One of my biggest problems is the dust and dryness tied with the fact I wear Flip flops or locally known as Chinelas (pronounced ‘chi-ne-las’, meaning sandals in Spanish) most of the time meaning my feet get a severe beating most days. I rarely wear shoes which means I also rarely wear socks so even when im in the house wondering around its feet to the tile. So I can say from experience but also I know a lot of other people out there are having the same problem so I came across this article you might find very useful :-

Cracked heels are a result of your ignorance towards your feet. If you look after and pamper your skin, your hair, your face but not your hands and feet then your beauty is incomplete. Even if you look the best in the crowd with your beauty and appearance but your feet are peeing ugly and unclean out of your shoes then your entire beauty is a waste.

Because it will spoil your overall look. Just after caring a little about your feet, you can make them healthy and looking as beautiful as your face looks. Dirty feet, cracked heels, and not well defined toenails decreases your beauty no matter how beautiful your face is. So giving a little attention to your feet can make lots of changes in your beauty and appearance. You just need to give them your little time if not everyday then at least once a week.

• First think to do is drink lots of water to keep the skin hydrate. It will keep your skin soft and supple and skin will not get as dry to get cuts and cracks.

• Always wash your feet properly whenever you come from outside. Sleep after washing your feet.

• Soak your feet in lukewarm water with a little soap in it. It will loosen the tight dead skin from your soles and heels.

• Use foot scrubber to scrub the dead skin and brush away the dead skin with a small brush meant for feet.

• Rubbing pumic stone too is helpful in clearing the dead dull skin.

• Wipe your feet and massage foot cream on them. You can even apply petroleum jelly or your daily body lotion on your feet.

• Always keep the nails cut and well shaped.

• If you are already getting cracked heels on your feet then regularly scrub away the dead skin and apply foot cream, which is made for cracked heels. Such creams are easily available at any chemist store.

• Best way to soften the hard skin on heels and reduce the cracks is soaking feet in Luke warm water for 5-10 minutes then scrubbing the dead skin and then applying the foot cream on the heels before going to bead. Then wear cotton soaks on your feet throughout the night that way skin will absorb the moister and the cracks of the heels will heal faster.

• If your cracked heels are really bad and giving you pain then try this remedy to heal them. Melt paraffin wax and mix it with a little coconut oil. Fill this mixture into your cracked heels while going to bed. Wash it off in the morning. Filling this wax in your cracks for at least 10 days will fill the gap a lot and pain will be very less.

• To avoid foot pain wear shoes, which are right, size for your feet. Tight or loose shoes create problems for the feet. You should go to buy new shoes in the evening because that is the time when there is water retention in the body and you will come to know the exact size of your feet.

• You can spray foot spray or powder in your shoes while putting your feet in.

• Never wear shoes in wet legs and never wear wet soaks.

• Do not cut or itch if you get athlete’s foot or some other skin problem in your feet or between your toes. Seek medical help and keep hygiene.

• Rubbing onion oil on the skin rashes and itches is quite helpful.

• To avoid the cracks of your heels keep scrubbing the dead hard skin regularly and keep applying moisturizers or petroleum jelly to your feet, which will prevent your heels from getting cracks.

• If there is pain in your feet then soak them in hot water with salt added to it and alter the feet in cold water. Doing this therapy for half and hour improves the blood circulation and relieves the pain.

• Massage the feet and put pressure on the points.

• Walk on the grass barefoot early morning. It rejuvenates the feet and improves the eyesight.

• Do not wear uncomfortable shoes just to show. Wear the shoes you are comfortable in. avoid wearing tight shoes and high heels if there is pain in your feet.

Cracks in the heels occur due to the dryness of the skin. Our palms and feet are the area where skin produces no oil so they are usually dry. We need to feed them moister by applying sufficient moister on them. While the skin of the palms is soft, the skin of the feet is hard so it requires more care. If regular cleaning of the skin has been done by removing the dead skin, there are very few chances to get cracked heels. Still if you get cracked heels even after scrubbing the dead skin and applying moisturizers, then do not ignore the first sign of cracks that are fine lines on the heels.

