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Spending The Day (And Often The Night) With The Whole Family In A Cebu Cemetery Part 1.

The first day of November is All Saints Day. The next day is All Souls Day. Or the other way around. Or both on the one day. It all depends on which explanation from my Asawa I was willing to accept as the right one. It varied each time I asked. I often do that, ask the same question several times or in slightly different ways. The answers rarely remain constant, just another part of the rich tapestry of life in this country.

Basically this is the drum. After Halloween, or all hallows eve, the witches and Onggu’s and evil spirits stop messing about and it’s time to nip down the cemetery, or “cement-tary” in Bisayan, and pay some respects to the dear departed. Apparently they go out and paint the town red on the 31^st October, then settle back into their crypts the next day, ready for the rellies’ visit.

Trying to get anywhere on All Saints/All Souls Day (I’ll combine them for the time being until told otherwise) is not impossible but it is fraught with drama. Buses and jeepneys run from the early hours and all are over loaded, packed to the rafters and then even more hardy souls perch on the roof and risk falling off. This does happen and if lucky they fall to the side which doesn’t have oncoming traffic to contend with! The police and traffic enforcers do actually try and curb the more obvious excesses, at least this is the explanation Asawa gave me this year when I asked why there were so many cops about. Last year it had something to do with overtime payments and the year before that it was a blank stare. Of course that was the first year we were married and communications have improved considerably since.

Having our own vehicle is a big help, of course this now means we can transport the entire family back to the vast family estates in Calape. So I decree that we will leave bright and early, spot on 6am. Naturally the city based family members (and the youngest sister who has been spending her High School break with us), arrive several days before the departure date. This allows them to re-acclimatise with living in close proximity to a foreigner, as well as tuck in to the ice cream, chocolate and other foreigner goodies that are regularly stocked at Chez Bear. Not that I eat them that often, but the Asawa and Anaks have all developed a taste for expensive imported foreigner foodstuffs! So have the rest of the family but I really don’t mind. I enjoy having them around, saves me washing the car, running to the sari sari and lots of other menial tasks.

So as I said, spot on 7am we depart. I am nothing if not Lord of All I Survey, the Supreme Leader! The Asawa pays lip service to my authority as only a “sub-servient” Asian wife can. Not sure how that myth ever got started but it is a standing joke in our household. So off we go, seven souls in a small sedan on All Saints/ All Souls Day. First stop was Jollibee so I could berate the staff for not having the Sausage and Egg Sunrise (like a McMuffin, but sweeter, of course). It is a 50/50 deal whether they will have the only western style breakfast item available during breakfast time. They will have fried chicken and rice, spaghetti, hotdogs, funny noodle dishes and burgers full of sugar but don’t expect them to have any breakfast items. It is all too hard for them to order the ingredients or make the items, far easier to just make the Filipino things they are comfortable with. We later stopped at another Jollibee where the girl was told several times the order was for two of these Sunrises, and of course after a 15 minute wait while they made it, she’d only ordered one. So then we waited another 15 minutes.

Back on the road I introduced the tribe to The Angels, at full volume, of course. Hard Aussie Rock didn’t seem to go down well, but Barry White did. I’ll keep that in mind but listening to the CD three times in a row proved to be too much, even for the most die hard Barry White fan on board. Meanwhile, with the tribe alternately chattering away or sleeping, the kilometres rolled under the wheels and we closed in on Calape. We stopped in Bogo and stocked up with meat and vegetables, UHT “fresh” milk and anything else that would be scarce to non-existent in Calape, like toilet paper.

Bogo has two main cemetery’s and like every other town we had passed through on the way they were doing a roaring trade. Stalls set up along the perimeter fence sold food and drinks, toys, candles, flowers and cell phones. Maybe they thought the dear departed would text them or were simply cashing in on the crowds. The police were there in force wondering whether they should try and control the traffic. While the Asawa shopped I watched and noticed they had a “No Entry” sign up and were trying to operate a one way circuit to ease congestion. After half an hour I saw a discussion take place and the sign was removed, the cops retired to the shade of a cold drink stall and life went on. I was silly enough to venture over and ask one of the cops why had they taken down the “No Entry” sign? He replied that since virtually nobody was taking any notice of it, they might as well take it down and let the traffic get on with it!

