The Philippines is a place full of life and beauty. The culture is so rich and diverse. This little tropical paradise is where Josh and I have spent 1.5 of our first 2 years of marriage and it's where we started our little family. We will forever cherish our memories here and we hope to make our way back some day. Many of you have followed along with this blog throughout our time here so you've seen pictures and heard stories of Filipino culture. For the next few weeks as we prepare to leave our tropical home, I am actively trying to relish and savor our time. I'm stopping to smell flowers, eating as much Filipino food as I can, breathing the air deeply, and just thanking God for letting us live in such a beautiful place. I've written about our ministry here and the "God-moments" we've experienced, but I want to take the next few weeks and write a little series of blog posts about the seemingly unimportant things of our daily lives that are somewhat untold. I'm excited about sharing more about the smells and tastes and sights that surround us!

So today I'm starting with.....animals!

 

This girl was delivered to the property where we live. She's a native rooting pig. Essentially her purpose is to clean up roots and poisonous plants around the property. And breed. 

  

 

She grew and worked hard rooting the ground. 

 

 

She grew so big that she was deemed unable to breed. Therefore, she left our property and most likely found her way to someone's table. Sad, I know, but it's the hard facts of a pig's life.

 

This is a carabao (water buffalo). They are very prominent in our region.  

  They are strong animals used for hard labor, mostly on rice farms. This one was going home from a long day's work.

 

Jungle Rat. Enough said. 

 

This large monkey is kept at a local park.

 

But these little monkeys are a fairly common pet, living on their owners' rooftops. 

 

Our friend Ruben breeds rabbits. I thought these two were adorable. Bunny Love :) 

 This is not a very good picture, but this bat took a plunge of death right behind where we were sitting in church one night.

 

Meet Joke-Joke. He's the neighborhood dog. He's a fighter and he's loyal. We owe him big for protecting us from other mange-y dogs on multiple occasions. 

Rex and Yuppie Girl: The cutest dogs in town. While somewhat annoying, these pups have provided some fun times on the property. They sleep in front of our door and 'protect' us at night. 

 

Our alarm clock haha. Roosters and chickens roam everywhere in Aurora, literally. But this big guy is pretty faithful to our area, making sure we're all awake by sunrise. I actually don't even hear him anymore, but the first few months we lived here, he really was my alarm clock. 

I realize most of these animals are not specific to the Philippines. Dogs, roosters, and pigs are pretty much everywhere. But they do have their own little quirks here and each have offered a portion to our collection of memories in the Philippines. Next time, I'll share about some more exotic creatures!