As soon as you see them start applying crack creams on your heels and drink lots of water. If there is dryness in your body, it will show off on your skin. Drinking water is the best way to keep the skin moist.

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Tonight a conversation came up and its the right one to explain this to anyone who wonders why I don’t go back to the UK. What has happened over the last decade is like holding out your hand with a pile of sand and watch it run through your fingers. You love the UK but can see it washing away into oblivion regardless of how much you want to grasp it. You want to grasp the country in your hand like a small child, protecting it and supporting it but at the same time those grains run through your fingers. It is why so many expat are here.. they love their lands but the lands no longer love them and theyre opinions. I will live and die a Scot like any true man of their country and I will no doubt see many others from their homelands feel the same.

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As an expat I generally keep a note on things back in the UK as there is normally little political good news but it seems to be going from bad to worse. The labour government has spent over a decade over spending and swelling its public sector workers with “ghost workers” maybe the supporters out there will think otherwise but I would ask anyone who doesn’t think it to look into Quango’s and the number of non-elected people that are on them and how these jobs came about. I looked at the article below and you can quickly realise most of what is about to happen in the UK  is going to closely match our corrupt counterparts in Greece.

Angry Greeks ‘carrying the can’ for politicians

By Kate Forbes
BBC News, Athens

Like the sting of police tear gas, popular anger hangs heavy in the air as protesters take to the streets of Athens, for the third time in less than a week.

Some Europeans have been surprised by the extent of Greeks’ anger over government cuts in wages, pensions and increases in VAT – all measures needed to get the Greek economy back from the brink of default.

The measures are a condition for the huge bailout agreed by the IMF and EU, amounting to loans to Greece worth 110bn euros (£95bn; $146bn).

Why are Greek people so angry? From the outside, it looks like a spendthrift country getting what it deserves in painful cuts to public spending.

At street level, however, the anger stems from a sense of injustice. Many feel that the average citizen is now paying the price for corruption and government spending that they did not benefit from.

I’m feeling more and more angry every day, because those who got us into this mess are not held responsible

Thrasyvo Paxinos
Teacher

A civil servant in the finance ministry spoke on condition of anonymity. "Greek people are willing to contribute and make sacrifices. The vast majority of people do want to contribute to ease the economic problems of our country," he said.

"But first of all they want to stop political corruption. So if we see the people responsible for this being brought to justice, we are really willing to pay and make sacrifices."

"In the past I’ve seen government offices or committees being set up which don’t actually do anything. They are designed only to give important political supporters a wage. In the ministry we’ve highlighted these and said ‘Really, don’t do this! We can’t afford it!’ But no one listens."

"Also we knew for years in the ministry about the wrong figures being shown to the world about our GDP and our debt. We protested to our seniors but again no one would listen. We are very unhappy about it – taking to the streets is really our only option."

‘Strangling business’

The mood on the street is bitter because of this sense that pensioners and public sector workers on some of the lowest wages in the European Union are paying for these so called "ghost workers" in government.

However, lots of those marching in Athens this past week have accepted the need for cuts.

There’s not much I can do about it – we could burn Athens down but that wouldn’t be the solution

Odysseas Roussos
Jeweller

Evyenea owns a ceramics shop in the tourist district of Placa.

"This mess started 30 years ago but the politicians are shoving the responsibility for their bad management [of finances] onto others who can’t afford it," she says angrily.

"If they need to cut big salaries of civil servants of course do so, but to punish those on pensions by cutting them is really not fair."

"I’m worried about VAT increases because that’s going to have a knock on effect on business as people will spend less. The Greeks have no money to spend so the smaller shops like mine are closing, and soon the only thing we’ll have left is the multinationals."

Odysseas Roussos owns a jewellery shop just down the street. He feels that the cuts imposed are unfair.

"Those that have to pay don’t have the means to pay," he says.

"And they are strangling small businesses. A lot of people with shops and businesses are finding that the trade has gone down by around 50%. I’m worried that with people earning even less they will spend less and there’ll be a recession. My wife has already lost 3,000 euros a year from her salary, which is about a 20% cut."

"There’s not much I can do about it – we could burn Athens down but that wouldn’t be the solution."

