"anti-environmentalist companies"

Hello there! I would like to greet everyone in my native tongue of Tagalog, kumusta!!!!!!! Today is Halloween 2009, and the first day of our blog. I was born and raised in Southern Leyte Philippines, in a small village called Basak. We didn't have many of the modern conveniences that most people enjoy, infact we didn't have any of them. It's a place and a time where you had to actually be there to truly experience and appreciate life and all the day to day struggles. As a child, we didn't have running water in our home and had to get all our water from a public faucet about 100 feet away from our home. There was no bathroom in our home, so our choices were between 4 public bathrooms in our small village or alongside the river or creek. Everyone took baths in the river, where we also washed all our clothes. Pigs were everywhere, so you had to be careful when you went #2, as the pigs would always be right behind you to clean up your mess. My family owned property and grew bananas, coconuts, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, sweat potatoes, green onions, beans, pepers, pinnaples, corn, and of course rice which was our main staple in the Philippines. Life was simple and good. Family was primary and everyone knew everyone and there were very few secrets. I moved from Southern Leyte to Cebu and then Manila where I worked in the service industry as both a nanny, cook, and food server. When I was 17, while working as a nanny in Cebu, I witnessed a very tramautic event where I was preparing snacks for the 2 boys (7 yr old Ab Ab and 13 yr old Dong Dong) when I heard a loud noise come from the basement. When I ran down to the basement I could not believe my eyes as I witnessed Ab Ab lying on the ground in a pool of blood with blood shooting out from him. As I ran to Ab Ab's side, I had no idea what to do so I quickly ran to get his mother who was doing gardening outside. We both ran to Ab Ab and she carried him all the way to the Dr.'s office where he died 2 hours later. Later we found out that Dong Dong shot him with a long gun, and I never really found out what really happened if it was an accident or not, as the two boys were arguing over some snacks earlier.