Being Thankful

1. "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."
-- Oprah Winfrey

I have finally done it. Made it so I have a way to live here and not have to worry about how to get my money from the United States to the Philippines. I started this journey because I needed a new life. I never expected some of the surprises that I did have in my life in 2012. Yet I kept working on making my own life better and doing the best that I can to be a good person.

The only way I survived this is through the kindness of others, and the fact that I did have some savings in the Filipino banks. Yet if you would have told me the ups and downs of moving to another country I would have been surprised. I know some people have felt that I let them down. Most of the people have just been happy I am OK.

I have to be thankful for the people I have met that were kind to me, my online friends, and just luck or help from God in general. It depends upon how you want to put it in your life. I know that God showed up in my life where I did have people help me when I had problems both here and in the states. I now have to get my website better known again. I will do this the best that I can but it has not been easy. I had just redone my website and still need to figure out how to do meta tags.

Life has its ups and downs but at least I am OK and able to live in a new apartment with working air conditioning and plumbing. The other apartment cost more also and they never repaired anything. The new place is a little larger and they fix things. So I have to be grateful for finding the new apartment. 

I want to thank everyone for all of their kindness and emails.

Surprises-Learning things the hard way

I have been finding solutions for the problems I have been having in the Philippines. I am living alone here and most people do not realize how hard it is to learn the rules in a new country. Just the banking and immigration rules can be hard to do. I know that I try to be an organized person yet life can make things so they surprise you.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
Jean Cocteau 

I felt this way recently when I was unable to access my money. I never would have thought that would happen to me. I have always been kind to others and when they say they will do something I believe them. Yet here I am in a country that I hoped to make my home having problems.

Everyone knows the rules but because you are a foreigner you can cope. Then life throws a curve ball at you where you do not know what to do. I always thought it would be easy to access money but it has been like a chain of events. You need this to do that and that to do this.

Once you do learn the rules it surprises you. I was told the embassy would help out if I really needed them. I went to the embassy and the only thing that they said they would do is pester all my friends and loved ones for the money to get a ticket to go home. I can do that myself.

None of the things that made up the world happened here and I had to endure through the new rules so I am doing OK but it is not easy to learn the hard way. Yet it has been my dream and this quote applies because I was surprised when I should not have been surprised. I knew it was a different country and have to figure out how to work around the rules.

Challenges in the Philippines

No one has heard from me and that is not because I have been ignoring people. I have a credit card and it expired in April. They mailed the credit card to my US address and would not mail it to my Philippines address. I asked my ex husband to send it to me and he said that he never received the card. It blocked me from receiving the money.

I had to set up a Philippines paypal account which would not work with out a debit card. I tried 6 banks and I finally found one that worked this week to allow me access to my money. I have been unable to contact people because here the phones and the Internet are prepaid which means you have to have money to access them. I will have a permanent Internet with some help from a family I met where I live.

Life is funny as I had given up hope because I really had no friends here and the few friends I did have were not in touch with me much. They had been working, and just living their lives and did not answer my texts. I felt funny asking them for help and had not been talking to them much.

I have a crooked agent for my apartment who has been taking the owners money and not repairing things and trying to get rid of me since I found a way to complain about her. In the Orient agents represent the owners of a unit that you rent. She was not giving me proper receipts so I paid the property manager which made her upset. She showed up and threatened to clamp me out of my apartment even though she had been present and knew that I had paid properly. He gave her the money in front of me and a receipt that I had paid him.

The money problems then started because of not having access to the pay pal funds, and I just started to starve. I did not have money to do much of anything and the only thing that saved me is that I had started a bank account that had some pesos in it. I could not afford to get on the Internet or charge my phone with time which is what they call a load here.

The couple had not seen me for about 2 weeks because I was just starving in my apartment and unable to do much of anything. The agent had the neighbors harassing me that she had renting from her. I did my normal prayer and just figured that if God wanted this to happen I had at least finished the major part of my work. They showed up and brought me food, and let me use the Internet where I could get some things straightened out.

My website is back up and I have to reset everything but life is a great deal better for me. I still have a great deal to do including 9000 emails and I can not access my nita@astralhealer.com mail account at the moment. Please use ashirahickok@gmail.com. I am also having problems with my Facebook so it will be straightened out in a few days. I had things set up for the Filipino Paypal but it did not work with the banks and it has taken me 6 banks to get it straight. So life has challenges and I ask that you forgive me for not being in touch and I will get in touch with everyone.