‘Why aren’t you taking the cats?’ and other things

I wanted to drop in a post about our situation at the moment and how things are looking for us.

Now with a TOC:


Are you excited?

A few have asked me this, and when it comes to good things in life, I am quite a nihilist—I don’t believe it until it’s right in front of me.

That is to say, I don’t think my excitement will break the surface until we’ve landed in Australia.

I tend to suspend whatever eagerness I feel. It’s unconscious for me. Growing up, one of my father’s favourite adages is ‘Hope for the best; plan for the worst’. I suppose you could say that I dwelled a bit on the last part, which explains my neuroticism about many things in my life.

So, right now I’m focussing on the things we need to do before we leave the Philippines.

Why aren’t you taking the cats?

Such an unflattering photo of Luna

Australia has some of the strictest biosecurity laws in the world. I recall whenever we landed in Australia they’d give out a declaration form / questionnaire asking things like, ‘Do you have any shoes you used to walk in bare earth that hasn’t been cleaned?’ (not verbatim) or if you’ve gone to a beach and was there still sand in your belongings. Or if you’ve recently purchased something of woven make and are the reeds still a bit green?

If you think this is all over the top, consider the near-extinction of the American chestnut caused by the chestnut blight, accidentally introduced from Japan. Or the potato blight, thought to originate from Mexico, which travelled to Ireland to cause the Irish Potato Famine. Locally, our government cannot seem to curb the annual spread of the invasive water hyacinth, incredibly prolific since it left the Amazon.

This being said, Australia has very strict importation rules on cats and dogs and has different requirements depending on whether the animal is coming from a Group 1, Group 2, or Group 3 country. Guess where the Philippines falls under—none of them. It’s a non-approved country, which should not surprise you when rabies is a very common public health concern here.

We do have recourse, as the Australian Department of Agriculture has guidelines for importing cats and dogs from non-approved countries: Non-approved country via group 2 or 3 country: step by step guide for cats – Department of Agriculture

How far did you read before you gave up? The short of it is that we need to import and quarantine our cats to an approved country first, to be seen by an approved vet and tested by an approved facility, before we can move them to Australia. Importing them to Singapore, for example, is a separate process which kicks off with some tests done, I think here, at least six months prior to them even being transported to Singapore.

It would require a lot of paperwork, time, overseas travel, and an exorbitant amount of money.

To be honest, it feels insurmountable and overwhelming. Perhaps it can be done. But not for now. Probably not ever.

We love Luna and Miso so much. Ben and I worry that we might not find a family that would love and spoil them the way we do. But the truth is, they will likely be just as loved, as sheltered. and as comfortable with another family, too. I just hope we could give them away to someone close.

Trello board

Ben, being Ben, has already created the Trello board for the things we need to sort out before leaving:

Ben: What do you want our board name to be?
Me: Uh, ‘Going Away Board’?
Ben: … (So unimaginative)
Me: …
Me: What about ‘The Exodus’?
Ben: Cool. // types ‘Exodus’
Me: No, I said ‘The Exodus’!
Ben: Why do you need the extra ‘the’?
Me: … It’s biblical!
Ben: // done with the discussion
Me: We could also go with ‘Hegira’. 😁

I’m proud to say that we waste no time. I’ve kicked off our decluttering spree by either selling our stuff on Facebook, decluttering unsellables in our building’s declutter group, or selling my plants in our buildings Plantitos & Plantitas group, because of course we have those groups, and I’m sure your village / barangay / building has them, too.

As of writing we have smoothed out most of our exit agreements with our landlord (we are trying to sweeten the deal by leaving behind our washing machine, Washy the Washing Machine, in the unit. Condo living is such a drag and I can’t believe Ben and I lasted a year washing our laundry at a laundromat in Kapitolyo).

My manager is also hurrying up the discussions at work around whether it would be possible for them to move me to Australia, and give me an Australian contract and salary. There was a precedent for this. A dev who migrated to Sydney was given this option. But at the end of the day it’s a business decision and I can’t keep my hopes up.

Why aren’t you selling your stuff on Facebook Marketplace or Carousell?

I don’t want to deal with (pardon me) trash buyers.

Lucked out and found a screenshot of pRO. It’s been over fifteen years since I started playing in Iris server, then Odin. Anyway, I fondly recall vends that were captioned ‘basurables’. ‘No bobo deals’ comes to mind as something I wish I could say when selling stuff online. :p
Pic from kimmania.wordpress.com

I’ve been selling / donating stuff online for three years now, primarily on Carousell and Facebook groups. Ang babarat ng tao. Now I understand why some sellers are so snobbish, and post things like:

  • ‘Lowballers will be ignored.’
  • ‘Joy reservers will be blocked.’
  • ‘Last price as listed. NO HAGGLING.’
  • ‘Know your size. ‘ (IMO, this one is just lazy. No two clothing brands will have the exact same sizing and I myself range from S to L (Asian brands), from size 6 to 8 (US), or size 8 to 12 (UK), depending on the item or brand.