ALL SOULS DAY, FILIPINO FAMILY FUN.

Spending The Day (And Often The Night) With The Whole Family In A Cebu Cemetery Part 2.

Bogo has two main cemetery’s and like every other town we had passed through on the way they were doing a roaring trade. Stalls set up along the perimeter fence sold food and drinks, toys, candles, flowers and cell phones. Maybe they thought the dear departed would text them or were simply cashing in on the crowds. The police were there in force wondering whether they should try and control the traffic. While the Asawa shopped I watched and noticed they had a “No Entry” sign up and were trying to operate a one way circuit to ease congestion. After half an hour I saw a discussion take place and the sign was removed, the cops retired to the shade of a cold drink stall and life went on. I was silly enough to venture over and ask one of the cops why had they taken down the “No Entry” sign? He replied that since virtually nobody was taking any notice of it, they might as well take it down and let the traffic get on with it!

Don’t you just love this place? Back home people would obey the sign, or the police would start kicking some butt and make them obey. Here, they accepted the will of the people and simply ceased to try and regulate! I am impressed they took down the sign before handing the streets back to the traffic, that showed guts as well as an acceptance of the inevitable.

Once the Asawa was back with the groceries we drove the final 25 kilometres to Calape. The road is pretty rough in places and full of pot holes. With three adults and two small children in the back the suspension was having a hard time keeping the wheel arches from rubbing away the sidewalls of the tyres. Going home we had four adults, two small children and a baby in the back. To a Filipino all that matters is that you can fit in, any effect you might have on other aspects of the vehicle’s operation, like the suspension, is irrelevant. How many Filipino’s fit into the back of a Mitsubishi Lancer? One more!

Once at the vast family estates the Asawa and I borrowed our motorbike, the Lifan 100cc Super Tourer that we had “loaned to the inlaws last year” and tootled off to see our lot. We have a small farm lot in nearby Bagay and like to visit it whenever we are in Calape. My wife’s maternal grandparents have the lot next to ours so a visit was in order. Lolo the Grandfather was in fine form. Drunk as a Lord!

Within moments of being in the same nipa hut as Lolo I was drunk too! He greeted me like a long lost son ( I have to stop palming him peso’s every time we visit but he is a lovely old bloke). He kept yelling “Ya Tai!” like some pirate of the Caribbean, rolling the last syllable and adding other unintelligible words. Even my Asawa and her Aunt couldn’t understand what he was saying over and over. I decided to quote from Shakespeare’s’ “Henry V”, something I have found handles most situations where you haven’t a clue what to say!

He changed to “arrrgh! Ha tai!” for a while once he realised I meant what I said when I included him in my “band of brothers”. The line about “be he ne’er so vile this day shall gentle his condition” actually made sense to me in a way it never had before! We then “arrrrgh! Ha tai-ed” our way outside where I was able to break free while the Asawa distracted him with some beer money. He is a lovely old gentleman and so is his wife. Well, she smokes hand rolled cigars better than any man I ever met! She can keep the whole thing in her mouth, then open her lips and curl the stogey out on the end of her tongue! At over six hundred years old, that is quite a feat!

We dropped in at the cemetery on the way back, more to check out the roof we had paid for than to really do the All Saints/ All Souls thing. My Asawa would do that later or the next day with her sisters and mother. There were three boys at the plot next to ours. All around 12, one was kicking at the gate to the mausoleum type structure. I asked him if that was his family’s plot and he cast his eyes downward in shame, but replied that yes, it was. I told him to show a little respect to whoever paid for the gate and not kick the “tahi” out of it. If this were Australia, the UK or America you can imagine the response. But this is the Philippines. With eyes cast downwards and a chorus of sorry’s, the three boys ceased kicking the gate and started cleaning up the garbage lying around the plot. That would never happen back home, never!

