Survival in a Third World Setting

By Doods Dayto

I learned prepping, survival and similar mindset thru reading posts in our Glock forum where I used to go
a lot (I think I learned enough in theory about my Glock 26 already) and have since moved to survivalist
web sites! I was introduced in what I think was a necessity in my country, one of Asia’s calamity-prone
country. I went to appreciate and now has more than enough knowledge but continue struggling to
ensure our resources are available when we needed it, even if sourcing out things is hard, yet my desire
to meet even the most basic is strong. Now that is really the challenge, surviving in a third world setting,
by a single parent (am separated, ex now working in Vietnam) with limited and budgeted income (three
kids in school, still renting house), now aged and sickly to work in a competitive salary workplace (am in
the hospitality-food and beverage line of work). I want to SURVIVE, and teach my kids how to…

Teaching the Kids.

I have three kids, all young and they are in their teens. We started with the following:
1. What to do in a strong Earthquake situation:
a. At Home
b. In school
c. Outside (like mall)
All of us has a helmet, theirs placed near their beds, with an LED flashlight attachment, we drill and
they are trained to leave the house and go near a huge jackfruit tree, non fruit bearing, in front of
our house but inside our fence and away from electrical wires around us. (Funny but WE all studied
this before we decided this is our earthquake meet Zone)
2. What to do in an plane crash situation nearby (we live very near our very busy and crowded
international airport and we recently experienced a small aircraft crashing near us)
a. Alerting the home based family member of their situation if in school
b. Need to walk home and precautions, what to take in a their bags (e.g. water)
c. In a situation where roads are blocked going home (like if a plane crashed in OUR
own street! Ha ha), where we will meet (at our church, community hall and another
church, in that order)
3. What to do in a transport strike (we have a lot here) and they cannot easily go home.
a. Will wait out till picked up
b. Walking with detailed comm. issue
c. Going to friends or relative nearest to stay overnight
4. Knowledge of basic first aid and situations
a. Small cuts and wound disinfecting and care (bandage)
b. CPR –to allow those who knows first
c. Heimlich Maneuver
d. Fainting, epileptic patient assist (operative word is assist)
e. How not to be a nuisance in an emergency (lots of people here watch, they are
trained to go away if they cannot be of assistance)
f. What NOT to do, instead to call 117 (our 911), and NOT ASSUME someone already
did!
g. What accident and diseases that should NOT be touched!
Survival in a Third World Setting, By Doods Dayto, page 02

5. Basic Home Drill for kids and adults too!

a. Turning off gas, water and main electrical switch in an emergency
b. Locking the gate and door always but more so in an emergency
c. Closing windows and other typhoon-watch issues
d. Location of first aid kit, and learning its use (also to alert me on par levels)
e. Use of fire extinguisher (a summer fun activity, we practice outside by burning wood
in a half-cut drum and they extinguishing it with an expiring, for-refill tanks)
f. Never to allow in people who they don’t know (to call adults in the family first)
g. No-Touch policy on guns and other deadly weapons except Code G26 shout!
h. Code “Code G26” – my shout or call if my tall Son will grab the Glock bag from our
secret location and hand it to me in an emergency situation that I cannot just access
it, like being in a car outside. It’s an alert code that they also lock the door outside,
looking out in our secret peep hole and will not open unless I say a password. (I also
taught them that if I were attacked by a mob or goon outside, they are NOT to help
me, or use the gun, but to lock themselves in and call 117 or our neighbor , a
survival peer-buddy) .We’ll, we are changing the Code after this post! Ha ha ha
i. Communications (Comm) must do. Each of them have a smart dual-SIM mobile
phone (two networks carrier cellular phone, flexibility in case one network don’t
work, like being hit by a plane crash! Ha ha). The rules are:
 Carrying it all times, and answering ALL my calls
 Charging it at night, before they sleep
 Carries all the emergency numbers, relatives and friends
 No playing games unless they are at home (saving battery)
 Carrying small coins, taped, for use in coin operated phone booth
 Calling neighbors house if our number cannot be accessed (a reciprocating
arrangement with our neighbors are likewise made and agreed upon)
 Only one cell will be used in an emergency situation, to activate call divert
to one SIM number only, turn-off all others so there are several
batteries/phone on standby unless one member is out of the house, then
his/her phone is on all the times.
6. Support to neighbor kids
a. Games we can play with them – we have four kinds of Monopoly and various other
card games (sorry no digital games esp. in cell phones to save batteries)
b. Accommodating kids on play-time, if generator is available, sharing TV/video time
c. Sharing comfort food (i.e. extra candies and chocolates) in not-so-dire situations for
us.
Survival in a Third World Setting, By Doods Dayto, page 03

