Arriving in the Philippines from Hong Kong hits you like a slap in the face. "Life is hard and then you die", I don't know who said it, but they probably said it in the Philippines. It's hard for me to take photos here. Outside of the compound I'm staying, I'm pretty much the only white guy. Everybody sees me and everybody stares. Even in Hong Kong when I walked to areas that were Chinese only, I still felt my invisibility cloak was working. But here is a different story.
We visited my mother-inlaw's grave yesterday and the sky opened up. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain, the full deal. Fe told the kids that Lola (Grandmother) was angry, because we had visited the swimming pool before visiting her grave. Superstition is a big thing for Filipinos. The guy (above) asked if he could hitch a lift on the back of the van (converted to a small minibus) that we were traveling in. He was a character.
There's so much beauty here, but such terrible conditions for the majority of the population. We live such a privileged life in the west (all though I think that's changing), even struggling photographers should think themselves lucky. If we can afford to buy a camera and a couple of lenses, then we're doing ok in my book.
Janel sulks in the corner of our hotel in Cebu (above) . This doesn't happen too often thankfully. I look at my kids on this trip and hope that these will become amazing memories when they get older. I tell them how lucky they are to be able to travel to places that their classmates at school will probably never see. I hope that some day when I'm no longer here, they will sit around a table with their own kids, looking at grandpa's photos and telling them what a great childhood they had. I hope so! They're sitting a few feet away from me right now, watching Filipino TV with Fe. I've got tears in my eyes and I'm grateful for what I've got' The keyboard is getting blurred, so I'll just stop typing here and leave the rest of this post to photos. and captions. It's a short life...LIVE IT NOW!
Fe let's the kids stroke a small stray bird in the airport.
Blind musicians play at Cebu airport.
It turned out that the plane we flew in from Cebu was the same one that went off the runway a few weeks before.
My nephew Ken, a really nice dude.
Full circle. The wrath of Lola.