NTM

This week Bailey and I bought a car here in Manila. I always get quite nervous about buying a used vehicle, probably because my budget always requires me to buy something with high miles, that has been well seasoned. This time was especially stressful since I don’t speak much Tagalog (yet) and the paperwork process is very foreign to me. Once we decided on the car we want to buy, we paid the owner in cash. This was quite a pile of cash since the largest denominations available are the equivalent of a $20 bill. Once payment was made, we started the process of changing the registration over to my name. (more…)

I love coffee. Anyone who has been around me for long knows that I really, really like to drink coffee. I don’t drink much, just a cup in the morning and sometimes another later in the day. I don’t drink it for the caffine, but for the wonderful taste! Of course, the caffine is a nice side-effect… Coffee haters, don’t know what they’re missing. Anyway, I have come across something that I once thought was urban legend, but I now know fully well that it is very real, very good, and very gross.

If you have seen the movie "The Bucket List" you know just what I am talking about. I’m talking about a coffee that is so rare, and so expensive that only the elite of coffee connoisseurs ever get to taste it.  What is it? It is known best as Kopi Luwak and sells for up to  $100 per cup or $600 per pound.

There is a nocturnal cat, called a Civet, that lives in the jungles of South East Asia. These cats were once considered by plantation owners to be a nuisance because they would only eat the ripest and best coffee cherries off the coffee trees. Farmers have since discovered that the cat is unable to digest the beans. It "processes" the ripe fruit and then deposits it in little piles for coffee farmers to find. The farmers harvest the beans from the pile, remove the undigested parchment that is still covering the green coffee bean, and roast them. Annually there are less than 1000 pounds of this stuff harvested and put on the market.

It is arguably one of the best coffees in the world, and one of the most rare drinks in the world. Many would think that it ought to be rare if not extinct! It is thought that the enzymes in the cat’s digestive tract along with the fact that the cat only picks the best beans are the reason this makes such good coffee. It sounds pretty gross to me, but as a coffee lover, I can’t help but want to try it.

So how is a missionary like me ever going to get to try something so extravagant? Recently I ventured into one of our tribes to do some work for the missionaries there. In talking with them I discovered that a major trade item for the tribe is coffee. I enjoyed their coffee every morning while we were there. It was so fresh and rich…I truly looked forward to every morning when Robbie would bring me my coffee!

Then one morning I asked if I could buy some coffee and take it with me. Robbie told me that I could, but there were two kinds for two prices. The kind I was drinking was "in season" and cost about $2 per kilo. I couldn’t believe it! That was less than $1 per pound. Then she said there is the expensive kind that sells for around $10 per kilo ($4.50 per pound). She proceded to tell me about this rare tree cat that eats the berries off the trees and…

So today Robbie came through and in my house is 1 kilo of "Kape Alamid," or more commonly known as Kopi Luwak. I first heard about this kind of coffee over a year ago and really wanted to try it, (and wanted to throw up all at once) but I knew it was way to rich for my blood. Now I have 1/500th of the world’s supply of it for less than half the price of coffee at Starbucks! I guess "when you live by faith, you have to take what the Lord gives you…even if it’s a "Poo Brew."

I step into traffic that is driving by bumper to bumper at 30 miles per hour and I feel a power trip coming as I hold my hand out to drivers left and right beckoning them to stop. Somehow, it works and the cars stop within inches of my white body and I cross the road safely once again. Some days my street crossings feel like I am in a fog, but it dissipates as the diesel powered vehicles drive off leaving a wake of black clouds. They call these vehicles "belchers" for good reason.

It has taken me some time to adjust to the busy pace of Manila. I thought California’s freeways were overcrowded, but they can’t hold a candle to Manila traffic. Just today I was crammed in a jeepney with more people than a college fraternity can fit in a phone booth, and the driver decided that our direction of traffic would flow much better if we had an extra lane on our side. So he skillfully converted the opposing traffic’s lane into our own. This gave us an advantage of having three lanes in our direction and only one in the other direction. Our driver was still not satisfied with going twice as fast as everyone else, so he proceded to make lane 4 thus leaving no lanes for oncoming traffic. Our driver was very thoughtful to the oncoming cars, however, and he turned his headlights off so that he wouldn’t blind them as they watch him approach their windshields at break-neck speed. Or maybe he just didn’t want them to see that he was there…

Traveling here has been quite an adventure for me, but the longer I am here the more it makes sense. Signs are merely suggestions and every trip you take is a "free for all, no seatbelts, rollcages, or helmets, required" race. If your car can fit, go for it. If the other car has time to come to a screeching halt without hitting you, you can pull out. Mirrors are only there for parking, and if you don’t see a car out your windshield then you are clear to change lanes because "it isn’t really there." If a person honks at you, you’re going to hit him, so stop merging. If a person holds their arm out the window motioning that they are coming over you’d better watch out! The arm out the window is far more powerful than anyone’s horn or blinkers. The arm means you are serious!

One last detail I have learned is that pedestrians are a nuisance, but don’t worry. If you don’t make eye contact you don’t have to stop.

So if you come to visit us here in Manila, be prepared for some exciting rides in the city! There aren’t any Six Flags amusement parks here, and I think it is clear that roller coasters are just far too controlled and safe to be any fun. I guess this is the kind of excitement you get in a city where they have crammed nearly 107,000 people into every square mile!