‘Tough on the kids’

Thrasyvo Paxinos, a teacher with three children, has seen his salary cut by 12% and he faces another cut in the next few months.

"We have cut back on luxuries of course, he said. Cigarettes, wine, cheese, using the car. Although maybe cutting back on cigarettes is a good thing!" he concedes.

"But it’s also tough on the kids – we used to take them out at the weekend, to the zoo or whatever, but VAT increases with our pay cuts will mean we really won’t be doing that so much anymore."

"I am willing to take a cut, because we all have to. But I’m feeling more and more angry every day, because those who got us into this mess are not held responsible. Their children aren’t going to suffer because of this."

Most Greeks we spoke to acknowledged that sacrifices would have to be made, and some were in support of cuts.

But nearly all referred to lower paid workers "carrying the can" for decades of mismanagement and political corruption, and it is this sense of injustice which is propelling people out onto the streets.

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MAY 9th starting outside the front of Minglanilla’s main church in the town.

Its very likely I will be going to this event so if your interested and want someone to go along with please just let me know email me at :- mattwilkie@tropicalpenpals.com

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This will be a pretty short post but the point of it being that a lot of things you will come across that seem pretty obvious but in a lot of cases people just haven’t thought about it. This is a prime example as over the day heat generally builds up in a house a lot in the ceilings and walls. But its also a fact that due to the type of materials used they hold heat and it can often be cooler outside than inside the house. But one of the methods I use to cool the house quickly which seems to drop a few degrees in a matter of minutes is instead of cooling yourself with an electric fan stick it by the window for 10 minutes and use it as an extract. I leave the kitchen windows open so we are getting cooler air come in but it kicks the hot air out which obviously being a quick method of getting rid of at least some of the heat also means your electric bill will be a bit lower as well as being more comfortable. How would I improve the building for climate I would probably go the same way as the UK with two walls to create a void between the two for ventilation. You also have to way up if its financially viable to do it and getting hold of the right materials as well.

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I was invited to a mountain biking event nearby by a friend I know from Facebook. Not to compete but to take some photos, although not competing it was a day enjoyed watching people compete and managed to get some good photos at the same time. Its also something a lot of expats don’t do which is try to integrate into the local community. I am well aware we are often seen as the “foreigner” but at the same time its also something I noticed that is respected. E.g. in Airsoft many teams would like to have foreigners on their teams purely because there are so few people competing from outside the local population. It also gives people the opportunity to learn new skills and share knowledge.

The other thing I always find at events is that I am well received as people are proud and happy that you have come along to the events. The local mountain bike competition is an annual event but also events like this are an ideal platform to get introduced to people and the sport. Most of the bikes in use for the mountain biking are around P12,000 upwards but have to be for durability like most sports the initial cost is the hard part after that its a lot lighter on the wallet. There is another event next week which is more of a bike for peace event not 100% sure what its all about but looking forward to going along. There is also an annual extreme event held in Cebu which is over 500km and runs until finished which covers a large amount of the coast of the island. I will find out more details and add them as it may be something people may want to drop by and give a bit of moral support when the cyclists pass or even if your fit enough compete.

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Getting ill here is more something that will eventually happen than something you can avoid. Prime example of a cause of getting ill can be ice as a lot of ice is made from tap water but also even if it wasn’t its one of those things that are a magnet to bacteria. If your here on your first trip and get an upset stomach worth remembering if you had ice in your drinks and where. Its not the end of the world mind as you will adapt to it, at the same time having to rush to the toilet every ten minutes isn’t the most romantic of things to be doing.

One of the most important and cheap things to buy here is “Philhealth” I wont go on about who is entitled to its uses as I think its important you research it personally incase any changes happen in the policy. But for around P1,200 (may have changed) it will cover a percentage of your hospital fees as well as get you through the front door. You can sign up as a family so it would cover you, your spouse and children. One of the few insurances I would advise anyone to take.

Medical insurance locally to cover all bills is something I haven’t heard one person say a good thing about. Most insurance would involve you paying your medical bills up front and trying to reclaim from the insurance company. Question I would ask if that is needed why the hell do I want insurance especially when the odds are against me in getting my payments back and a risk the company will disappear.

