A party in the cementery

by Emilio Tejera (Spain)

Making a local connection Philippines

I cannot say I didn't want to go there, but I did really not expect what we finally found. We had a one-day scale in Manila in our ten-days trip around Philippines and, as we had visited the city a few times before, we risked to look for a new experience and go to a living cementery. I had previously read about people living among the tombs, sharing their space and furnitures with dead bodies; I knew that there were cementeries like that in other countries, but this was the first time I had a close chance to visit one. My feelings were mixed: I have never been an enthusiastic of "poor-people tourism" (that is, just to look at the terrible experiences of people with worse luck than me, and later go back home and tell yourself, from a comfortable armchair, <<how fortunate we are>>). However, I was interested in watching how people who have nothing can make a rutine on that atypical situation, and how that unusual lifestyle can change your mind. First at all, I must say it was not easy to arrive. Signalling pathways is not a priority for Philippinos, and we got lost a couple of times, even although we got some directions from policemen. The place wasn't the most elegant one in town, and in certain moments (speciallly, when a group of workers stopped their van to make a pee in front of a wall we were walking around), I thought that visit had been a bad idea, and I remembered the advice of a travel book which recommended us not to make that kind of tour alone. However, when we arrived, the surprise was incredible. It was close to Halloween, and it looked that everybody that had relatives buried in that cementery had come there to tribute their figures, so they were carrying gifts and flowers. But, in contrast with the Chinese cementery (which was close to the Philippino one, and we had visited an hour before), the environment was not serious and respectful, with families burning offerings and spending their time in the giant mini-houses dedicated to their ancestors (in fact, mausoleum had even toilets). In the Philippino area, on the contrary, it seemed there was a party. There were street food stands in the entry of the cementery, the people was walking cheerfully with the family along the great corridors of the facility, and groups of kids (most of them, probably inhabitants of the place) were playing among the tombs and with the visitors, including my girlfriend and me, while we were amazed about what a variety of colours can be present in a cementery. We observed how great mausoleums dedicated to heroes of the country alternated with simple groups of tombs where a couple of sheets preserved the intimacy of a family living inside, containing all what is required to maintain a modest, very austere, but, after all, ordinary life; food, daylife objects, a fan to prevent high temperatures, and even a space to be used as a shop to sell souvenirs to the tourists. Of course, the festive situation we found there did not hide that this kind of life is a though one: electricity and water are luxury priviledges, you are exposed to weather harshness, and most of residents in this cementery must work many hours a day to feed their families. However, look from another perspective: in Philippines, most people is very poor, and their weak houses are periodically destroyed by typhoons, which force people to abandon their homes and start over again. Thinking from that point of view, cementery dwellers at least have strong walls in their houses (the walls of mausoleum and tombstones they take care and maintain clean for their owners), and, somehow, they go on. And I think that is the most relevant quality of Philippinos: no matter how difficult the situation is, they always come over the troubles with a mix of optimism and resilience that has helped them to survive despite invassions, periodical monsoons and wars. That makes it the kind of place in which, inside a cementery, you could find life in all splendor, waiting always for better times to come.