Another thing I noticed from donating stuff online—people do not value what they do not pay for.

I have said this in a previous roundup. People take for granted what they might get for free. They will not put effort into claiming the item, and will even waste your time about it. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are hayok and will take everything you offer, then hound you to ask for more (happened to me. To be fair though she was very polite and sweet about it, so perhaps I am being unfair?)

I just want to be able to liquidate items in our household that I do believe are valuable. I was apprehensive about posting my Facebook album, thinking it would be very embarrassing if I got no takers, but so far so many family and friends have taken me up on what I have to offer, and they seem very happy about the deals they struck. I’ve had people lament that somebody beat them to the stand lamp, the immersion blender, and the aroma diffuser / essential oils package. Even the glass-bottom containers!

How will you cook?

It’s not that I can’t, really. We still have a gas range and most of our kasangkapan. Although the day my visa got approved was the day mine and Ben’s routines fell apart. You can’t blame us—it was exciting news and we were happy.

I have taken my foot off the gas pedal and finally subscribed to The Six Pack Chef, which Chad had been recommending to me for ages, anyway. I might keep at it until we leave.

If you’re interested in seeing what my meals look like, head over to my Instagram highlights.

As for Ben, he keeps his meals simple and no-fuss. Although he has been living off of GrabFood in the last two weeks (sorry, Ben! Love you.)

What visa did you get? How was the process like?

We applied for the Australian offshore partner visa (subclass 309 and 100). It cost AUD 7,715 plus fees we paid our migration lawyer.

We were still a bit reeling from the cost of our wedding, so it wasn’t until ten months after we got married that formally lodged and paid for the visa, thus kicking off the process.

Nonetheless, we weren’t just biding our time in those eight months. We were already talking to Samantha, our lawyer, and per her advice we gathered every single document, account, and evidence of our relationship, including personal statements from family and friends.

My mother thinks that getting a lawyer was a bit too much, telling me that the people who get lawyers are those with complicated histories, previous marriages, children, or otherwise had circumstances that required extenuating evidence. Mine and Ben’s profiles were rather straightforward—neither of us had been married before, had children, nor had either of us resided in any other country other than the Philippines or Australia.

Still, having Samantha with us took an overwhelming amount of mental load off the process, and it was really tedious. She had been very sweet and thorough and, if I may, possessed a healthy dose of paranoia that I appreciated. She wanted to make sure all our evidence built together consistently. She told us horror stories of people whose visas got cancelled because they did not answer a question in the application to the best of their knowledge, and cracks started to appear in their overall profile.

It took me months to finalise my application. But then, it shouldn’t take too long if you have the focus and mental fortitude to go through it in one sitting. I remember badgering my mother for my stepfather’s place of birth and middle name, and asking her the specifics of when she and my sisters became American citizens (also fervently googling ‘naturalization’ to make sure I was using it correctly in a sentence).

The most intense digging I had to go through, was when I had to report all the places I’d lived in in the last ten years. Boy, oh boy. Prior to meeting Ben I was a quite a transient, and didn’t stay in one place longer than two years. I had lived in four places in Quezon City, in Pasig, and then where I am now. I dug through old blog posts, college CVs, and Google Maps to give accurate street addresses for all the places I lived in. I felt like quite a detective.

Anyhow, my provisional (309) visa got granted this month, well ahead of the 18 to 23 months processing time currently published in the Australian Department of Home Affairs. I think it’s because we were thorough and practically posted a mountain of evidence in our application. And because Samantha has been diligent and fastidious in dealing with the application on our behalf. It’s been a pleasant surprise, and now we’re here.

You’ll be uprooting your life. How are you feeling?

View from our balcony window

I don’t actually feel like I’m uprooting my life.

People who’ve known me throughout high school and college (that is, people who’ve had the chance to get to know me over the course of many years) will tell you, I’m a bit unsociable. I’m not antisocial. I don’t hate people. I just think that I’m a true introvert and can only maintain a few close connections at a time. I don’t really crave social gatherings or hanging out with groups of friends. If you’ve met, caught up, or had coffee or lunch with me in the last two or so years you know I’ve always met with you one-to-one. (Except the Greenfielders. We practically live in the same building. It’s hard to not make that work.) It’s not intentional. It’s just what has worked for me.

Here’s an excerpt from a 2013 blog post:

Coworkers will notice that, more often than not, I will go out to lunch and coffee alone. Curiously, I was at the tail-end of a seven-year relationship when I wrote this. You’ll see why that’s relevant in a bit.

I’ve blurted this out to my trainer (of all people) in the past—I’m the type of person who can’t exist without a boyfriend. I haven’t been single since I was sixteen. I’m a strong, independent woman who does need her man. This bit spawned a more interesting conversation:

‘Ah, yeah. Iza is the same. She told me she always has to have a boyfriend.’
‘Iza?’
‘Yes.’
‘Iza…? Do I know her?’
‘Iza Calzado?’
You trained Iza Calzado??’
‘Oh, I didn’t tell you? Yeah…’

Point is, I tend to centre my life around my partner (and now, husband). Adding to that my family, I need little more than a few close connections. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I’ve learned to cultivate friendship in the same way I’ve learned to cultivate a garden—I understand it in principle, but it doesn’t really come to me instinctively.