Survival Prepping and Disaster Preparedness in a Poor Country by Someone Poor Too!
Our country is really prone to typhoon and often when calamities hit, we’ll have no electricity
for days, street are flooded (some areas get flooded even in non-typhoon rains), food become
scare because it all comes from the provinces, food prices go UP, if you can have them,
Government service almost at a standstill, water from taps become discolored and transport is
hard. Reading and learning from posts from sites like this helped me a lot, but am still wanting
many things, my small salary is not enough to meet the “big-ticket” items that may forever be a
desire for us (me and my family) but was able to assemble what a call a rudimentary survival
scenario for us, and am sharing with you here some or most of it…HTH though.
1. Food – we are a rice and viand culture so our food supply is dictated by what we can
consume on a not-so-boring cycle at least,
a. Rice- we consume one sack a month so we stack extra two (par 3). We give out to
the neighbor or some helpers in the community if fresh stocks come in (and there
are signs the leftover of a “running” sack may “outlife” soon) , just for good PR and
neighbor support. I am investing in vacuum packed rice now available but still pricy
and reputed to last for years!
b. We stack canned goods of what my kids eat, sardines, spam, meatloaf, corned beef,
lots of pasta and canned sauces and various other ingredients for cooking (must
have for me-Spanish olives stuffed with anchovies!, also canned butter, meat
spreads, peanut butter, jams and the like ). We also have plenty of instant noodles,
crackers and other quick preparation meals, bouillon cubes, instant soups, instant
food flavorings, tomato sauces, etc., good for three months use, with labels
following FIFO rule, these we don’t put in the cupboards but in plastic “catering
boxes” that can be hauled in our small BOV in an instant, but then we are really bent
on bugging in, unless a huge fire is near us (plane crash again!) and we have to go!
c. Frozen meats and processed food are plenty in the freezers. We have a small
canteen and 50 person cap catering business so recycling them is not a problem. We
have good inventory of food, even those on-site canteen that I can tap as extra food
once the situation calls for it
d. Sugars, flour and condiments are plenty (again because of the small canteen and
catering business), seasoning are a lot coz of our catering, (at least we won’t have
boring meals that even the box of rehydrated TVP will taste good as pasta topping)
e. We have stock of candies, chocolates, cookies for kids, canned fruits, honey, and
gelatin mixes for morale boosting sweets just in case

2. Water – a phenomena here is the mushrooming of purified water selling booth and we have
been living in bottled water (5 gal) ever since. Drinking from the tap needs getting used to,
(European Tummies beware!) and I have a small filtration system using replaceable ceramic
filter just in case. I stock ten (as a par stock) 5-gallon filtered water jugs, good for ten days at
1 gallon per person since there are five of us (me, three kids and their nanny of 15 years
now) We have a water tank for reserved water with 300 liters and a shared deep well pump
were we can get clean water for bathing, washing and house cleaning (only my close
neighbor whom I share it knows it, all others DO NOT know we have a well inside our fence)
I’m quite confident my water needs are covered even if we bug in on a relatively long period
of time. (at least I don’t worry about the flush!)
Worse comes to worst, I have ID most water sources within five kilometer near us, including
a creek in our village, a river about a kilometer from us, as I’ve learned in a survival web site.
Survival in a Third World Setting, By Doods Dayto, page 04

3. Cooking – we use LPG now and as of this writing, the prices went ballistic again! Lucky I grew
up in many ways of cooking here. I have a back-up kerosene stove, the most common poor-
man stove here and I know how to use it well, plus kerosene is cheap and readily available (I
have three 2L canned kerosene on standby). I have a bug-out LPG canister stove (those
Japanese butane stove with high BTU flames) that I have a reserved 24 pieces of LPG
canister (75.00 pesos apiece, which I saved one canister per payday!) in our storage in a
plastic box. I have a half-drum griller and a fabricated robatayaki griller cum stove I can use
for cooking. Lately, I’ve been sourcing firewood and have a sizable stock (may last more than
a month for us), not to mention the many extra lumber we have lying around here. I have
firewood stoves (two, also for bug out) and I am experimenting with solar cooker, one of a
high-school project I made before.