Another thing to remember is certain things are relative to certain areas and a lot are seasonal. Doing a bit of research you can reduce your risk of anything major going wrong and anything unexpected is something you just need to prepare an emergency budget for which a lot of expats don’t which often leads to them being financially wiped out and unable to afford to stay comfortably or leave the Philippines.

Some expats were looking to put an emergency fund together everyone pays a monthly fee for which is a good idea but at the same time not something I would invest in because of the “high risk” most expats are.. e.g. I am 36 I have had a couple of serious illnesses here which I have been lucky enough to have a great wife and mother inlaw sort out some local remedies (as dengue has no proven cure) and rode it out for a rough few weeks. But most expats are in the 60+ bracket and more than half of them are overweight or already having medical problems. What is then defined as an emergency? If someone is on medication for a long term illness do you write that off as its something that is expected? do they pay more because they are higher risk? There is a reason good insurance is expensive and there is also a good reason a lot of people don’t have it “they cant afford it” or can’t see the value of it. People talk of a budget of about P2,000 a month in reality I think it would need to be around P15,000 due to lifestyle and health issues. Which is why I won’t get involved. If people can iron out the issues with it I will happily take a second look or promote. The other thing is getting investments going with the money to build its funds faster.

Why did I bring this post up tonight.. Its been a bit of an odd one since being back in the Philippines I haven’t been 100% since I arrived but hoping I can get back on track in the next few months. I have no doubt most of the cause has been frustration and headaches which have been ongoing since December. Just hope it all starts to settle down.

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 Since even before arriving in the Philippines I have been an active member of many forums and several times I have left to eventually return after realising a lot of drivel gets put out and it miss guides peoples directions on coming to the Philippines. The “come to Paradise and live like a king!” (just send me lots of money and I will tell you how but happen to forget to mention the books are worthless and the original contents are out of date). Or the constant bickering between older generations of expats with opinions on everything but little experience on most. I have listened to Expat’s tell me how to live in the province yet they live in a gated sub-division community and have never gone further than a mall. The business mind that has based all the information he gives on things he thinks rather than has experienced. It all goes round in circles time and time again to the point most people arrive get a mixed view of things at best and at worst they may actually believe the information.

Is the Philippines a paradise? it can be its what YOU see as paradise. I have sustainable incomes, I can get out of bed at 11am without someone whining why do I get up so late yet I work during the night. I live on an island where the beaches are nearby but have great beaches further south within a 45min ride. I have 4 holiday resorts nearby with nice pools and cheap rental facilities. I can be in the city within 20mins and shop round malls that have more stuff than I will ever need. I am developing businesses in several directions to a prosperous future and at the same time reducing costs. Am i living in Paradise?

For me I have everything I need a beautiful wife and children. A small house but we are currently in the process of organising a bigger one. We have an apartment and likely to increase the rental portfolio this year on another lot once we secure the seller. Gadget wise we have more than enough and people complain about the cost of electronics but they obviously haven’t lived in the UK. Buying premium or luxury goods are on par with the same in the UK pricewise and quality. Where people get caught out is buying none branded as a lot of stuff is surplus.. but at the same time how many times do you need to buy a plasma TV or a top of the line refrigerator? They may be expensive to get the “right ones” but you should only ever need to buy them once. I never have to work again if I decided not to and some may assume I am broke because I limit my expenses but the truth of the matter is I have been increasing wealth in Cebu month on month for over two years I choose to drive a jeepy instead of wasting half a million pesos on a new car because half a million can buy me another lot which I can add apartments or use for something else. Ask anyone who bought a new car and had to go back to the U.K. for example how much money they lost on the vehicle selling it.. In reality us foreigners buy things cash as we have limited access to loans. Pinoy’s have the same problems but often they will buy new vehicles and properties on installments so where do you sell an expensive second hand car? If you leave it behind who can you trust with it to look after it until you come back?

all these questions need to be answered and you should do it before even thinking of coming as well as how do you dig yourself out of a hole if you lose your money on something or even better how are you going to be able to afford to live here long-term. You can make money regular here but it takes time to get it all going not because of the slowness of processing but getting reliable staff here is a real battle and something a lot of Expat’s forget or don’t understand. But remember the locals have the same problem! I have had friends have all their fish stocks stolen by their caretakers, others who had restaurants where the staff bring in their own food to cook and sell There are scams and thefts going to happen not a case of they might happen but they will.. You just need to prepare and work out how to beat them.