Back at the stately family manse the cousins were running riot. We now had seven small children taking matters into their own hands. I kicked back with a cold beer and the laptop, the Asawa went to visit an old school chum and the kids went for the world record on decibel production from underdeveloped vocal chords. A feast would be available soon, then an easy evening and tomorrow, back to the city and the daily grind. For now, time to sit back and soak in the local colour. For me, that is a nice amber shade with a white frothy head!

Taking A Look At The Cost Of A Funeral.

Unfortunately Philippines law prevents foreigners from operating funeral parlors and that is a shame as they are a very lucrative business, indeed. I know of one Chinoy (Chinese-Filipino) who owns three funeral homes in Cebu and he makes around P3million a month. Even allowing for overheads and expenses, wages and taxes, he still does extremely well by Filipino standards and not too badly by anybody else’s.

As Benjamin Franklin noted, the only two things in life that are certain and unavoidable are death and taxes. In the Philippines you can actually avoid one, but not the other. The whole business of dying makes money for several people. Of course the hospital has usually pumped thousands out of the relatives in a vain last ditch attempt to sustain life. Some canny relatives though, sensing the inevitable, will hold back that last transfusion, knowing the blood will only leak out onto the bed with the rest of the donations (at P1500 a pop!) so why not keep the money and put it toward the funeral? When you live in such close proximity to the poverty line, you learn to be a little more pragmatic than those better off might have to.

Once the patient becomes the deceased, the funeral home is called and a van sent around to pick up the body. The relatives may accompany the body back to the funeral home in the hearse or mortuary van, if only to save on taxi fares and also to ensure the body doesn’t disappear en route. It happens from time to time, especially around the time medical students are in need of body parts for their studies. You think I’m joking, don’t you?

At the funeral home the bereaved will be asked if the deceased had SSS, social security insurance. If they were employed and lucky enough to have paid in SSS contributions, they will have nearly all of their funeral expenses paid for them. Funeral homes like SSS contributors as clients. They know they will get most of their money, guaranteed. SSS pays the firt P20,000 or so of the bill, which guarantees you aren’t getting out of there for less than about P30,000. Fortunately you can pay the balance three days before the interment of the body.

Depending on what standard of service the relatives have asked and paid for, the funeral parlor will begin to prepare the body.. They clean the body and then make an incision and pump it full of preservative. If you have paid for the good stuff then it behooves you to hang around and make sure you aren’t short changed. Some parlors are notorious for slipping in the cheap stuff. If the body is to lie in state for the full ten days or so, then the cheap stuff will have it turning nasty colors before the coffin lid is closed and the body buried. Not nice.

P35,000 buys a nice casket and all the trimmings, such as the stand, the candle sticks and flower baskets, a lectern for the prayer readers to use and so on. You also get the hearse to deliver the body to the house where it will lie in state for up to ten days, and then take it to the church and graveyard.

You can get cheaper caskets but sometimes they have a tendency to soak up the fluids from the body and quickly rot and fall apart in the tropical heat. I have seen one collapse as the body was carried from the house to the hearse, not very dignified.

The ten days lying in state might get expensive also. You may need to hire a marquee to cover the mourners who will be keeping vigil day and night (just in case the deceased changes their mind). Mahjong will be played, refreshments served numerous times a day and a service will be held every night. Same service. Every night. You will pay for the lay preachers to hold the service and of course the musicians, blind ones are preferred.

The priest will show up on the last day and hold a Mass, and expect to be paid of course. The usual minimum is P1000, but wealthier mourners are expected to pay more. On the way to the cemetary you may recoup some of your expenses as passing motorists will throw three coins in front of you to ward off the evil spirits that may be hanging around the procession. When you get to the cemetery you will have had to buy the plot, usually from the Barangay Captain. You need a cement sarcophagus made and once the coffin is entombed, the local mason will come and seal it up for you.

