A little rested

Julie and I are back in Iloilo City again. We had a restful few days on Boracay, including lots of walking, time to just sit and enjoy beach culture, and one day of being totally indulgent tourists and participating in one of the endemic island-hopping and snorkeling boat rides around the island. Pretty fun. The coral and the fish are absolutely amazing. Last night we got to have dinner with Marc and Cathy, a young married couple, both pastors in a fair sized church on the north end of the island. Both of them were part of the graduating class at IFBC when I spoke here for graduation in 2005, so it was fun to catch up.

We also tried a few adventurous things. There are vendors walking all over Boracay carrying two buckets on a yoke, yelling, "Taho! Taho!" And we had no idea what was in the buckets. So we asked. It was tofu, believe it or not, in one bucket -- and in the other, plastic cups, syrup (similar to pancake syrup) and some kind of sweet tapioca jelly. For P30 (about seventy-five cents) you can have a sweet start to your day. So we tried it. I don't think my blood sugar would tolerate it very well, so I just tasted a little bit. It was okay. Lately I've noticed my homesickness coming out in my dietary preferences. We found a good breakfast coffee shop that serves a decent American breakfast, so the last three mornings I've had bacon and eggs and toast. Julie keeps on ordering Pork Tocino (sort of a sweet-and-sour pork) with an egg and garlic rice. I've had that a few times for breakfast, but when bacon is available I just have to go with that. I guess that means Julie is more culturally tolerant than I am or something.

Tonight we will go visit the Baynosa home, then out to supper with them at SM City, which is a larger version of the department store that became a staple for us here in Iloilo. Looking forward to some time with their family tonight.

Then tomorrow we start the long trek back. We'll head for Manila tomorrow, and stay in the Marriott courtesy of a ground crew member back at Central who provided for us and for the rest of the team when we found out we had to stay in Manila overnight. While there we'll hopefully connect again with John Borra, the head of the National Alpha Organization. Then Saturday morning it's the long flight -- first to Tokyo, then to Minneapolis.

Home for Easter. It sounds pretty good right now. One of the things I realize about myself on trips like this is that if I have a sense of purpose in what I'm doing, I can keep myself focused and not worry about my flagging energy levels, etc. So during our week of seminars I didn't get bogged down much. But give me a few days of rest and I start to get restless. Kind of weird. Today I'm starting to feel like I've had enough down time, and it's time to move on to the next thing. So I guess the timing of our trip back is about perfect.