It took less than one hour I was soaked, by rain, and surrounded by prostitutes and viagra sellers, sitting in a roadside turkish snack bar, drinking tea, eating shish kebab, investigating arabs bargaining with smart phone sellers. I have to learn. Couple of minutes ago I bought a locker, staying at hostels always makes me feel uncomfortable, not because of the staff more because of the travellers. But the Philippines are quite a tower of coins more expensive than Cambodia or Vietnam. Coins! They have coins here, pesos is the currency and it happens to me always, arrived, exchanged money and getting ripped off – just two dollars finally, before I can convert. I would like to learn first before I have to learn. And it´s true, they population here speaks excellent english. My plan was not to drink during my holiday. – Yes, I am on holiday! And being traced by all this cheeky and smart business ladies, I should definitely NOT go to a bar. How stupid I am having booked a room one corner away from the red light district, located in Makati, a sort of downtown quarter of Metro Manila. Skyscratching apartment towers, shopping malls, high-end restaurants, mobile happy end massage trailors, decaying mold covered stuffed with waste houses, constructions sites everywhere, varity of churches, walled and secured urban villa towns (what you expect, richy rich, isolating from society in such an obvious and down-looking way), any kind of food, beggars, bankers, bikers, riders, policemen supplied with pump guns, upper and lower, classes of the masses – this city reminds me to Singapore, a bit more apocalyptic. And a strong influence of american culture. I love it, immediate. How can you not explore the nightlife here! But I am gravely scared to hang around in their territory, knowing myself, the amorous rampage! Less that I wake up in a trailor, wouldn´t mind at all, more I don´t and spend my money on drinking and keeping them away. At least I have some condoms – thanks Joost – in my pocket, well, on my room. The girls could easily act in an anti-starve-for-a-model-job or anti-drug whatever fucked up campaign. I leave the snack bar, so put yourself together! I am less eye-catching on the street, in conclusion the Philippines has a very energetic tattoo scene. Haven´t seen that many asian people with basically professionell tattoos. About this, we will talk in a couple of days more, about headhunters and warriors, guarded by ink. Back to the booze. The receptionist handed out a useful advice, don´t drink on the street, fee is 1.500 pesos. I replied, “No problem, I don´t drink.” Haha. How dare you. After the shish kebab, still daylight and raining of course, I allowed myself a beer and a shortie package of cigarettes. But they had a promotion, three beers for only 150 pesos and the name of the beer sounded so interesting, Red Horse, fucking 8,9 %. Bit of primed I was browsing around, ran into a guy, who was waiting for me, more and literally searching for me, awaken and told by his friend, a deaf-mute parking-lot checker, that a man with a beard send from heaven to help him. Jojo, who sleeps under a tree next to the parking-lot, sometimes in it, to feel more safe. He was deported from the US. Reminded me a bit of Khosal´s story at first, so I listened to his life-story during he was guiding me to a famous tattoo studio, propably to get commission I thought. He has beaten up a white woman. They locked him up and than deported him to his home country. There he was blamed, punished and humiliated in public for weeks, “because of the catholicism.” he explained with a strong american accent, why I believed him. At the tattoo studio we enjoyed a warmly welcome. One of the artists was tattooing and the other drawing. They hardly greeted him. So no commission and I was straight away sure, that I don´t wanna hanh out with these snobbish kids. So we left. Passed restaurants packed with senior white guys. I have never seen such an unbalance of travelling sexes. Viagra junkies. Couple of weeks earlier, having reached his home of tree again, Jojo told me at the hospital they discovered, after a tame accident, that he has diabetes. Ten dollars is the shot. The doctor suggested to amputate his leg. Jojo left. He has to afford treatment, every day. The church puts not its other cheek in the line. No other social service. Just his deaf-mute friend, who wakes him up if an angel falls from the sky. They reminded me in a way to Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, a younger versin of them. I gave him ten dollars. He embraced me, with true gratefullness. He passed his friend 200 pesos. “We have to share, otherwise we both will not survive. He is my only friend I have.” Than he started this angel speech. Christ! How can you believe in something, which crucifies you every day. It´s everything he has. “I don´t like what you did, but I hope and I see, you served your sentence already.” “I want to invite you tomorrow for a real filipino breakfast. Now I have to go my friend, I need to go to hospital for the shot.” – I will not have breakfast with him tomorrow. I will learn later, from expats, rarely but friendly ones, that his story his true, but Jojo has lost control. They offered help but he messes it up, selling phones they provided him, so he can call them if he needs help, being attacked or not being able to afford a shot, etc. I will be back on my room at 2 a.m., pretty late for a guy who doesn´t drink. I will loose the next day on dealing with my hang over, dragging me to the next restaurant and back, trying to figure out where to go next, after Manila… in a country being composed of 7.000 islands, not that easy as you can imagine. And I have for friday an invitation for an expats event. Guess more booze and more girls. But I will leave before. Deal. I asked them about possibilities to set up business here… they laughed, “You would easily find business here, man. You would have just to expose yourself a bit, they would love you here, as an artist and an idol.” based on, nothing is accomplished without sacrifice. So I laughed, for a different reason. I wanna get tattooed, NOW! Face whatever. If so, I wanna have a mask between them and my disability to hide myself.
Footnote: I received today an email from, guess, a NGO, I was working for, for days, for free, of course, me idiot, illustrating a campaign, after doing their job, making a proper concept. They loved it without any questioning and appreciated the professionell consulting, all of them. Today they asked me, because of their sponsoring partners, who like the concept, but… if I can redraw it, because they don´t like how the bird looks like, not birdy enough. I quit. I surrender, NGOs. What da fuck is wrong with you. It was not a matter of criticism, it´s a matter of professionalism, they do just a really worst job. I tried, I failed, mission not accomplished, back to start… not. If I will work again as a full-service provider, I only work for high-end business, they understand at least what I am talking about. I was so pissed, you can imagine. Worked for nothing, not even a reference. I am so done with this. And it kind of feels liberating. I hope NGO can proof me someday wrong. Someday, after many many many days…