4. Electricity / Light – my biggest concern as we don’t have a generator and we are a warm
country (need for electric fan) I have invested in a rechargeable LED light (3), LED flashlight
(low battery consumption and long life bulbs). A plastic box of candles, including citronella
candles to fight-off mosquitoes (also anti-mosquito coils-plenty!), matches and lighters
(needed to start wood burning stove too). These boxes are marked for emergency bug-out.
I have kerosene powered hurricane lamps (on sale cheap, made in China but works! ) for
external lighting in typhoons, rechargeable battery operated small electric fan (so kids can
sleep) and UPS (for the computer)
I am saving to invest in a small generator so the kids can at least sleep better with electric
fans and the ref can work during brown outs to save some of the food in it. Another thing
am looking at are solar battery chargers, for Am/FM radio and cell phones. Buts that may
have to wait awhile as the pay needs rescheduling…ha ha

5. Security – we have community patrols and I live in a modest neighborhood where we have
guards in the village gate. I have a Glock 26, six magazines, two G19 mags, one 30 round
mag, all full, with a good amount of extra 9mm ammo. I am stocking more ammo this year
but I am renewing my gun permit so the money will have to go for that first. I have a huge
machete, two arnis de mano sets (traditional fighting sticks where I have training), a spear, a
homemade sling shot, two tactical knives and one traditional knife. All these are always
clean and maintained. My next goal is to acquire a Glock 19 and a 22LR rifle or a locally
made shotgun which is inexpensive here and our gun licensing law allows civvies to have
two pistol (9mm and 22 cal only) and one long rifle that is non-automatic. A permit to carry
can be had (expensive though) for the pistols. . My daughter carries pepper spray and am
waiting one more year so I can teach the boys how to shoot…(they allow 13 year-old kids in
private gun range here). I am keen on how we can survive in a massive goon-zombies-mob
attack but then our neighborhood is a good support system, and lucky to live in a dead-end
street where we agreed to block the open end and fight off intruders, most my neighbor
have guns (mostly Glockies btw, so we can share ammo in an “situation”) including rifles and
shotguns!

6. Growing food – There is an opportunity for us here because there are still open spaces
around our house and in the neighborhood. We once planted vegetables in front of our
house, in a lot outside our fence street side (nowadays I have various decent amount of
herbs) and even corn! We eat crawling or vine veggies, and I have a huge tree vegetable
(Moringa) , sweet potatoes, a mango tree at the back, seasonal jack fruit in front, and an
Survival in a Third World Setting, By Doods Dayto, page 05

always-fruit-bearing papaya tree under the water tank. I am getting native chicken from our
province and will grow them in a makeshift coop at the back. Few of my neighbors are growing
veggies and fruits in theirs too and we agree to share these in dire needs. During one of the
informal survival talks, one neighbor even joked he may even share his dogs! Yes, sorry to touch
on this sensitive issue but even if my family (and most neighbors) don’t and will never do, eat
dog meat, our country has a culture in some parts in remote provinces that eat dog meat,
meaning in a dire survival situation, some will do, thus our neighbor’s joke! Making food from
our rice stocks can be had, I have hand cranked grinders and traditional mortar and pestle type
(huge) rice, seeds or corn pounders.

Bugging in Or Out?
This is an issue I often see in survivalist threads but after reading many discussions, many find bugging
in a more acceptable position. I live in the city and my province, the only possible bugging out location is
500 kilometers away, passing thru many town and cities that in a SHTF situation could be in worst
situation than us. Thus bugging out in a SHTF scenario here is akin to “jumping from your relatively safe
boat, to a hungry shark infested waters”. As you can see, I am keener on staying put (see my simple
preps listed above) and most of my peer and survival buddies are likewise prepared to do so, our
mindset is to fight it out, make/produce food and make our dead-end street a camp-like bug-in place.
However if bugging out is a must, like in a huge uncontrolled fire scenario we need to leave, or war-like
situation like coup (we used to have a lot!), or government order that I cannot fight off, then off we
leave. My family and I have a basic preparation but are still hoping to hone it.
1. BOV – we have a family sedan (not a BOV!) and a Suzuki mini-truck (called a Multi-cab here, and
YES our BOV) I’ve seen this in one of the You-Tube post as a sensible bug-out vehicle because of
its sturdy fabrication and small engine that uses very little fuel (long mileage?). We can have it
configured in such a way that we can fit many of the “catering boxes” containing our survival
stuff in it. Once I fully paid it, (it’s still a company vehicle on a salary deduction payment
scheme), I shall have a roof rack with locked enclosure built on top (design made, measured to
fit coolers and plastic opaque “catering boxes”, note the word “locked” so zombies won’t be
able to touch it) so that some comfort be left for the kids, leaving the essentials inside. Am even
looking at making a small luggage carriage to be pulled by the Multi-cab so extra stuff can be
hauled, including the boys bike. It may not look rugged, sturdy or expensive but given my
income capacity and current financial status, this is best I can afford under the circumstances!
2. BOB – we all have our individual BOBs, mine a Nikko day pack with a back support. It is not huge,
but inside is a survival kit composed of a tin can (with fishing kit, signal items, fire starters, hand
saw, utility knife, mirrors, compass, magnifying glass, solar flashlight etc.), an inexpensive
stainless steel covered cooking pan (inside is bouillon cubes, pack of peanuts, instant noodles,
instant soup, instant 3-1 coffee, teas, cookies), also in the bag are canned paella, tuna, post
American war games MRE set (one pack, yes we have them here! P100 pesos apiece from black
marketers) and other food stuff, plus a can of sterno, a set of clothes in a dry bag, an
underwater flashlight, my first aid kit, sunglass and wind glass (actually my shooting eye
protector), a toiletry kit, a bolo in a wooden sheath, a thermal blanket, a 1.5 liter hydration
system, a glow stick, and my guns holster set (only when bugging out I shall put the gun here) .
On the several pockets outside, there is a 10 meter rope, a compass, a small binocular, a knife, a
signal mirror, a small folding hoe, a folding saw, a 1 liter water jug in an insulated holder, and my
meds kit. My kids have their own (pre-used school bags) with flashlight, signal mirror, 500 ml
water jug with insulator, a small toiletry cum first aid kit, mosquito repellant, glow stick,
sunglasses, some energy or chocolate bar (snickers), sunscreen, hat and set of clothes. We all
have a copy of city map in our BOB and I have trained them how to use it and key meet zones in
areas we pre-determined if separated. Relatives and friends houses are likewise marked.
 Survival in a Third World Setting, By Doods Dayto, page 06

