Bleached Brain Coral

While the work on the bridge between Brgy. Cangmating and Brgy. Poblacion was being completed, there was a large pile of debris located at the side of the road nearby. This debris consisted of mostly rocks, stones, dirt and broken pieces of concrete which would eventually be used for fill in the area between the road and the bridge.

One day, on my walk to the market, I came upon a large piece of bleached brain coral among the debri. I took the coral home and cleaned off as much of the dirt as possible.

This souvenir (or paper weight) rests now on my computer desk. I took this photo near my keyboard to give an idea of the size.The dimensions of the coral are 7 inches long, 4 inches wide and 3.5 inches deep.

Final Bridge Update: We'll Cross That Bridge When We Get To It (Video)

Finally, after nearly three months,the bridge between our apartment and Sibulan is finished and open to traffic.

I was reasonably certain that the bridge would be open in time for Sibulan's festival celebration for the patron saint of the town, St. Anthony of Padua on June 13. Except for a few cosmetic touches, the bridge has been finished for a week or so, although it would not be opened until today, June 12.

The only reason I could see for the delay would be if there was some sort of opening celebration planned. I can't say if there actually was a big tadoo or not. I was awake early this morning (as usual) and looked out toward the bridge at about 6:30 and traffic was already going across. The barriers had to have been removed pretty early.

Yesterday morning, as we were returning from our walk to the market, we saw a large blue truck drive up on the west side of the bridge. There were a couple of workers at the bridge and someone from the truck wanted the barriers removed so they could get across. He was not accommodated.

The short video below shows our first crossing of the bridge by car since March 14. The video shows us driving through Sibulan - past the Catholic Church - and onto the highway. As one can see, Sibulan is preparing for tomorrow's festival.

The Penultimate Bridge Update

When I wrote on June 1st the bridge project would be finished before the June 13 festival for St. Anthony of Padua, I actually believed that the work would be completed before then.

Except for a few cosmetic touch ups, the bridge is essentially finished. As can be seen in these photos, there have been a number of these touch ups done in the past 10 days. Street lights were being put up on both sides of the bridge this morning.There isn't any real reason why traffic across the bridge cannot resume.

The latest rumor has it that the bridge will be opened on Sunday, June 12th, the day before the festival. The only reason I can see for the delay would be that a ceremony is planned for that day. Perhaps.

Be that as it may, I hope this is indeed the penultimate bridge update. We'll know soon enough.

To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig..........

June 13, the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua is fast approaching. St. Anthony is the patron saint of Sibulan, so, his feast day is a very big deal here. Not only is the work on the bridge between Cangmating and Sibulan expected to be completely finished before the celebration, pig farmers have begun gathering on the roads leading into town in order to sell the critters. Because the feast day is so important to the community, everyone will be having Lechon Baboy (roast pig).

One would think that I'd enjoy lechon. Pork is my favorite meat, and seeing one roasting over charcoals is impressive. Yes, one might think that, but one would be wrong. I've tried Lechon Baboy a number of times, and I've always been sadly disappointed. To my taste, the flavor of the pork leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps, it's because I imagine a BBQ when I see the pig roasting. What use is BBQ pork without a good, spicy BBQ sauce?

I'm sure I'll have a little taste this year. Maybe I can bring my own sauce.

June 1: Bridge Update

When I wrote two days ago that the end was in sight for the bridge replacement project, the end appears to be even closer than I had suspected.

As can be seen in these photos, work was done on the bridge on both Monday and Tuesday. I wrote that there would need to be a rail on the side of the bridge where the water pipe was laid. The first photo shows that the rail has arrived at the work site.

I also wrote that the bridge needed to be connected to the street. When I wrote that, I believed it would require something or other made of concrete. I was wrong. The cavity between the bridge and the road is being filled in with stones and dirt. This is certainly cheaper than cement, and should there be a problem with the water pipe in the future, it would be easier digging through dirt rather than concrete. There's no shortage of labor, so filling in the space will be relatively easy. It's just a matter of tamping down the soil so that it is compact enough for vehicles to drive across.

I'm confident that the work will be completed before the June 13 festival in Sibulan for St. Anthony of Padua.

May 30 Bridge Update

The end is in sight for the bridge replacement project. My last update was last Saturday morning at 7:35. Further work was done that afternoon.

The concrete/stone wall for the water pipe was finished and a rail was put up on the opposite side of the bridge.

I was told that the bridge must be finished before June 13th. That will be the festival for Sibulan's patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua. The festival is a very important event in the town and not having the bridge ready before the festival will be it extremely difficult for folks to travel into Sibulan. Not having the bridge work completed by that time will be a severe economic hardship on the town and the people living here.

