Long distance walk today again. It is sunday and I am in a mostly christian country, so time for me to pursue my passion, shooting closed directness, the in between. It calms me down. It eases my pain, my anger, my pulsing rage. Pure meditation. Colors. Forms. Disfunction. The symphony of deconstructive beauty. Hanged around at a basketball court, chatting about sports, perceiving I am old school. “But Michael Jordan!” Puh, that was close to a fatal miss, ending in a middlife crisis. Unfortunately I was wearing flip-flops and still struggling with cold, otherwise I would have enjoyed to get on fire, more probable gasping for breath after the first tackle. Being invited at a poor district, straight opposite to the municipal administration – cebu really doesn´t care about the growing and heavy poverty at all, in a weird way – by some cool guys, having barbeque streetside, where else. Rum, chicken feet, called adi-das here, because of the three claws, haha I fuckin´ love the Phillipines, and their chicks, taking care of the flavour. And again, lovely chat, but no booze and anyway no adi-das. I saved the location on my map, next time, bros.
Today is the International Day of Peace. In Cebu they celebrate for a week some multicultural, multireligious get-together. I ran into a tribe named Alimaong. The more looked like a motorcycle club, not only because of their prints on the back of their frocks, Supreme Council of Datus, the flaming sword below and the name of the tribe. As a pocket print the rank of the person and his name, I only recognized men with frocks. Pretty militant. Datus means rich, meaning strong, meaing general. So I was surrounded by the echelon, invited – seriously, again, you metal metal metal my days – again, yes, to walk with them, at the soon starting parade, with other tribes, muslim communities, the 53rd engineer infantery, a police music ensemble and more. But the Alimoang would have been anyway my choice, without thinking. Ilil, if I can remember his name correctly, introduced me to some of his mates, other tribe members. I was interested about their jewelry. Necklaces with native handcraft. Amulets, made of glass or coconut, with the all-seeing eye. On the back a pentagramm with some other symbols I couldn´t identify. You are not allowed to touch, because than the warrior spirit inside might transfer to you. “He protects us.” And lots more other stories teasing my curiosity heavily. Ilil lives in a cave, he said, not finished yet, but I am always welcome and he would love to show me around their territory. Than there was this guy with his 14 year old Boah, sticking her head completely in his mouth, to attract me in particular, I felt straight connected, but more in particular with the whole situation. How did I run into this again again? – What a lovely asian edition of a non-chauvinistic motorcycle-club-without-motorcycles around me. Long furious hairs, sunglasses, kind of a gaze and women in tiger leggings. “I have to go now my friend, but I would love to accept your invitation, my friend. I will contact you via mail.” “Sure my friend, nice to meet you and if you not come back, we will see each other in our dreams anyway.” If you would have heard about his dreams – I don´t know if he meant it as a threat or… I will, with renewed strength next year, follow their road anyway. It´s such an intense mix of culture, tradition and an ancient spiritual world, seems discoverable everywhere on the Philippines, even though most connected I feel to the Kalinga tribes, to mention the name still gives me the creep and fills my heart with passion and inspiration.
I left the Plaza Independencia, the final destination of the parade, where the groups gathered, prayed, in the variety of attending religions, demonstrating tolerance and respect, for improvement and peace in the future, especially for the south of the Philippines, which was and nowadays still is a precarious situation between christians and muslims.
I left the Plaza. Passing a church, with its belltower under construction, the inner yard crowded with people. Some worshipping. Sunday, told you. And as you might have expected, as you started to read this entry, I am not finished with this sunday. I watched a priest, blessing kids, in the arms, enfeebled by endless hunger and diseases, of their mothers or siblings, through a closed gate, sticking his hand through the bars, imposing, with a simple-minded smile, open-hearted or generous maybe he would describe it. Not ten meters from the church street kids lying in dirt, with sometimes less than rags on their bodies. Sleeping, on each other. Babies. I feel pain, so much pain and hate inside me. I feel so helpless. I am sorry to bother you with these images of poverty, but this is what I see, I can´t avoid, I am human, I feel responsible, even if my way to take responsibility is maybe striking and for sure a paradox version of not-enough. If you want to look at something else, by a high-gloss magazine. They mostly don´t have parents anymore. Or they have but they can npt take care of them anyway. They take care of each other, any kind of ages. They ask me for money. I don´t like to give money, not one of them, but… and barely I had the bills out of my pocket, he squeezed the batch of – three how much ever – proof of men´s doom, said something like thank you, smiled and ran away. More kids. No more money. Inside more tears, more hate. I don´t judge the church – oh yes, yes I do! Not only, but yes, I do! Religion itself. If you are the fleshly messengers of your creators, you are the most uncreative scumbags I have ever seen, you haven´t learned a mind movement from your teacher. Go back to heaven.