Every now and again I am made aware of rumours which at first I thought I was just being paranoid until I found out other expat’s had the same thing if you don’t fit into the normal grouping which are generally the 60+ generation which have little interest in business or actually generating anything positive out side of their own interests. Now personally age isn’t an issue even the Sexpats aren’t an issue because they don’t form in any part of my life and this is where a lot of people go wrong. They assume the Expat’s are a community when its actually a very splintered tree full of sub groups also I don’t have an issue with anyone here for being diverse or whatever they are upto but I do have an issue with people that will proactivily go about sabotaging myself and others. The way its generally done is someone approaches me or the other people with a request which could be business or something else. Then suddenly it just goes cold. This is what I have found every now and again and its down to people twisting a tangled web and putting spanners in the works on purpose.

The problem with putting spanners in the works the way its done it often doesn’t come to light the cause but more of a case we know who does it. Does it matter? Not really as most expat’s aren’t here for business but what does happening is what I currently do which is moving away more and more from the expats and I have noticed the long-term business people are often in the same mind.

Can I teach you how to make a successful life here? I wouldn’t even start to teach anyone.. I can offer advice on things I know that work and Tropicalpenpals.com is full of articles on things that can and do work. But don’t expect to arrive and just throw money at something and expect it to work overnight. Everything I have developed here has been over a period of time and an important factor is I think in Pesos not Pounds or Dollars. I don’t think thats only P300 for the day from a venture I see that the food for the day is paid for. I sub divide ways to make money and use them to help each thing develop. Lots of people will quickly point out to you Sari-Sari’s don’t work. On a Saturday afternoon we offload crates of RC Coke and beer and its at a location that doesn’t require staff because people are already there. On top of that we sell kids ice-pops and ice water we make about P1 on each item not a lot right? but some of the kids can be eating 5 ice-pops an hour and if you live anywhere in the Philippines you will know how many kids are in any neighbourhood.Then there are the general stocks which are the day to day things people come from as well as buying sacks of rice and sub-dividing it into kilos as most people can’t afford sacks they are living day to day. Does it make a lot of profit? Well if you look at the stock in both photos and tally it up this originally started with a few crates of beer and has just rolled profit for about 2 months. Another thing to remember is people don’t like to travel so if your a street nearer they will go to you even if your a little bit more expensive.

Before we started the Sari-Sari we started selling snack packs in the net-cafe aswell and some of them you wonder how you make a profit on a pack of 24 when they are P1 each and you only make P3 on the full pack.. how? because kids buy junk food regular pork scratching’s in vinegar we can sell upto 12 packs to one kid in a day not including other buyers.. Its all small profits but its all being run by the same person who is operating the net cafe. The big picture is the Sari-Sari is costing nothing to run. The netcafe provides enough for salaries,electric and internet for not only itself but the main house and the first apartment. As well as a profit on all the ventures.

If you tied up the incomes from the Sari-Sari the net-cafe and the apartment we already earn more than most people do on their pensions and these aren’t our main source of monthly income. But the other things are like having bottles of coke delivered you may drink some yourself every day and they cost upto P5 for a 220ml bottle but a can in a supermarket is P22+ so you are already saving money just by not buying cans and drinking the bottles instead. I am tight with the money when I need to be which is why we have stopped spending at the moment as I have a new development that needs more funds.

But getting back to the point of this post if your a user of any of the forums you will see the amount of responses I have given has reduced in the last 18 months and from today I won’t be using any of the forums at all. For me they have run their course and I have encouraged people to work together to get things moving positively but things just constantly side step or go backwards. So re-evaluating the time I waste on forums I am just going to delete them from my browsers and stop using them completely. The blogs at Tropicalpenpals.com will still be up and the CebuExpat.com will be a development that I will continue to build on at the same time I am still accessible via emails and the usual channels but no longer via forums as I won’t be logging back into them.

