This past year of travel has been interesting especially now that I have a food allergy of types, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I have to avoid gluten if I want to avoid what I call “exploding,” basically a reaction that makes me feel like the kid in Willy Wonka who inflated and had to be rolled away. You would be surprised how many things have gluten, I sure as hell am, it’s hard to avoid it in the U.S. but it’s even harder to avoid it while traveling. At home I have the luxury of people knowing (on some level) what gluten is when eating out, even if the servers roll their eyes and think I’m just following a diet fad. While abroad it is hard to ask if something has gluten, especially if you don’t know the language, usually I resort to figuring out how to say wheat and bread in the local language but that hasn’t helped me much in the Philippines. Google translator told me the word for wheat in Tagalog is “Trigo” which is the same word in Spanish, I thought, “sweet! That will be easy.” People always look at me with a puzzled look whenever I ask if something has wheat or Trigo in it, they never seem to be able to answer me. Part of the problem is that although everyone seems to know some English, “wheat” doesn’t seem to be one of the words people know. Tagalog is a creole language with a mix of local dialects and colonizer languages, English and Spanish. Trigo is definitely a Spanish Word, but people still seem perplexed when I use it. I’m not sure if it’s because it is a strange thing to be asking about, if I’m pronouncing it different than they do, or if they just don’t use it. We have been traveling through central Mindanao and one thing is clear, people speak multiple languages, Tagalog and English being the 3rd or 4th language people learn so things are getting lost in translation. For the most part I have been fine, lots of garlic rice (a group favorite), meat and fruit. The problem is figuring out whether the meat is going to be breaded or not and whether or not the dishes will be cooked in soy sauce. I’ve had a couple of minor reactions here and there but nothing to be concerned about, I’ve learned how to manage it. I become a pill popper when traveling, apart from my normal supply of over the counter medications I travel with lots of pills to avoid a gluten reaction. I have my “just in case” pill that I take on a daily basis, my “I know this has gluten pill and I’m going to risk it,” 2 or 3 pills I take right before the first bite, and I have an antacid type of chewable for after the fact. So far so good, I’ve had minor reactions here and there but no explosions so far (knocks on wood).