Sink or Swim

After breakfast we all met at the pool to swim. Being a rather fancy hotel, the Intercontinental has a change house at the pool, so that hotel patrons don’t have to wander through the lobby in their swimwear. I have to think that my walking through the lobby in a speedo and “wife beater” probably wasn’t well received. Just kidding of course. Back to the pool….when asked, both girls said that they could swim. This was tested early on when Jessica, who was holding onto the ladder in the deep end, decided to let go and promptly started to sink to the bottom. Fortunately, Nancy and I were both standing nearby and she was able to grab Jessica’s arm to pull her up. Needless to say, that truly answered the question as to whether they could swim or not. So, off we went to the shallow end.

We all piled into the shallow end and the splashing of tubig (i.e., water in Tagalog) began. Lots of splashing and giggling, giggling and splashing. I still have water in one ear. Ricky hung in for awhile but quickly got bored in the shallow end. No good way to show off I guess. We did end up trying to provide some swimming lessons to Genuine, but to no avail. She makes all of the motions but doesn’t go anywhere. Oh well, looks like Mrs. Jen has a new student for next year. We did find out from the Parenting Center that the kids only get to go to a pool once a year, at the end of the summer, which is a hi-light for them.

Back to the room to change and then off to the mall for lunch and shopping. We ended up at a Subway/Vietnamese combo shop, where Steph and I got Subway and everyone else got Vietnamese food. I must say that we shoulda got the Vietnamese food as it was really good. We’re finding out that Genuine appears to be a fairly picky eater, so it will be interesting to see how she does when we get home. I suspect that she’ll be eating lots of rice, at least initially.

We then went to a bookstore to buy some items in Tagalog, so that the kids can continue to maintain their language (at least we hope so). Just about everywhere we’ve gone, Ricky’s been asked if he can still speak Tagalog, which he can’t, so it’s been a little disappointing. After lunch the girls asked to ride some motorized carts in the shapes of animals. Kind of the Filipino version of the mechanical horse from the Five & Dime store, but mobile. The animal carts went extremely slow but the girls enjoyed the ride. When asked if he’d like to ride, Ricky just rolled his eyes and shook his head “no”.

This evening we broke up and went to the mall…Ricky and I to the video games (go figure), and Nancy, Steph and the girls to do some shopping in another department store. There was a music section in the store so the mom’s decided to let the girls get a CD. When told that they could get a CD, they both said in unison “Justin Beiber?” I guess that pop culture icon has gone international. Great.

Speaking of pop culture, I noticed several similarities with the states:
1) Filipino man-bags are no more manly than they are in the states. Just more of them.
2)Video game facial expressions and body language are universal.
3)Ugly shoes are in.
4)Texting is the most popular mode of communication.
5)There are “professional” video game players everywhere. I observed two guys on the Dance Dance game, who were classified as “experts”. They had brought water bottles, sweat towels, and one had a knee brace on. Hilarious!

No major issues so far, although Genuine did get a little sad this evening. I suspect being tired did not help, but it’s not unexpected. She’s got a forever family but she’s also losing her foster family. I can imagine that being tough for her. Thanks for all of the prayers, but please keep praying.

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