-in-law was impressed when she was here spending the Thanksgiving with us.

You guys probably wonder where in the world will we get the turkey (Butterball) here. Iv’e heard people saying that they can’t find turkey here. People of the world – we have turkey here in the Philippines in nearly every mall in fact, and its year round too you guys. So turkey for Thanksgiving is not extinct here in the Philippines. Aside from all the malls here in Davao, you will see turkey at the deli shops here too like Swiss Deli and Gourmet Deli shop in Chimes. They even have turkey ham. With the S & R now in the Philippines, they have plenty of turkey there. Also they are selling turkey breast and turkey legs. The only thing that’s different here the turkey here are smaller than the turkey in the States. But I’m okay with that.

In the Thanksgiving spirit

Cooking the turkey

How do you guys cook your turkey here? Well, for us, we used to roast the turkey in the oven. You can even buy the turkey bags where you can put your turkey inside the bag before you put in the oven to make it stay moist. For us now we cook our turkey roasted outside in the rotisserie (lechon style). After I cleaned the turkey I rub butter and salt and peeper in the turkey inside and out. Then I stuffed the turkey with the typical stuffing with sausage. Then seal and tie the turkey after putting to the rotisserie rod. We use charcoal for roasting the turkey. Really keep an eye of how much fire under the turkey. Use a thermometer to check if the turkey is cooked or not. That way you really know.

What about stuffing?

Another menu item we have: ” The Stuffing”. I am making homemade stuffing. I used french bread for croutons. I buy the bread few days before Thanksgiving. Then I will cut the bread into cubes (bite size), just leave in the cookie sheet over night. Then like few hours before cooking for stuffing put it in the oven to brown. Keep an eye to not burn. Let it cool before mixing it to the other ingredients for the stuffing. Cooking the stuffing with the homemade breakfast sausage, onions, celery, chicken stock, thyme and salt and pepper and mix the croutons. Eyeball the mixture with the wetness of the croutons and the stock. Let if cool before stuffing the turkey.

Our food that we will have during Thanksgiving:

Turkey – While turkey was cooking at the rotisserie, it’s stuffed inside with the croutons and sausage mixture. The extra stuffing that won’t fit inside the turkey, bake it in the oven maybe with the turkey neck or legs on top to have the turkey taste.
Mashed potato – Boil the potato until it’s soft when poke with a fork. Put butter, milk and salt and pepper and mashed it. Eye ball with the consistency you want.
Stuffing – Cooked croutons and sausage that was stuffed inside the turkey or the one that was cooked in the oven.
Beans – Cook beans and put butter (just keep an eye of how much you want to put), onions sliced into cubes, bacon (fried to almost crispy-save the grease for your future use) and salt & pepper to taste.
Rice – Of course don’t ever forget to serve the rice to the Fil-Am family.
Yams – The cooked yams and bake in the oven with marshmallows.
Gravy – Home made gravy either from the turkey drippings or if lechon turkey just cook other parts of the turkey and use the drippings for the gravy.
Pies – We will have “pumpkin pie”, “chocolate chess pie” and “pecan pie”, sounds so good to me.
Eggnog – Our homemade eggnog here in the house.

We prepare our table somewhat the formal way. With our good china and good silverware. Our kids were already used to that. They want it that way. They told me that everything has to be nice because we are thanking God for whatever we have that He gave. So even with the hard times that the Philippines experienced right now, still we are thankful that we are alive and did our share of helping them there (The Visayas people). It’s so unfortunate that too many people lost their lives over there. I know people think they just help out a little but because a lot of the people help out, still it makes a difference to someone’s lives over there. It’s not an easy year here in the Philippines, it’s going to be hard for a lot of our kababayans from the Visayas. We will just continue praying for them for the years to come that they can rebuild and move on with their lives.

Coming up next it’s Christmas

What about you, how would you celebrate your thanksgiving? Feel free to share here. We will be happy to hear from you.

HAPPY GOBBLE, GOBBLE DAY AMERICA!

November 15, 2013 by feyma

Feeling sorry for the people in Visayas!

