This is our first day staying in our boarding house together with my friends as we prepare for the opening of classes. Since it's our first day, there are a lot of things we need to adjust to, especially the lifestyle, the atmosphere, and the neighbors because this is different from how it was when we were in high school.
We now have to cook and take care of ourselves in order to survive, as we are far from our parents.We use butane for cooking in the morning, and in the afternoon, we use firewood to save money.
We decided to cook bitter gourd with egg. We noticed that the bitter gourd was already ripe, and since we don't have a refrigerator, we were worried that the eggs might spoil or expire faster.Even though this vegetable is bitter and not very appealing in appearance, we still love it because it has health benefits, especially for those with high blood sugar.
We added a little bit of salt and mixed it well with the bitter gourd to reduce its bitterness. While we were cooking dinner, we looked around our place and noticed these large stones. We were curious about them, so I asked the locals why they were there.
They told us that there used to be a river here, and the large stones were pieces of cement from the old road that were broken up when the road was replaced. We were surprised to hear that no wonder there was water under the stones. At first, I thought it was a dam or irrigation system.
As the sun was about to disappear, we captured this wonderful view. The beautiful trees made the sunset even more attractive.
While we were eating, we noticed that there were a lot of ants. So, we decided to grab some pieces of wood, lit them up, and pointed them toward the ants. We're not sure why there are so many ants, but our place is a bit sandy.
This is our first time having dinner together. It feels like we're at a camp or Girl Scout event. A few minutes later, our neighbor gave us fried fish and vegetable soup. We're glad that our neighbors are kind and have already made us feel like part of their community.