Finishing up February: Culture, History, and a Walk in the Cemetery

March is a good month.  We celebrated 51 years of marriage, my 74th birthday, and LeRon's 73rd in the past 10 days.  Nice to get the celebrating done all at once.  Here in the Philippines, it's not a faux pas to ask anyone's age.  They do it all the time.  And really, why not?  We should be proud that we've made it this far!  According to google (who knows everything), Filipino women live to be 72.8 and men live to be 66.9.  Average age is 26 (meaning that half the population is under 26 and half is over).  So, so far, we are beating the odds, at least here in the Philippines.  (LeRon's Aunt Barbara from B.C., Canada, is 99!!)

Many of the sisters I work with in the temple are widows, even the younger sisters.  (We call the female temple workers "sisters" and the male temple workers "brothers.")  Life is hard here and if you can't afford medical treatment and nutritious food, or if a typhoon or earthquake hits you, you die.  So sad.

Now . . . trying to finish up the February pictures from our trip to Manila. 

And we've learned a new Filipino phrase:  "salamat po."  Salamat (pronounced sah-lah'-mit with the accent on the second syllable) means "thank you."  Po doesn't mean anything particular.  It's just an honorific-type word, probably like "thank you sir" or "thank you ma'am."  Sometimes it seems that they say "po" after every phrase.  We've heard it more in Manila than in Cebu, but we hear it here also.  Sometimes they say "Thank you" in English and then end with Po.  They get a kick out of it when we say "salamat po" to them.  They think we have arrived!

Pictures follow of a wonderful cultural show, a historic walk, and white crosses in the cemetery.

A delicious buffet at Barbara's Heritage Restaurant was followed by a 45-minute cultural show.  Fun music and colorful dancing.  A few very short video clips follow.  I keep the clips short (only seconds long) so I can send them to my grandkids on Voxer, which only supports very short videos.  The three musicians were very good and the music very Spanish-sounding, as you will see.

This was the most fascinating dance of them all.  Each girl had a cup of colored water on her head and cups of water in her hands.  They twirled and danced and even lay on the floor for a few moves.  I took a video (which follows) but my phone camera couldn't keep focusing on the motion, so the last few seconds are blurry.  At the end of the dance, they took the cups off their heads to prove they weren't attached to their hair.  I was sure they had been glued on.

Pretty impressive.  Dancing on a very short, narrow table, held sturdy by two of the performers.

The show went on and on.  So good.

Final hurrah at Barbara's Heritage Restaurant and cultural show.  We're traveling with L-R: Elder & Sister Stirland, Elder & Sister Andreasen, and us, Elder & Sister Torrie.  Fun times.

My hat is on and I am ready to head out into the heat.  Next stop: Fort Santiago in Intramuros.  I feel that I am looking more and more like my mother!  Scary thought: my mother, Pearl (Hancock) Conrad, passed away at age 75.  I am 74.  I need to make the most of each day and each year.

Fort Santiago was built by the Spanish in 1571 to protect the newly built city of Intramuros.  It became a notorious prison for the Spanish, then American, and then later, Japanese forces.  Its most famous prisoner was José Rizal, the Filipino National Hero, who was a political activist, using words instead of guns.  Rizal was executed here in 1896.

American and Filipino troops fought against the Japanese occupation in the month-long Battle of Manila (Feb-Mar 1945). This is all that remains of the American barracks.  100,000 civilians were murdered by Japanese forces, or were caught in cross fire as they holed up in churches, universities, and other public buildings.  So brutal.  

The walls of Fort Santiago now enclose a beautiful public park.  Such a stark difference between then and now.

We learned a lot from our Fort Santiago guide, Ed, who specializes in tours for seniors.  He was excited when we told him that we were living in the Philippines for one year as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He hadn't thought of it for many years, but now he remembered that he had had LDS friends in his youth.  In fact, he had been studying about our church, but then life got in the way.  He was excited to reconnect with the feelings he had had and we were happy to share a little about the joy the gospel brings us.

Ed had been an excellent tour guide and he was happy to know a little more about our church and to receive some generous tips from everyone.  Tips that he certainly deserved.  We plan to check back on him and be sure the missionaries in Manila contact him. 

The reconstructed main gate of Fort Santiago.  The fort was named for St. James, the patron saint of Spain.  For some unknown reason (to me), James is "Santiago" in Spanish.

Last day in Manila was spent at the Manila American Cemetery of WWII.  There are 17,206 graves, including graves of Americans, Filipinos, and other allies.  36,300 missing soldiers are also honored in the "Tablets of the Missing."

So sobering.  So many young lives lost.

Freedom comes at such a cost.

The largest WWII Japanese internment camp for civilians was at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.  From 1942 to 1945, 3,000 to 5,000 enemy civilians (mostly American and British) lived in crowded and unsanitary conditions.  They did their best to survive and help each other.  Filipinos often threw food and other supplies over the walls to help the prisoners.  Read about the above young girl who was 8 years old when she was first interned.  And she was just one of many.

Students on a field trip to the American Cemetery.  Their lives are so very different from the lives of children interned in Santo Tomas.  The young boy in the white shirt wanted me to take him to Canada in my suitcase.  Life is still not easy here in the Philippines for the majority of people.

Back at our hotel in the Manila Galleria Mall.  Everyone is gearing up for the Chinese New Year.

We're back home in Cebu City and tonight, the Chinese New Year gets loud and the fireworks beautiful.  February 17, 2026.

Nice that we have a perfect view out our bedroom window.

I was pretty proud of my fireworks pictures.  Am learning how to take night photos.

The END for now!