Kirjahaku

Ever felt like chucking it all and moving to an island paradise? Award-winning journalist David Haldane and his Filipino wife, Ivy, met on an international dating site. Ten years later, with David laid off from his dream job at the LA Times and frustrated by mounting costs in America, they made the bold decision to move to the Philippine island of Mindanao, where Ivy grew up.This is the story of that adventure including its tragedies, triumphs, and travails as they slowly build their dream house overlooking the sea, explore the famous surfing mecca of Siargao Island, try to bridge the huge cultural gaps, navigate COVID in a foreign land, and give birth to a child during one of the world's longest and strictest lock downs.Originally published as a weekly column for Mindanao's leading newspaper, these short essays recount the surprising, spiritual, sometimes frightening, often hilarious, and always entertaining experience of adapting to life in a strange new place.Required reading for anyone contemplating such a move, or Filipinos wondering what would inspire a foreigner's abiding devotion to their homeland.

"Instead of exoticizing things he does not fully understand, he tries to actually understand them...Haldane's descriptions can be a source of social history." -Manila TimesThese are tales of resilience.This heartfelt collection of essays begins were David Haldane's award-winning 2023 book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, left off. After making the difficult decision to settle in the Philippines where his wife, Ivy, had been born and raised, David and his family spent two years building their dream house overlooking the sea, getting their kids settled in local schools, and falling in love with a vibrant culture that, for him anyway, was like something out of a fantasy novel.Then disaster struck.First came the COVID pandemic, prompting their adopted country to declare the world's longest and strictest lockdown, followed closely by a Category Five Super Typhoon that nearly knocked their house down and blew it away. Besides pandemic pandemonium and typhoon terror, however, this book explores a land and sea of profound perfection, a colorful culture crisp with courage, and the rumblings of distant events threatening to reinvent the world.Mostly, it's a book about change, something all of us must finally endure.