2008-12-25

Dear Timothy,

We had a good Christmas although not according to plan.  Ma, Jilin and Bubit hiked into Kamantian on December 24. It was supposed to be the 23rd but it did not work out and we missed the Church Christmas party.  Then I hiked in in the late afternoon and arrived Christmas Eve.  The porch was piled with boxes from the several hundred kilos of supplies that had been sent in via porter. What a mess.  But we ignored it all and Jilin and Bubit had set up the tree and we all were doing our best. Our sleep for the previous night had been minimal at best so it was a little tough staying up late and wrapping Christmas presents and such things.  For Christmas eve we had Niksun, Naptali, Johaneli, Bubit, Jilin and me and ma.  It all went great in spite of things not quite being picture perfect. We couldn't find all the presents because some of the boxes had ended up at the clinic and even today we still have not found all the presents. In the process of time we trust they will eventually show up. Christmas morning was just Bubit, Jilin, Johaneli and Ma & me, it was good.  Jilin got a bike which she had been lusting for for ever so long.  She had no idea that I had gotten her one and was convinced she already knew everything she would be getting. She was all set to go try it out but first I had to sit down and reassemble it. As you can guess it was put together in a little shop in PPC and the folks who assembled it did not bother to use wrenches or screw drivers. Almost all the bolts ans screws were only finger tight so it was my job to reassemble so that it would actually work.  But eventually it did get to that point. So the day was given up to laziness, eating and no constructive labor and such vices. We watched Jilin's VCD which was about a bunch of golder retrievers. She really liked it and by the end we had Mumul, Arun, Junpur, Kris, Meymey, and Niksun all there. Since we were not blessed with your presence it appears that we now have two families. You guys, but when you are not around then we revert to our Palawano family which numbers about 9. that is with all the kids and grandkids. Anyway we really wished you could have been here but we are glad that you are having fun in the snow.  We haven't gotten much snow this year so you would have only been able to do mud boarding.

Christmas eve after we went to bed and were fast asleep there was a tremendous clap of thunder or it would be better to say a long  rumbling roaring explosion.. I don't know where it originated from but it was close and it went rumbling and reverberating for a long time.  I must have been dreaming because I woke up thinking that the continuous roar was a gigantic tabag (land slide) bearing down on on us carrying all of Ilian (the cliff above our home) down upon us. It just about scared the living bejeebers our of me and ma woke up franticly asking where we were.  Anyway we did survive although the mighty claps of thunder came several more times.  We also found that the lightning had finished off our electrical supply.  So we were left to groping around in the gloom.  I can't figure how we keep having lighting blow out our electrical system when all wires are buried under ground but this is the second time this has happened. The first time it totally destroyed our $600 inverter but fortunately this time we found later that it had only caused the system to overload and it had automatically shut everything down.

Jilin proudly went to the landingan (where the helicopter lands) with all her nephews and nieces and they all worked on learning to bicycle. By the end of the day she made it all the way from one and to the other before crashing into a heap at the end. She is doing quite well and really enjoying the chance to learn.  She and Bubit are also learning to drive when ever they have a chance. They are both at the same skill level and are good enough that I can let them drive on the National highway with light traffic and with me just sitting in the passenger seat and all I do is wait and watch for those occasions where they stall the engine on an upgrade and the truck begins to  pick up speed as it heads backwards down the hill. Then all I have to do is leap over, thread my leg between all the other legs present and try to find the brake peddle before it is too late.  I found it and other than a few bruised shins all turned out OK.

So that was our merry Christmas and I hope yours was just as exciting.