As far as I can see, there needs to be a rail put up on the side where the water pipe was laid, and the bridge needs to be connected to the street. I'm not sure exactly how they plan to do that, but whatever concrete that's poured there will, of course, need to cure before vehicles can safely drive across. June 13 is just two weeks away.

Surely, the work can be finished in that amount of time. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

May 28 Bridge Update

It's been one week since my last post covering the bridge repair work being done between our apartment and the Poblacion Brgy. in Sibulan. This project has been going on for a little over two months and hopefully the end is in sight.

As seen in these photos (taken this morning) there has been two concrete/stone walls built on the northern side of the bridge.

On the southern side of the bridge, a more permanent pipe connection has been put together. Hopefully, this set up will prevent a disruption in the water supply for homes on our side of the bridge like the one we experienced three weeks ago.

For those who'd like to compare different stages in the bridge repair story, I've gone back over older posts and added an additional label - bridge.

The Never Ending Bridge Saga

This photo shows the last bit of work done on the bridge near the Sibulan ice plant,  when concrete was poured into forms one week ago. There hasn't been any work done on the bridge since then. I'm no expert, but I suspect they're waiting for the concrete to cure.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that both cement mixers had been removed from the bridge work site. There is another bridge project at the end of Diputado Street on the way to Tubtubon; workers were pouring concrete there, so I suppose that's were the cement mixers were taken.

This morning, one of the cement mixer had been relocated to "our" bridge. Perhaps that's a sign that work will be resumed before long. Just how long is anybody's guess.

Two Pleasant Surprises

Leaving the apartment this morning with my son for our daily walk to the market, I received two very pleasant surprises. As mentioned in yesterday's post, the crew doing the repair work on the bridge near our apartment began pouring concrete into the wooden frames. When I saw the amount of work done this morning, I could hardly believe my eyes. The men had accomplished much more than I had expected them to do.

I have no idea how long the crew worked yesterday, but we can be sure that it could not have been past 5:30. They certainly would not have been out there working after the sun went down. For all I know, they could have completed their work much earlier than that.

The two photos show a before and after of the bridge. The angle of the two shots is not exactly identical, but one can see the progress made after one day of bucket brigade cement pouring.

The 2nd surprise of the morning came as we left the market area in Poblacion headed home; there I saw a crew of three men and one woman, wearing bright yellow vests, and carrying yellow trash bags, removing the political signs that had practically blanketed the town since before Monday's election. It was really nice to see the local government taking the initiative. I'm assuming - although I could be mistaken - that the crew was being paid by the Poblacion barangay. When we entered Cangmating, there were still quite a few political signs. Granted, most the the sari sari stores in Cangmating had removed the signs in front of their businesses, but there were a lot of signs stapled to random trees and isolated walls. If the crew was being paid by the Poblacion barangay, it would be understandable that they would not be removing signs in another barangay.

There is still much to be done in Philippines in order to clean up the litter and general untidiness, but the removal of these political signs so soon after the election is a step in the right direction.

Another Bridge Update

Reading my occasional updates on the repair work being done on the bridge located between our apartment and Brgy. Poblacion, Sibulan, it's apparent that progress is being made, albeit slowly. It's unusual for my son and I to cross the foot bridge while workers are there; this is partly due to the fact that we normally take our walk at about 6:00 AM and the work doesn't usually begin that early.

It's a different story this morning. The workers are pouring concrete into the frames today, and they're getting an early start. Also, additional workers have been put on today. I didn't take an exact count, but it looked to me that more than two dozen workers were at the bridge today.

It isn't apparent in the few photos, but the men have formed concrete bucket brigades in order to fill the forms. There are cement mixers on both sides of the bridge.

Of course, we know this would not be the way it would be done in the U.S.. There, the company rebuilding the bridge would have concrete hauled to the site via truck. There would be one or two workers from the cement company and only a few workers from the construction company looking on. With the number of workers available for work in Philippines (and the cheap cost of labor) having two dozen men passing buckets of concrete is the best way to handle it.

The Water is Back On

According to the timestamp on my earlier post, [Walang Tubig (No Water)] it was 8:56 AM when my post about our water problem was published. I had walked to the bridge where I believed the problem to be almost immediately after discovering the problem. Taking in to account the time it took me to walk to the bridge, take the photos and video, return home, upload everything and write the post, I'd estimate that it was about 8:00ish when I first noticed the water was off.

I had published an earlier post this morning [Melody Moezzi's Racism] at 6:52 AM and I don't believe the water was off at that time. I'm guessing that the damage to the water pipe might have happened about 7:30.....give or take.

As we were headed out the door, going to Mass, at 9:30, I checked the water in the kitchen and discovered that it was already back on. The damaged pipe had been repaired in less time than I believed was possible.

Good job, guys.

