Bebo

Read Chapters

	HEYJOE
	A huge array of floats with Jesus and Mary statues bedecked with flowers and festooned with flashing fairy lights, was heading to the Quirino Grandstand. Great throngs of people came dressed in their finery, many looking like American evangelists. Dancers in beaded and feathered headdresses with blacked out faces and garish costumes and young boys banging away on drums, in a Rio-style carnival atmosphere. The Philippines version of Mardis Gras. The participants went on stage and the floats lined up in front of the stadium. Then began the singing and the dancing and the drumming in this other worldly celebration of life. Statues of the Virgin Mary were held high (strangely they were all white skinned with curly blonde hair) as speeches were made and incantations recited. During the performance I went up on stage - well, to one side of the stage - and looked out at the huge crowd of thousands before me. Apart from a couple of invited dignitaries, I think I was the only white person there. Yet I didn’t feel alone or isolated, I was on a bit of a high really. It was only on returning to the UK that feelings of alienation crept in. I wonder if all travellers think like that. So the carnival went on with rapturous adoration and I looked on in wonderment. What a great introduction to this amazing country.
Review this Story >>>