Cebu Cebu Cebu what can I tell about you… you are black, dusty, clamorous, far apart from glamorous, as far as I have discovered, with its endless hammering traffic, jeepneys, trucks, motorized or pedal tricycles, with sun umbrellas, with food stall constructions, anything you can imagine pedals, rides, exhausts, smoke-blowing monstrosities. Busy sidewalks. Shops everywhere. Real asian downtown. Trash and trash. Prostitutes, junkies, pimps, beggars, street persons, humans, living somewhere, around here, digging for gold, a bowl of rice. A compact Manila, this is how it reveals to me. Nearly less white people and if so, the average age is about maybe 60. Guess prostitutes are more cheap here, where poverty is conspicuous, lost between lostness. White scumbags, in their old jacketed flesh, backfire all along the line. It makes me sick. One guy is sitting in a wheel chair, greeting me, with a beer in his lap. It´s noon. Another has a seat next to me, at a small buffet restaurant, which you can find countless in Cebu. With his “nurse”, lining up his medicine on the table and explaining how you cook traditional filipino food. I am truly sorry for your sickness. I am sorry you can not afford treatment in your home country, but why you just walk away and die.
True, true romances really exist, this is not one of these.
I left, standing in front of the restaurant, deciding where to go next, which random direction. A truck passes by, loaded with people, workers, commuters, sharing the cheapest way, hitch-hiking back home, packed with a bunch of drag queens. I suddenly hear techno. The ladies beckon me over. I see confetti, sun sparkling confetti. I … a guy is bumping into me. What lasts are sweet drag court ladies, waving kisses, I reply, giggling. I recognize in comparison lots of homosexuals. How does this match with the church? Most of them are obviously broken, this is how.
I ran into a crew of street kids around any of the next corners, had a chat and of course, I had to take a picture. Sort of made them proud. Happens basically a lot here, posing for money randomly. They crew is presenting their tattoos, mostly their names, sort of a dog tag, even the names are barely readable. One of the teens seems to me the bible basher, harping on about my 666 tattoo in my face. “Why you have 666 on your body?” In his face severe lack of understanding. “If you die, you can not go to heaven you go to hell.” moral pointing finger towards heaven, like a possessed priest. “But my soul has no body.” The other kids break out in laughter. “No, my friend, no worries, I am fine with down here. I ask them where they sleep. “We sleep on the street. Here.” In front of a ruined former shop. “Are there no organizations or something similar, who can help you?” “No.” “What is with the church? You are religious, right?” Yes, we sometimes visit the mass on sunday. To pray.” “Do they provide food or sometimes shelter?” “No. We beg for food at shops like here.” explained one of them, the oldest one I suppose, pointing at a shop nearby, showing me his acting skills as a beggar. – Fucking religion. HATE!!!
Near a busy, I mean, here busy means your senses are freaking out in looniness, crossroad, a boy lying prone, sleeping on the sidewalk, his face, his piercing cry carved in the asphalt. Silence. A cap at his left with some coins. A teenager, pulling vigorous a wagon packed with boxes roadside, stumbles, drops his delivery. The traffic reacts honking. But that´s it. Nobody helped him picking up the boxes, before something more serious happens. If he would have hit by a car, I am sure he would be surrounded by a big wild stare.
The coastfront at one of the mainroads entering Cebu City was someday in the past arranged as a nice walk under the stars, breathing the vastness of the sea, escaping the daily dust for a kiss under palmtrees, slightly enlightened by some laterns. Today it´s a shame of a romance. Even though it´s a place where homeless and street kids wash their clothes, napping or try their luck with the fishing line.
A hobo, out of his mind evidently, picks up a spit of wood from the drainage channel streetside, which has been whenever a delicious roasted whatever, with a rest of something still spiked and without any investigation of it, he sticks it into his mouth. I saw so many hobos, everywhere, shadowless, the men loosing their shorts, hardly can call them one, a piece of rag, binded by dirt and excretions, running up and down downtown, supervising their madness. No shoes, no shirts. The women sometimes only in a bra. Some of them have tremendous potbellies, some are as skinny as the stick, with a tiny piece of meat on it. These sceneries in the middle of downtown. Police I haven´t seen a lot, except a strange operation, four completely black dressed special forces fighting machines on their motocross bikes suddenly appeared, surrounding one guy, plainclothes, in the same type of bike, two left after exchanging some signs, wordless, the other two conducted the, I suppose, superior, in high speed. Some citizens were watching. Couldn´t explain the event either, but for sure, messing with these guys is not the best idea.
I am excited what will happen tomorrow, curing my fucking flue on my comofotable new room, in a hotel half up with white wrinkles. In a way, stupid to compare even though, Cebu reminds me a bit to Surabaya. Means, I love it, the city is painfully honest.