Just watching on TV the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda really made my heart ache for the people in the Visayas especially to the people in Leyte. Seeing the dead people lining up all over the place really makes me cry. I just saw on the news before I went to bed a dad was carrying his 5 or 6 year old dead daughter to bring to the area where they could embalm the kid. Not sure if she will belong to the mass graves then because of lack of facilities already. No medicine I think to do it. They’re already out. Almost every building there collapsed already. They just made hospital bed under the tent. I also saw a lady underneath the debris, just by watching I know that she’s dead. Seeing the news feed from my FB, I was crying seeing the whole family, the dad just open his arm one arm his wife was lying the other arm his kids. They were all dead. It’s so hard to see and not shed tears.

Yolanda

Really I didn’t think of it the first day after the typhoon. Not much feed from the media at that time. Communications were down. Everyone waits, until the press releases a lot of the videos. My gosh, it’s so hard watching the TV without crying. I thought the Pablo and Sendong were disastrous already but what we have now really devastates us more. Too many towns almost wiped out. Too many people lost their lives. To be honest when we went to give out to the Pablo victims before I was pretty scared that people might attack us because they really are in need of food and clothing, which they almost did. I am more scared of the people there right now. I think to give out right now you have to have some military with you to help out that you, as a giver will not get hurt too. I’ve heard from a person that I knew that they were mugged by just walking to go to the safe area for shelter. People just be thinking they had some food with them. They were really scared for their life.

I’m really sad for the people of the Philippines right now. Three years in a row, we’ve been hit hard by really bad typhoons. A few times people here were not ready. After those few disastrous events the government and the town officials that were supposed to be in the path, they’ve been trying to be prepared before the typhoon hit. But no matter how prepared the place was it is still caught off guard. Nobody can predict what mother nature will do. Lots of those people that already went to the evacuation center, but the water just swept them away. I’ve seen, a news people take shelter from the church, thinking that it would be safe there since it’s a big building and it’s concrete. But guess what the roof just flew away, then the building just starts falling. They made video and you can hear the wind whistling and the tree just breaking to pieces and flying all over the place. The news lady just starts crying relating the events because in her mind that’s the end of them. Listening to her I was crying too. I can’t blamed her for crying on air. No communications there right now all cell towers were down and no powers in almost all the places there.

If you wanted to see the names of your loved ones. Check SunStar and other big news TV station from time to time on their website they will post the names there:

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2013/11/10/list-typhoon-yolanda-survivors-tacloban-313035

We will continue praying for the people there that suffered and lost their lives. To the LiP family that lost some love ones there our heart goes out to you guys. Prayers for all of you. Be strong and God be with you all!

Love & Prayer to all of you!!!

November 7, 2013 by feyma

Excitement, sadness & happiness rolled into one!!!

As everyone of you know already here that Aaron is going to the States next year. In God’s grace and glory. My gosh, I am so excited for him that he already has the confidence to travel there. But at the same time my heart is aching a little bit each day. To tell you the truth I am sad too. My kids never been away from us for a long time. So this is really the first time for one of our kids to be away for this long. Can you imagine the day when we will be sending him off? So many of us here in the house will be so sad and excited at the same time.

When we first planned his trip we already shed tears there, especially me. Sigh… But I am really so happy that he take the leap to go there by himself. Aaron is our quiet kid. He will talk or make a conversation rather to people that he knows well and hangs out more often. That’s just his personality. He really took it from my dad and Bob’s dad. He is a deep thinker and observant. So of course as a mom I am a bit worried for him not asking people for help. I am starting to remind him that he needs to ask help from other people through out his journey. I continue on saying that many of those people will be happy to help him.

Aaron and I during his graduation

I did told him my journey to the States by myself at the age of 21. Naive and shy. I’m kind of like him in a way so quiet. But I never hesitate to ask a lot of people along the way. At that time internet didn’t exist yet, so I can’t share to the world my whereabouts. . Phone call during my time was a bit difficult too, have to call collect to Bob if I want to get a hold of him. Luckily I didn’t call him on that journey. So I have to really talk or I get lost.

