Fire in Gasan Public Market, Dili - Marinduque

After a relatively early night enforced by yet another 'brown-out', I was woken up midnight-ish by what sounded like a very badly organised marching band .. it wasn't a dream - the sound didn't go away and after a while I decided to investigate.
Looking outside I could see a bright orange glow in the sky, and the tops of the tallest palmtrees were clearly illuminated. The Gasan Public Market had somehow caught fire.

I didn't have my camera handy (left it in Tabi) and the video camera only had enough power for a couple of shots, but here's one anyway.

The public market was totally destroyed - most of poblacion's populace was at the scene, together with fire engines from Gasan and even Buenavista. People could be seen desperately trying to salvage stock from the stores at the fringes of the fire. Incredibly even the central
fish/meat market area, which consists mostly of concrete tables seemed to be on fire.

It seems nobody was hurt, fire engines turned up promptly, and the fire did not spread beyond the central market area ie. the surrounding shops are unharmed. Let's hope the market can be rebuilt - it's my first destination every morning at 6am for a dalawang portion of lugaw.

I'll post more photos as soon as i'm properly online ..

Construction update - 2nd week August

the roof trusses are more and more complete, the doubled up trusses on the front are there because the bottom links were removed to allow the area above the kitchen and living room to be open all the way to the roof (and not have an interior ceiling ie)


wooden form for the extended deck ..


working on the trusses, precariously ..


the deck - with steel bars in place


partly concreted .. the doubled up bars at the ends transfer the cantilever load of the deck extension onto the beam that is supported by the foundations.



seiving sand .. by hand .. the wooden assembly allows the seive to be swung


the concrete deck, now complete and set (a couple of days later)


painting roof trusses with red lead, they will be painted again with red lead primer, and then gloss finish paint in situ.

Meanwhile, the granite and ceramic tiles, glass blocks, bathroom set have been ordered and should be delivered from Lucena. The roof gutter should be delivered today, and the rest of the roof material early next week. more photos will follow then!

Panoramic shots taken in Quatiz (Barangay Masiga, Gasan - Marinduque)

These are some panoramic shots I took near my construction site in Masiga, Gasan. They were taken as multiple shots and then stitched together, the one at the back of the house is over 360 degrees! They are mapped in a cylindrical projection, click the images for versions with much higher resolution (and still a lot lower than the resolution of the original panoramics .. the big one is over 18,000 pixels wide!)

Fishy isn't it!

While visiting our construction site to check on the progress of works, a woman came round with a couple of interesting fish for sale .. just caught!

First one up .. a 2kg tanigue (spanish mackarel)


and another very cool looking fish that I don't know the name of!



The tanigue joined us for supper .. for 300 pesos .. it was a very pleasant evening, I cooked spaghetti marinara (got mussels, some octopus, and dorado from the Gasan market) and the tanigue was barbequeued .. very nice!!

Construction update

I've been sick these last 2 weeks - had a cold, but a bad one, so there are less photos than usual, and they were taken over a number of days..




here the walls and most of the upper beams are ready..


this photo was taken on the 24th, Friday of the fourth week of construction - it's the first time i'm stepping into the house! This is the view from the living area into the central landing - the small room ahead will be a WC, left and right are the main and 2nd bedroom respectively.



this is the view from the main bedroom - the 'window' to the left connects the bedroom and the living room, and will be built of glass blocks. The tall window ahead is between the bedroom and the narrow (5ft wide) part of the terrace that wraps round, and affords the bedroom seaviews and light.

this is the view looking from the kitchen over the living room and terrace - the beam above is where the living room ends and the terrace starts, and there will be the main door (left) and a large sliding door under it.



the view from within the kitchen - most of the seaview is obscured by the lean-to which the workers built to store cement under ..



a view of the sea-side facade that's starting to make sense - on the left at the back is the main bedroom, the terrace starts near the main bedroom and wraps round to the kitchen on the right, and the living room is in the middle.



and this is the cesspit being built, the inner tank is for sedimentation, the other one for water ..

Construction in Marinduque - Day 11 update

walls are up, the next stage is the roof beams ..



embankment of the foundations is not ready yet though, that will be followed by the beams supporting the internal walls, and then the internal walls to solidify everything ..


the horizontal steel bars are actually supporting the bricks above the window


view from the rear - that's a bedroom and WC window ..

Construction the Philippines Way ..

These photos were taken round 2pm on the 6th day of construction, the walls are the foundation, above which the main support beams will go - the iron rods for the beams are visible. The whole house will be raise about 1 metre compared to the surrounding land. The wooden frame is just to keep things square and vertical while they are being put up.

Visit to a Butterfly Farm in Gasan

Today we visited a butterfly farm in Gasan, Marinduque - there wasn't much variety on display - seems that the rainy season is not a good time for butterflies, and after last week's heavy rain in particular, not much was left to show.
The place is lovely though, very green and tranquil ..

the url for the farm is www.marinduque-butterfly.com

a couple of photos ..

this is the view from my plot in Gasan, looking out to sea ..



























and this is me playing King of the Castle (well .. the castle has yet to be built .. out of sand maybe?)



this is a panoramic photo of the beach, with the sun at my back.