I plug away in Baguio

On prompting, an update of my daily activities.
The past two weeks have been pretty much like many other summer spent 18 hours a day on the computer HTMLin’, CSSin’, Flickrin‘, Blogin‘, Surfin‘. Except I’m doing it in an office alone in a small weaving factory in Baguio City, Philippines.
My meals are fairly regularly prepared by Malene, the on-call staff lady. After six weeks you’d think there’d be some unspoken understanding but every morning at 7:30 she buzzes the office intercom to tell me my breakfast is ready (oatmeal and/or fried eggs). When I pick it up, however, it’s very consistent: ‘You come eat now hmmmmmm.’
The noon lunch buzz is the same. Dinner is a text on the phone: “Gud pm jef i will cook 4 ur dinner?” Malene is in her 50s or so.
Seven pm dinner is consistent: panceet (like chicken with stir-fried noodles and veggies) or chicken adobo (a vinegar and soy sauce staple). And always, always with the healthiest (portion and nutritionally built) black rice. And organic lettuce from their farm.
For the past three weeks I buy a chocolate or chocolate brownie sundae (P28, kind of expensive considering a cone on the street is P8) from Jollibee down the street and a Yakult (little Japaese yogurt drink) from the sari-sari (convenience store, literally variety-variety) next door to tide me over between lunch and dinner.
At 8am the office gals arrive to manage the Narda’s weaving empire. Sometimes we chat a bit or I help them scan a magazine article about Narda. Hard to say if they fear / like / loathe / or are embarrassed around or by me. Most of them, like most Filipnos, are generally singing snippets of pop songs out loud though no radio is to be found in the office. They also practice English colloquialisms with each other (ex.: ‘No problem,’ ‘Sure thing,’ ‘Don’t mention it’). It’s pretty great.
Throughout the day I’ll make an instant coffee from the office ‘bar,’ maybe crack open a Sky Flakes cracker pack.
Otherwise I’m in a large corner office listening to: the dogs and chickens and pigs chirping and yapping or screaming bloody murder, alternatively, in the street below, the torrential downpours off the GI roofs, the 4:45pm sharp baluuuuuuuuuuuut salesman, or smelling the overflowing sewer smells.
All the while on the laptop. I literally have a blister on my right hand middle trackpad finger. It’s all puffy and glossy.
At 5pm the office girls leave and I turn on the iTunes. Around 8:30pm the German Shepherd below starts getting antsy and scratches and whines at his GI doghouse for exactly 30 minutes before once again resigning himself.
Oh, these days I’m basically always running:
Messenger
Aperture
FireWorks
iTunes
Coda
Preview
TextEdit
FireFox
And the MacBook Pro runs so hot it makes my palms sweat. Luckily the weather here is much like Vancouver in the fall: crisp and sunny followed by showers. But here it’s every afternoon.
I, however, shower and shave (or get a shave) every three days. My other part time job is making sure I have enough small change to buy a Yakult or sundae. Rest assured the month of June was much more exciting and varied. Ahh the joys of post-project documentation.