3. BOL – this we really don’t have yet except for the provinces mentioned above. I am scouting one
in nearby provinces where I plan to do the following prep:
a. Acquire a fairly secure property away from main roads and inconspicuous from outside
“viewers”, low profile yet inside is a small community, with deep water supply or small
creek or river (possible mini hydro power source as seen on You Tube). I shall have the
area fenced and put “defensive kiosks” in strategic corners
b. Raise goats and chickens. Am taking a course on how to raise “smell-less” pigs and
rabbits. I was taught on how to manage the goat’s appetite by fence manipulation.
c. Growing fruits & veggies (even hydroponics, where am taking a course soon) and plenty
of fruit trees (mangoes! bananas! Sorry no apples here, pineapples yes!) and other fast
growing crops, we’re in the tropics so coconuts will be plentiful, it’s not called “tree of
life” for nothing! We don’t have apples pies but buco pies (young coconut meat)!
d. Carbo crops are so easy to grow, sweet potatoes, cassava, sago, tubers, corn and other
sources of carbohydrates. The root crops tubers can be dried, hand milled to flour-like
consistency and can be prepared in other exciting ways (cassava pancakes are fun!) so
that the kids wont get bored eating boiled root crop all the time! Also leaves of these
crops are also cooked in coconut milk and are excellent protein source.
e. Take care of bees for honey (sweets source) and fruit propagation (good pollinators!)
My mid-term plan if I cannot find/buy this property nearby is to slowly convert our property in
the province and start it’s conversion and move there, especially if the city has started showing
its crumbling. Lucky for me, a sister have since settled in our property, and slowly homesteading
and creating many survivalist-like conditions in our piece of land. Her being an Adventist helped
(am still a devout Catholic btw) and except for the pigs and rabbits, we have agreed on most
above and have already (she and her husband ) began work, including her cooking (in firewood
stoves) of many of our local food into vegetarian version, getting most of the stuff from around
her place.
4. Desirables in a bug-out/BOL scenario (at least ours, given our condition/situation)
a. FRS radio, three sets so we can have one each plus one extra
b. G19 in a Roni kit with shell catcher
c. Of course, a better all-weather BOV. The tiny truck is dead on the water, literally, in
our flooded streets (rain drenched typhoon scenario)
d. A full medical kit (with small surgical capacity)
e. Full-auto rifle- AR-15 and the like! With tons of ammo (of course I want to write
here 50 cal. mounted in a jeep but well…..)
f. Full water treatment system!
g. Solar Panels and arrays of long life batteries!
h. A full farming seed supply for tropical setting, including hand operated farming
tools
i. and many more…

Surviving in a third world country “blessed” with many typhoons and other calamities is not for peeps with
a faint heart. Our people are used to this, and unlike those Katrina victims holed up in the coliseums (?),
we do not fight, blame the government and create riots and the like but would, in acceptance, move on
and switch on to our survival mode, an instinct we all seem to have. Total strangers can be allowed even in
the simplest homes and shared meals no matter how small it may seem. We are a “survival mode” country
24/7/365. We’ve been thru a lot and we may continuously do so, meteorites forgiving! But me and my
family, of course will continuously be on alert, and prepped.