This will be a new beginning for him. He will have to see the other side of the world. Being born there in the States and he has to start re-learning everything about the place. And seeing relatives again in a long time and some of them for the first time. I am telling him already to see my best friends there, one of them who I’ve met early on my time there. She’s a Filipina from Cebu, married to a guy who works in Boeing. They had 2 kids. My other best friend our next door neighbor, and practically we were like sister’s, she’s from Jordan. She had 4 kids who I love very much. Happy to reconnect with her 3 boys on Facebook. She’s not a facebook fanatic. She’s close to Aaron before because she was there when I had Aaron. She calls Aaron her Habibi (My love, my babe) in Arabic. Aaron learned Arabic from them before. Hopefully Aaron can visit them in Northern Oregon.

Let me tell you after my mother-in-law found out of Aaron going there, she told me that she can’t hardly wait for him to be there. She’s even telling me that she doesn’t know how to contain her excitement. Just minutes after telling her my God, she’s calling her friends right away, practically every person on her personal phone book list. Ha ha ha. They were really so happy for her. They know how much she misses the kids. Not so much for Bob and I. Ha ha ha… .

My best friend here in the Philippines called me when she read the post of Aaron. I did not mentioned to her about it because I want to wait until Aaron will say something. So she found out on his post. She then called me and asked me how do I feel about it? I told her that I am happy, excited and sad, but in a good way. Happy that Aaron will decide hopefully then on what he wants in the future. Excited for him traveling and experiencing new beginning. Sad because he will be away from us for a while for the first time. But I thank God that He gave Aaron the courage to do what he plans to do. So thankful for internet nowadays, so easy to communicate with him and know what’s going on with him there.

Thank you guys for the moral support for our son. I really appreciate the nice message you’ve sent to Aaron on his post. God bless LiP Family!!!

October 31, 2013 by feyma

Hypocrisy

Have you guys been reading or hearing on Philippine news TV? Regarding one of the big celebrities here in the Philippines wanting to marry his girlfriend. Why would that be a problem? The guy, he is 60 years old and the girl is 16 years old. To be honest I think if the girl was over 18 it might not cause a lot commotion here.

I think one of the reasons why it makes some noise not just here but all over where lots of Filipina married to foreigners community. The guy he is so nationalistic that sometimes he sounds like he doesn’t like the Pinay to be married to the foreigners. But his sister married someone from Europe. Well that’s just his opinion. It doesn’t bother me really. But what does bother me when he’s one of those person that’s against older foreigner guys marrying the young Pinay.

Freddie Aguilar with 16 year old girlfriend

But look what he is doing. He is wanting to marry an underage girl. My Lord my daughter is older than his girlfriend. To be honest, really just thinking, I know my daughter is too young to marry any guy right now, and I know she’s just not ready to have another life (babies) to support. It’s just like babies making babies. I know that celebrity guy can afford what the young bride wants, I would also say the same to any foreigner that married to Filipina, he can afford whatever the young bride desires.

For me that celeb guy should just zip his mouth before, since he already know that he had desire for youngster. I’ve read somewhere that his second or third wife, he married her when the girl was just 17. He said he loved her too much that he let her go later. He should know better, the media now scrutinized him and the girl. Honestly I felt sorry for the girl, now she’s going to be followed by the paparazzi. And he claimed that he didn’t know the girl was just 16 years old before they had the relationship. That really shocked me. He didn’t ask her birthday or what year in school she is? Knowing the year level of the girl, he can already figure it out her age. I don’t think the girl stopped schooling. I don’t think they are too poor. Or like he said he was blinded by his love for her to backed out. It’s already too late for him to know her age he said. But what can we say the parents were okay with it, and they approved of him marrying the girl when she reached the age of 18. Not sure if they are now living in one roof. The way he said in the interview, it didn’t sound like they are living apart. But who knows.

Really, I’ve met a lot of older guys married to a young Filipina (the Pinay is over the legal age) like a little over 20′s. And you know what I saw the love and care with each other. The thing that I had in mind now with the 16 year old, most of them were so immature, just a few are not. What if hard times/trials come along, can the 16 year old think right away on what to do? Maybe some can too. This is a difficult subject to tackle because for me it’s really up to the person. But I am hoping too that it will not happen to my daughter or other members of my family. I saw a lot of what happen when a 16 year old married that early. Trouble in paradise mostly.

*** But I guess it’s not so uncommon to a young girl become the mistress of someone here (some were pushed by poverty and the parents). So I guess its just the same. It’s one of the other unending cycles here in the Philippines “The young ones (underage girl) married or living in with the older guy”. ***