Lika, some of my stories are true too!

CR, no, the word is "spoked", not "spoken".  Due to the tropical sun and the amazing amount of coconut milk consumed by the dwellers of Luzon, the final "n" of words following a vowel has a hard sound, much like the English "d". 

Wise guy. 

Don´t go bad mouthing chimarrão.  It will put lead in your pencil but you have to have someone to write to.  Chimarrão is what makes me so handsome and personable.

But I am getting off the subject!

Years ago at a Cub Scout meeting, one of the fathers said something about the PI (Philippine Islands). 

"Where are you from?" I asked. 

"From the PI."

"But from where?"

"From the Philippines."  (Dumb American!  What could you know about my country?)

"But from which area?"  I asked again.

Finally he gave up and said he was from Cebu, adding that he had been a Scout there and his scoutmaster had been Mr. Damazo.  And then I said, "Do you mean Sergio Damazo Jr?"  I thought the father was going to have a stroke!  How could I possibly know his scoutmaster?  Well, Jun (short for Junior) and I are old friends.  When he wanted to go to the USA many years ago, I got for him letters of invitation from the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and the Los Angeles County Probation Department.  At least at that time, there were no custody facilities for juveniles in the Philippines.  Jun ran a boy scout troop in the Cebu Jail.  A scoutmaster in Los Angeles had great success doing the same in an LA County juvenile hall, but he had just died.  Jun said that when the American Consulate saw the letters, the staff could not grant his visa quickly enough.  Scouting is a lot more than hiking, camping, tying knots, and helping old ladies cross the street.  Scouting has some of the best educatiional programs around (including remedial reading).  Oh, I hooked Jun up with his old Scout.  His old Scout hooked Jun up with an alumni association of the University of San José Recoletos, and the alumni helped Jun financially with his scouting endeavors in Cebu.   

(Lika, this was one of the true stories.)