Stuff

I had a post this morning but our modem is on the blink. So you will be spared knowing that the President of Iran says Israel is a goner, the BBC says that a Ukrainian hospital is killing babies to get stem cells, and other cheerful news on the internet.

One of the villages where we grow rice is having a fiesta, so we went and ate lunch with our tenants, then to the chapel for prayer. They had a band and lots of traffic. Since Chano was on an errand (they went later) it meant I had to drive. Everyone looks at me, laughs, and helps me with things such as trying to park.

There were two Army checkpoints that we passed (still hunting the NPA who have friends in the farm areas) but they weren't checking cars today.

The rice land is quite productive. We have several "two season" fields, but two other fields on a rise which can't be irrigated in the dry season.

We have a chicken farm on one of these fields, but alas with the cheap imported chickens from Thailand we never make money from it.

With land reform, Lolo's father's land all was "sold" to our tenants. This meant the government gave them mortgages to buy the land, but often we never got paid. Sigh>

Each of our family members got alloted a small field and we have bought some fields back where people's kids moved to Manila and the adults got too old to farm, so we hire tenants again from outside the area.

It's like a circle: Land reform, people get a little money, educate their kids, kids go to Saudi or Manila and don't want to farm, so the parents sell the land, and the rich buy it back.

In the meanwhile, Lolo is still oldfashioned: the pay is bad but lots of gifts and people "borrow" stuff, but Chano is the newfangled businessman: Pays better but expects you to work and if you borrow you get fired.

strangely, Lolo's employees stayed for years, but no locals will work for his "modern" son, since we are a traditional area.

SIGH.