Maybe I'm a bit of a masochist, but I always look forward and enjoy our sojouns in Bohol-Philippines. It is as if taking a trip back to our forebears times. Our home at Dagohoy is in a rural districtwhere only a handfull of dwellings have electricity and running water.
The hardest part is sleeping on a wooden bed without a mattress. of course first task of the day is to fetch water from the well (poorer families would use the communal well where a bamboo pipe runs some 50ft away so that people can wash themselves without poluting the well (It is nessessary for someone to accompany the ladies to shield them from passers by with a large towel). clothes are washed at the river and if you are not willing to gather or kill your food, hunger woul soon catch up with you. For all this, where houses do have electricity it is quite normal to see all modern equipment - computers, tv, etc etc
The rural atmosphere is also obvious in the day to day lifestyle. Where on earth would you still find a young man paying court to a lady by serenading under the lady's window. I could relate how my Wife's Mother chased away young men who she deemed unsuitable for her daughter.
We cannot guarentee to be able to buy milk (fresh or otherwise) r many other goods that in our normal world are classed as indespensable.
Living there for a few months at a time is wonderfull remedy for todays hectic world, but it's probably like someone without children, it's fine to look after them but when we have had enough!!!!!!!!!
Enough waffeling , her are a couple of pics to help give some idea of the place. The first is one of a typical rural kitchen - took last year, while the other is some years ago, and pictures one of my daughters in the bamboo home of one of her aunt's, the house has no running water but has two power points, one of which proudly runs the television.