Speaking of family, half of them are on the other side of the globe (in America). My father and his new wife and family, as well as my only living grandparent, are all in the province, where I visit give or take once a year (pre-pandemic). And I have just told you about how, in the last ten years, I have consistently had to move my entire life between cities.

Because of my family’s turbulent history, I have to learned to view my life as portable, and understood early on that any season, ‘wonderful years’, or any time in my life will not always stay the way it is.

Another excerpt from the same 2013 blog post:

Wow. Such angst.

To me, moving to Australia is just a bigger jump, but otherwise on par with what I’m used to. I have been to Australia for six-week periods twice before. I feel close to Ben’s family, and I’m fond of his friends.

I’m ready to start a new life with Ben.

Didn’t you consider staying in the Philippines?

It was not a consideration at all. When Ben came to the Philippines, he came knowing he would only stay for two years. Then he met me, and I changed his plans.

Life in a developing country is different from life in a developed one. Most people I know who’ve migrated from developing to developed country, never looked back. Sure, there are those who are wistful and talk about retiring in their native land (particularly, to return to their hometowns, and not Manila), but they spend most of their prime years elsewhere.

For Ben, living in the Philippines meant a language barrier that, on the surface, seemed easy to break through, but once you deal with banks, utilities, customer service, and other transactional conversations the gaps in communication, not to mention standards of service, started to show.

It meant being nearly impossible to engage in any outdoor activity, as the heat and oppressive humidity drove him to sweat profusely at the slightest activity.

It meant having a near-constant bout of gastro, getting acute food poisoning at least once per quarter, due to a different level of (and to him, nonexistent) food safety standards here. Or the environment is just irrevocably different.

He’s lived here five years and each time I ease up on food safety for him, thinking he’s a little more acclimated, if I leave chicken thawing on the counter a little too long, he gets sick. It’s not a light matter.

We like to joke that in the far future, when we talk about life in the Philippines to our children, we will tell them how Ben ‘lived in the Philippines, and they took two of his organs’.

In 2018, he had his appendix removed.

In 2020, he had his gallbladder removed.

We’re not waiting for 2022 for his spleen to be removed.

Aside from the physical-health aspect, Ben is also autistic. The noise, smells, and sensory overload he experiences whenever he walks out our door is overwhelming. To give you an example:

  • Loud noises everywhere, whether it’s building construction, motorbikes and sports cars revving their engines, or just loud music in nearly every public place
  • Manila doesn’t smell good, lol. I know this from experience. Any time I even remotely walk anywhere near Shaw or EDSA, even for twenty minutes, I come home with my clothes and hair smelling ‘like EDSA’, as I call it. Ben can tell from a half-metre radius.
  • Crowds and rude people, even during pandemic. They’re in the sidewalk. They’re at escalator landings and thresholds. They’re motorists who won’t give you right of way even when you clearly have it. This experience isn’t even unique to Ben. As soon as I realised I had the option, I resolved to never go to SM malls when I have alternatives. I would tell people that I can feel my heart rate go up within ten minutes of entering an SM mall.

If you have not been to the Philippines and want to see a glimpse of how living in Manila feels like, plainly, I recommend this video from Life Where I’m From. The author has lived in Japan and Canada, and makes his observations very plain and pointed.

I want Ben to be happy, healthy, and not stressed living in an environment that is hostile to him. As for me, Ben likes to scoff in amusement when I tell him I’ll be fine. ‘Two six-week stints in Australia doesn’t make you a local,’ he’d caution me. But in my heart, I do believe I’ll be fine. I have yet to spend winter in Australia. We’ll see. But so far, living in Australia has not caused me to be sick, stressed, or irritable because I couldn’t cope or acclimate to the environment. (Interestingly, I didn’t enjoy my first few days in Australia due to the feeling of being alien to everything.) This is not to say that I’m stronger than Ben—far from it. It’s just a matter of affinity. Living in Australia does not pose a detriment to my physical or mental health, but living in the Philippines does pose a detriment to Ben’s. He’s been homesick for five years. We’re going home.

Our future is in Australia. We will build a life together there.


I had more thoughts to share, but I won’t prolong this post. I’ll write another ‘leaving’ post near our departure. Till then.

2 responses

  1. Can’t wait for you to come to Australia for good and Ben to come “home” even if it will be Melbourne. I feel for you leaving your family for good but we are here and will only be a 90 min flight away.
    I think you will find Melbourne winters hard to handle. I certainly do and so have many friends who have visited in that season. Then again Melbourne can experience 4 seasons in a day.
    Love reading your stories of your life.
    Love
    Mum 😍❤

  2. Thank you so much, Sue. I must say I was happy when Ben said that we will be quarantining in Brisbane and spending our first few weeks there. <3