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We took a taxi from the Manila airport to Paranaque, a Manila suburb, where our friends Lynn and Martial live. We had to go through two guarded gates to get to their house. They rent a large 4 bedroom, 3 bath house. We had last seen Lynn and Martial a year ago in France. Since then, they had moved to the Philippines. Lynn greeted us with David and Laura in tow. We had met David in France, but we had never seen Laura, the latest addition to the family. It is now Lynn's job full-time job to care for these two bundles of energy. The next day two live-in helpers showed up. One was returning from vacation and the other one was newly hired. Lynn told me live-in help is paid about 1200 to 1500 pesos a month. Of course their room and board is provided and occasional spending money is given to them. I would think just their presence would help keep your sanity spending every day with two children.
We called up to confirm our reservations for the flight back, but found our seats had already been given up. The tickets say call at 72 hours in advance and we called with only about 62 hours left. After waiting awhile we were given two choices: either leave the next day (two days early) or leave one day late. Since I still was feeling poorly and had to get ready for a new job when I got back we chose to leave early. This changed Lynn and Martials plans as well as they were expecting to surprise us with such weekend events as a Japanese dinner and a trip to Tagaytay. We did take a trip down to Rizal park and watched skaters at the outdoors rink before going to a beautiful restaurant built on a pier in Manila bay.
During our 11 1/2 hour flight back to the states, I was still battling stomach problems. When we finally arrived home I had a new problem to deal with. When we entered the house we found water in both bathrooms, in the hallway, and in the carpet in the master bedroom. At first I thought the roof had been leaking, but after not seeing evidence of any water above the floor, I decided to try shutting off the main water valve to the house. The floor didn't get any wetter so I thought I had found the smoking gun. I suspected the leak was located in the shower pipes which had to be accessed by cutting a hole in the linen closet wall. After making the hole at the level of the controls I turned the main valve and found the leak to be at the base of the floor, which of course meant hole number two was needed. Eventually I found that a reducer (a short section of pipe which receives 1/2 inch pipe and converts to 3/8 inch pipe) had developed a hair-line crack. After a trip to the hardware store, I fixed the pipe section, used a wet vac to suck the water out of the carpet, and then tried to rest again. It is now a week later and I am still trying to recover.