After Mass, we went out for Mother's Day pizza. Not long after we had returned home, I walked to the bridge to take a photo of the repair work. The photo at the top shows the water pouring out from under the blue pipe. The photo below shows the repair work.

Walang Tubig (No Water)

Not long after waking this A.M., I turned on the water faucet in the kitchen, only to discover that we had no water. Walang tubig.

Fortunately, we get our drinking water in 5 gallon containers purchased from one of the local drinking water refill stations. The downside, of course is there's no water today for bathing or toilet.

This happened once before, not so long ago. At that time, I suspected that the water stoppage was due to work being done at the bridge.

Thinking I could get photos for the blog by investigating today's stoppage, I took my camera to the bridge.

Sure enough, a pipe had broken at the bridge. Unfortunately, there were no repair workers in sight. Today is Sunday. No bridge workers will happen upon this. That means, of course, the repair won't be done until somebody reports the problem.

If I knew who to call, I'd be on the phone this minute. Will someone in Cangmating call the appropriate person? Let's hope so.

Another Bridge Repair Update

I'm sure my readers reader is simply dying to learn of the progress on the repair work on the bridge between our apartment and "downtown" Sibulan (Poblacion).

These two photos were taken this morning when my son and I walked to the market area. One can really see a noticeable difference between these and the photos posted on April 13th.

I'll be glad when this work is finally completed. It isn't really an inconvenience when I'm walking to Poblacion, but if it's necessary to drive there (like when buying pork from the market) we have to drive in the opposite direction to the highway in Maslog, then up to Poblacion. There is a detour but, sadly, it's not a viable option when driving a car; too rough on the suspension, I'm afraid.

Bridge Repair Update

It's May 1st.....election day in Philippines will be here soon, so I'm hoping the repairs on the bridge located between here and Sibulan will be completed without much further delay.

I'm posting photos that were taken this morning on my walk to the market. To judge the progress - or lack, there of - one can compare these photos to the ones taken on April 13th.

The Bridge

Waiting for rain isn't the only thing here that is like waiting for Godot. Waiting for a bridge to be repaired can be like that as well.

I first mentioned this bridge repair in a post from March 24. I don't recall exactly when the work began, but I think it may have been at least 3 or 4 weeks prior to that particular post.

Earlier today, our water was cut off temporarily because of work being done at the bridge site. The water is back on, but the outage prompted me to walk to the bridge to check the progress, or lack there of, regarding the repairs. The men were all busy working at that time, but when I returned later with my camera, there was no one about.

It was between noon and one o'clock when I returned with the camera, so they may have been at lunch. Then again, as I mentioned in my post from this morning, the temperature is expected to reach a high of 34 Celsius with a "RealFeel" of 45. Perhaps the powers that be are sympathetic to the workers and will not work them in such temperatures. After all, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun.

You can be sure of one thing, if they are allowed a siesta, it's not with pay.

The Detour

In countries around the world where government officials are chosen through reasonably fair democratic elections, the politicians share one common attribute; they wish to be reelected and desperately try to convince the voters to put them back into office.

It's easy to see that this is an election year in Philippines. Through out the country, money to repair roads and bridges has miraculously appeared in government budgets. Before you folks in the United States become too smug, let's look at the situation there. Every election year, politicians promise to release funds for repairing the infrastructure when they are reelected. They're put in office and the repairs are not made. In 2008, Obama made repairing the infrastructure a major objective. Now, 8 years later, Hillary Clinton is making the same promise because the infrastructure is in need of repair. At least in Philippines, the roads do get repaired every four years.

One such repair job being done now is on a bridge between our apartment and the Poblacion area of the town. A temporary wooden bridge has been erected to allow passage via motorcycle or foot. Cars, trucks and tricycles have to choose an alternate route.

The most obvious route is taking the road going in the opposite direction toward the highway at Maslog. It's not exactly convenient.

Signs have been posted showing an alternate detour going from Cangmating to Poblacion. Cathy and I accidentally came upon that route months ago before the construction began on the bridge. The distance is shorter than going through Maslog, but unfortunately it's not a viable option. Only about 1/4 of the road is paved. The remaining 3/4 is very bumpy and I'm sure it's not good for an auto's suspension. I suppose if one were driving a company delivery truck where the vehicle's suspension was not your problem it could be different, but the road is too narrow for large trucks to travel.

Last year, the Via Crucis walk went from the church in Poblacion through Magatas and back to the church. The original plan for this Good Friday was to walk from Poblacion through Cangmating. This would have put the walk going past our apartment. The bridge work put a stop to that plan. The vehicle leading the Via Crucis can't finish the route. Not only that, but having the hundreds - if not thousands - walk across the narrow wooden bridge wouldn't be safe. This year, the Via Crucis will follow last year's route through Magatas.