Popularity: 19% [?]

When I came to the Philippines I originally came with intention of building a life here for my wife and family as well as extend a hand of friendship and help to develop business here for the Expat and local business communities. A few years on have things changed and if so why?

  There was a recent event that I found a bit funny but can understand what was said. I visited a business over a month ago for a group gathering and a couple of beers. After I left I stuck up a small blog to give the business a small net presence I hope would help bring it more revenue. What was my charge? what did I want in return? Simply nothing.. I pay for my web space annually and doing the blog only takes a little bit of time. The reason I done it was to help a business out at the same time help people looking for a restaurant in that area. There is no other motive to my actions and the same goes for many other things I get up to. I don’t think its me that has changed but more the fact a lot of other people haven’t there is a large amount of expat community which would happily out do someone elses idea to make an income. There are locals who will learn what you have to do and under cut you. But what is the point? As someone said to me before as regards some data I copied and pasted into TP. He demanded I take it down because I make a revenue out of it. After a quick email back to the writer who had “copied” the information from a book in the first place which is why I used the data as it was specifics such as island sizes.. I stated that we as the Philippines “Community” as a whole are scrambling around fighting each other for a tiny part of the tourism market instead of working together to increase the amount of people coming to the Philippines. TropicalPenpals was never a financial decision its always been about feeding information for the better of everyone. The same goes for most of the things I do here.

Why do I do it because I know things can be done here and it can easily be fruitful if people worked together for common goals. In the same space of time of being here I have found a constant battle coming from both Filipino communities and Expat that has filtered the “positive” like minded people into a tiny amount. A recent discussion with another expat who has been here nearly two decades and has operated and still operates several successful businesses in the region stated he caters for 3% of the population and that out of the expat community 3 – 4 % of them are good and that was being generous. I think he is right on the money though as its something that I have seen and experienced myself. I have many friends but at the same time how many have fallen by the wayside over the last 3 years? local and foreign? literally hundreds… and its unlikely to change.. I would never tell anyone “not to setup business here” but I would say expect a steep learning curve and a shortage of people you can mentor with. But if you do find the small hub of good expats who are business minded and willing to help you develop then your pretty much onto a winner.

Is it all about the money? Its never been about the money its always been about sustainability and developing my area. Which initially started out as Cebu and has frittered down to our mini village simply because no matter what I do on a large scale it would be a ripple in a big pond. But in a small concentrated area maybe others will pickup the flame in the future as they can see the differences. We are still a long way off on where I want us to go and I wonder how much some of the community stuff may get interfered with by outsiders as the whole point is to help people not to rubber stamp it as “my project”. If it was about the money I wouldn’t even be in the Philippines I would still be in the UK turning the money over and filtering it out into ventures all over the place. I have downscaled my life and expenses to fit into a lifestyle that is rewarding not financially but in a way that develops the people around me and offer a future that isnt as readily available as the West.

So what about the new expat? Don’t worry it doesn’t mean I have anything against new people arriving in fact its the opposite I can understand the frustrations which is why I spend so much time on this blog in the first place.. as the importance for me is people being able to settle in without disruptions or at least being aware of some of the things that come along. Those who choose to do business I will help network up with others if they choose they want to be part of that. At the end of the day I am here to help and will do as much as I can..

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Moving on with things here has been difficult the last few weeks as crap just keeps reoccuring over and over again due to people neither wanting to listen or understanding what we are saying. This post will be short and to the point. There are emails and text messages received daily which are abusive and trying to enflame the situation. Your falling  on deaf ears as it seems the same when we try to explain something. I will make it easy since people say “no reconciliation in private but tell others its something seeked for”. From me there will be no reconciliation its over.. I have no bad wishes on anyone but I have better things to do with my time and nobody seems to listen, I will no longer entertain even talking with people on any of the subjects as simply its all bizarre, one sided and misinterpreted to create problems on purpose. Keep your disputes and the people causing the problems I seperate myself from all those trying to create problems. Wish you all the best for the future and goodbye.

Popularity: 18% [?]