Then, each year when you visit on All Souls Day (1 November) you can plan that roof to shade everyone from the sun, maybe some seating built in and so on. Before that happens you will have been to the Lapidera and ordered the headstone, maybe another P5000 or more, depending on how fancy you order it to be. Watch for spelling and grammar, I have seen references to “Her Wife” and “His Husband” lying there in eternal rest.

All up even a modest funeral can set you back P50,000, say just under US$1000. Halve that if the deceased had SSS insurance, but still quite a burden for the average Filipino family to shoulder. Yes, if it was legal for me to open one, I’d be into the funeral business like a scalded cat.

Surviving Her Moods, One Kano’s Way To Deal With Tampo.

Anyone who has spent any time at all with  Filipinas will know about Tampo. Sulking.  The silent treatment.  Filipina’s have it down to an art form that their western sisters may have once boasted, but have since lost the skill as their masculine side came more to the fore! Tampo is so terminally female, so illogical in its logic, yet so cruelly effective most of the time.  There are ways to defend against it, even fight back but none are as powerful as Tampo itself! Read on.

Tampo is an accepted mode of behaviour within the Filipino culture.  It allows for the offended party to display their hurt and offense without offending anyone else, including whoever offended them in the first place.  Clever, don’t you think?  Coming from a society where it is quite acceptable for someone to run “Amok” and kill as many as they can before being brought down themselves, Tampo is a far less lethal, yet just as effective way of getting your message across.  And nobody dies.
Yes, women do the tampo, men run amok, you didn’t think it would be the other way around did you?

So the gentler sex has this weapon at her disposal that can cut a man dead as quickly as a strike from a Bolo.  Not literally, but figuratively.  When you are on the receiving end of tampo, you know it!
She will not talk to you, harsh punishment from a woman of any nationality as women place more store in communication and conversation than men do.  For a Filipina, a person brought up in a culture that places the group above the individual and getting along with everyone in that group more important than personal advancement, not speaking to you is really playing hard ball.

For us foreigner men we might actually enjoy the silence, the hours or days free from nagging or shrew like remarks but this will be short lived.  She will tune in and realise that we are actually enjoying the peace and quiet and so she will up the intensity a little.  Some physical contact and cold shouldering will come into play.  Doors will be subtley slammed, plates crashed down on the table in front of us and other signals will be sent to show that we are being punished and that we should not enjoy the process!

Repeated attempts to get her to explain why she isn’t talking to you will be met with silence.  After all, she isn’t talking to you, remember?  If she did give you an answer it wouldn’t make sense to  your
logic restricted male brain. Nor would it necessarily be anything more than a representation of her emotional state, devoid of any tangible connection to anything you have ever said or done, but perhaps things you may have intended, thought or could one day perhaps, maybe, might, possibly do.  Like I said, forget logic, reason and trying to make any sense of the situation.  Simply accept you did worng, you are being punished and you have a duty to make ammends.

This will entail paying lots of attention to her over considerable periods of time.  No matter how much she ignores you, keep at it. It may take days or it may be only hours but slowly she will allow you to
do little things for her and she may even speak directly, albeit abruptly, to you.  Gradually she will soften further and tehn before you know it she will be the warm, loving asawa of old and you had
better warm up and forget the cold time and be ready to go on as if nothing happened!  If, like me, you find it difficult to be sexually aroused after a few hours of tampo, then don’t be surprised if she
goes right back into full blown tampo because you don’t love her anymore! You should be girding your loins as the ice melts and be ready to perform, studlike, as a show, proof shall we say of your love, devotion, fidelity, etc etc.

Remember, to a Filipina there is no shame in showing tampo, or being in tampo.  In fact the others in the family or barkada will have respect for her because she has a problem and she is dealing with it the right way and without embarrassing herself or anyone else by yelling and screaming. Like what us foreigners usually do!

Does it work the other way?  Can a foreinger husband tampo the wife? I guess you can but I realy can’t see it having the desired effect.  It really is a female thing but I really don’t agree with the men’s
way of showing their displeasure, beating up the wife.  The alternative is to grab the Bolo and “run amok!”.  I’ll try hiding in my den for an hour or two!