GCB

Working and living in the Philippines means having to work with acronyms. Filipino's love acronyms. I work for the GIZ, which is a German acronym, but I work for the DRM (Disaster Risk Management) department. Sometimes people get confused about are intentions so we add Reduction so it becomes DRRM. As if anyone outside of a Bond-movie would be interested in working for DRIM (not that I would turn the job-offer down, mind you), or - if they did - would admit it to people often enough to warrant an acronym.
Obviously the DRM department Ms more than one D. We work on FEWS (Flood Early Warning Systems), sometimes calles LFEWS for local FEWS. Other people work on this project called SIMPLE: Sustainable Integrated Management and Planning for LGU Ecosystems. That's right, nested acronyms. LGU means Local Government Unit. There is nothing simple about SIMPLE, it's just to have a nice acronym.

Quite daunting for the initiate, but not for locals. As I said, Filipino's love acronyms, and they use them even outside of the professional jargon. Because divorce doesn't exist in the Philippines but separation obviously still does, some people are MBA (Married But Available). Some people just don't stand a chance in the world of boyfriends and girlfriends and relationships and these are SSB (Single Since Birth). That's a bad thing. And, of course, not all tourists come to the Philippines with the most innocent of vacation plans. These can usually be filed under the category DOM (Dirty Old Man).

But wait, there's more! Some people are so used to acronyms that they start believing abbreviating their names will shave valuable minutes off of their day. I've heard of people named B-boy (no experience in break-dancing), and J-boy (respected politician), for example. But the self-abbreviation is an old phenomenon here. So old, that some people have names that are phonetic spellings of acronyms: Bee-Jay for example (that's an actual person).

Weird.

Modern Family

Worries over. I'm not turning into one of them. I have some new worries though, I might be turning into Marvin from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I know, dreadful isn't it?

Mostly, I'll never be a true Filipino because I don't like children (don't worry, people-that-I-know-that-read-this, when you get children I'll totally like all of them). Filipino's love their children. Which is good. I'm not saying 'loving your children' is a bad move. That would be a bad move.
What I do think is a bad move is the assertion that loving something means you have to be nice to it all the time. I would imagine that this assertion would melt away quite organically when you have children, when they start being annoying. Not on this island though. Kids basically rule the world here. I've seen kids get away with a LOT of stuff here.
Sure there's the always-popular running and screaming and shouting that children quite naturally do. I've seen children stealing groceries from other peoples carts at the supermarket (admittedly a brilliant prank). They usually get away with this stuff, and I guess that's not really enough to bother me.
What bothers me is that I've noticed that the kids are actually in charge. I've seen children commanding their parents to take them somewhere. Not in a whiny way. Whining is for children that don't get what they want right away. Just a simple, down-to-business, almost militaristic command.
"We're going to get ice-cream."
"Now I want a toy."
or sometimes it's just a word.
"Chicken"
At this point the parents will look at the child with not even the slightest disdain, maybe look at each other with parental pride and endearment, and follow up the children's latest whim. Sometimes, a pressing matter makes its way to the parent's frontal cortex: "Okay, but we have to get you new clothes straight after, alright?" The kid won't listen. It's knee-deep in a bucket of fried chicken. You can hear the fabric of his shirt tightening.
Precious.