The photo you will see below is the graphic description of pain:
It’s the money I had to pay to stay in the Philippines for the third month. The amount is in pesos, calm, but it is still quite a lot of money. Today is March 18 and, after leaving my liver on the table and feeling somewhat poor, I decided to go for a walk alone in Manila and return home to the poor (by train).
In the photo on the right you can see the “gift” they give you after paying all that pile of money, my Filipino tourist IDENTITY card.
On the way to the station I came across “China Town”, I had never been to any China Town in the world and decided I couldn’t miss it. It was, to say the least, a rather curious place. And, well, walking I came across the “dark” part of the city of Manila. The part, probably, poorer.
My friends told me that it was quite dangerous to walk around by myself but, to be honest, I was not afraid. I also have no idea about the crime statistics in Manila but I felt safe, even feeling like a fair elephant (that’s why everyone looks at you in awe for being “white”).
After the last photo on the right my phone ran out of battery and I couldn’t take more pictures of everything I saw afterwards. I also didn’t bring the camera so the rest stayed in my memory. Just below the station I found that which we do not want to believe exists, that which we ignore and do as if it were not with us… That comes a time when, sadly, you even get used to it: women, children, the elderly and people of all kinds sleeping on the floor on top of pieces of cardboard.
I remember perfectly the first time I saw a child sleeping on the street. It was quite a shock for me, I remember how bad it felt to see it. It was in Brazil, in the city of Fortaleza. The boy, who would be about 13 years old, slept on the floor at the door of a bank. He didn’t even have shoes.
Today writing this post I feel like being a little critical. I have to say that next to all this was a huge, clean and very nice church (the one in the photo above). On this subject I am angry 2 things:
- May there be so much inside this building but so little for others.
- That the people, the ones who have nothing, will continue to go and pray to their god to get them out of the situation they are in. As if some divine soul was coming to help them…
I kept walking until I found the MRT station, the tram that would leave me close to home. The map of the mobile (before he died) said that it was exactly in the station … But I did not see anything! After asking a policeman he pointed me up and said, “There.”
Wow, I hadn’t fallen for how smart it is to have a subway/tram on top of the ground instead of underneath. Especially in Manila where there is not too much space left over and where in the rainy season everything is flooded in a brutal way. Wikipedia says that there are officially 1.6 million people in Manila. Only in the city of Manila! But imagine all those people who never registered and all those children who are just born are abandoned and somehow survive on the streets. Locals say that, probably in Manila, there are another million people unregistered.
As I was about to enter the train I lifted the track and stopped suddenly, the train was FULL. Full level:
There was something that caught my attention; in the wagon he was going to enter there were only men. Honestly, I didn’t feel like going into that car and having it touch my soul (and more knowing that in Manila there are a huge number of sexual assaults) and I decided to wait for the next train.
After looking around a little I realized that, there was also a women-onlycarriage! I’m even embarrassed to say this, but what a relief! After this I quietly returned to Quezon City where I am staying at a friend’s house. Since the GPS in my head is broken I am very proud to have come home alone without the help of my smartphone ejeje.
I hope you liked this post. It was quite a curious experience and I hope you have been able to feel a little of what I felt that day.
Julia