Evan Iliadis blog

EVAN ILIADIS-INFO. PHILIPPINES YEARS

ome time in the year 2000  I landed in the Philippines with wife and 2 small children setting home on the Island of Bohol, a place that we had visited several times before the final decision. I was living in California at that time where I spend the best years of my life as a single, but also the worst place to rais
e kids and build a traditional family, as me and my wife knew it on our respective countries: The Philippines and France.

Frankly speaking, 13 years later out of the US we did not miss this country. The dogma American society based its values upon “Don’t ask what the government can do for you but the other way around” sounds rude for those raised in Europe, where we built our society on a social security system asking the healthy to pay for the ill, until in turn, the healthy will become ill and receive the same. We have refused firmly with swift actions and vigorous protest to put our health in the hands of unscrupulous Private Health Maintenance Organization like in the US, Thank God, didn’t happen!!!’ We still get world class treatment…

The patio in front of the house 2.5 M X 5 floor made with parquet “made in house”. One inch thick Mahagony pieces assembled to reproduce designs found in the pre-revolution palaces in France.

The principle, despite some flaws, has never been questioned by any European country and contrary to the illiterate Yank living in the Philippines, who think we are living on welfare, the truth is when the disaster strikes, we are taking back some of what we have heavily contributed over the years by means of taxes and other levies. And God knows how hefty they are!.. No! We are not living in a communist or a socialist country (First sergeants don’t  know the difference anyway) but on an insurance system that anyone is covered with anything, against all disasters, based on solidarity and good faith. How about the abusers?  Their number is so low compared to the majority playing by the rules, not worth putting the system on trial, as it only serves the Right Wing parasites around the world to destabilize our Democracies.

EVAN ILIADIS-INFO. PHILIPPINES YEARS. Stella has a passion for farming and gardening. “The rich girl from America” as the neighbors call her have rarely seen her with high heels shoes and fashion dress. Gins dressing and her yellow 4X4 Suzuki  was her favorite lifestyle

The year 2000, the Philippines welcomed us with red carpet laying down all the way to the bank, thanks to the PNB manager! Yes, folks! A lot of money at that time with a dollar at 56 pesos, the cement 80 pesos a sac, steel bars less than half of today’s price, abundant labor at half of today’s cost, you could afford that dream house you always wanted.
My wife, knowledgeable in farming and agriculture finally found her Nirvana, reviving her childhood in Mindanao, a dream come thru realized earlier than she thought, before the age of retirement as she expected. She was only 38.
She wasted no time to hire a crew of 20 workers for the cleaning up of 30 hectares of land owned by her family making a garden out of a jungle it was before. Mahogany and Gmeleina plantation, peanuts, mango and coconut trees, tomatoes, eggplant bell peppers, watermelon, jackfruit trees, name it, everything grows!

I start looking for a land, found one on Panglao Island, 3000 sq. Meters, 200 meters from the sea. Finally! It took me 4 months of a daily sport running all over for this “ideal location”, I wanted cheap and beautiful! And It is both!
In my turn, I hired a crew of 10 workers, some good craftsmen in masonry and carpentry, others I trained them to become as good as the others. Good people, as long as you know how to be firm on expectations and generous in compensation.

First thing first, I  built a temporary native house of total living space 250 sq.m, something that triggered the admiration of all neighbors and visitors. It was something unique and the talk of the town. Made with “sasa” (10 centimeters diameter bamboo sliced and opened to make flat sheets nailed on both sides of the frame made with 4×4 Gmelina.  Moved in from a rented house in Taloto, now I can think of the “real” house. I started by fencing the area, hollow blocks on the lower part, iron bars above. A big job for a 3000 Sq M land, 4 meters wide cemented driveway from the gate all the way to the entrance of the house, about  200 meters long.

Stela began planting palm trees, she chose 30 of a variety called “dwarfs” as we thought will grow low. Yeah, right! talk about dwarfs! You’ll see in other pictures what we got in just 7 years! Huge! tall and full of coconut juice fruits!..Then multicolored species of  Orchids flowers start climbing covering the iron fence, people passing by having never seen that before.

Sheets of sasa laying on the floor treated with Solignum and nailed on both sides of the frame. Laborous, time consuming work but the result is worth the effort.

That’s for today I’ll be back shortly with more on this chapter. On the left sidebar I posted a few pictures of the native house and others. Click on the thumbs to see the full image. Happy reading and thanks for stopping by