Heavy trees being felled on mountain side to build another bodega for camp. First bodega built already full of unshelled rice, unrefined sugar, unrefined salt—which is very necessary in tropics where people lose body salt in perspiration. These are all products of this island, Negros. Flour, milk, and other imported products are not available.
All work on houses stopped until bodega is finished. Houses still need kitchen window, back door or gate, servants’ room floor, and other finishing touches. Want to get additional supplies in before Japs strip the island. Drying meat. Have a piece of beef—whacked off carcass with bolo—cut in thin strips, salted with sea salt, drying under mosquito net, to keep off flies. Bring the meat in at night and put in covered pan to keep monkeys from stealing. Dried skin and remnants of baked pig very tasty with native greens and sweet potato leaves.
Nights cold up here. Children not accustomed to sleeping under cover. Had to sew tapes to sides of blankets to tie them to beds and now children cannot pull loose.