Hello there everybody. If you're still reading this then you can tolerate my bad grammer and shitty spell checking. Today, I'm in Puerto galero, a place called sabang to be exact. Just to let you all know first off, My Anthony Bourdain style of eating is still paying off for me. The other day after slurping cow stomachs I took it a step further. For dinner the other night, I ate fried pig intestines mixed with the skin of a baby pig, onions (all finely diced) with rice.. Sounds frighteningly satanic I know.. praise satan. (that was totally a joke)
So, I'm uploading a few photo's at the moment but I have to admit that I still haven't busted out of my photographic bubble. . . I'm getting there though. The truth is that I love being a photographer, I just feel like an ass sometimes flashing a nice camera in the faces of people who have so little. That said, The poor here seem to be the happiest. I met a lady today also who is a missionary from Canada who invited me to photograph the children who live at the big trash dump in Manilla where she does her work for God. I'm going to see if those kids look happy, I doubt it. Since I slipped that Satan joke in there and some of you are still grinding your teeth about my heathenism, you should know how inspired and heartfelt I was for her cause.. and yes, in the name of God. Nuff said!
So, yesterday I took a ride to this little island on a pretty cool passenger boat. Then got a room and fell asleep until late enough to do the usual evening walk, get a one hour (professional-meaning no happy ending!) Massage for 5 dollars and have a few beers. We're getting close to the rainy season here (I love tropical rain) so every night there's a lightening storm over the ocean. I watched mine last night in awe of the power that is our earth.
Today, I rented a moped and drove around the island. First to some waterfalls where ,cool enough, the owner of the mopeds sons raced out there to meet me to show me the best swimming spots. We joked and laughed, I let them play with my camera and swam.
Today was hot! At first It was silly, I felt the sunburn coming on and told myself that my skin was just "drunk with the sun" .. Yeah.. Now my skin has a hangover!
After the waterfall, I drove to the other side of the island to "white beach" for lunch and told everybody my name was Santiago ricardo domingo smith for fun and that I was from a place near Holland called "you'llnotknow" and that since it was actually an island and that if one was to refer to my home as a nonresident they would have to call it "isle notknow" --- Jerk! I know. I always give in and tell them it's a joke in the end and we laugh whoever it is.
Now, Sunburnt like the bad ass mopedrider that I am, I'm taking it easy waiting for that evening lightening storm.
Here's my attempt at a moment of ZEN- how commercial I know! (I could stop here and that would totally be it. But I wont)
I met an old Filipino man who when asked where a good place to eat exotic national food was told me just to find the most expensive place to eat saying in a loud and pronounced v oice "cheap will cheat you" Now it's funny because I talked to an ex pat living here the same night who told me that the reason to live here was because it was so beautiful and cheap.. but even further down the chain of conversations of that night another ex patriot that I spoke with who had lived here for even longer than the first expat told me the same thing as the first old Filipino man.. mostly spinning yarns of all the times he thought he had a good business deal in this country which turned out to cheat him or his friends. I asked the last man- " would you ever live some where else?" He looked in my eyes and said "Never because if the world falls to shit, these people have a lot of practice making it beautiful!"
Peace, the pictures are at face book but their image loader is so slow that I have to give up half way through until I can find a better way. I have no privacy settings for viewing pics there so even if you're not on my friends list you can look up Brian Stelter and find the photo's in an album called " a little bit of the philipines"
Brian
So, I'm uploading a few photo's at the moment but I have to admit that I still haven't busted out of my photographic bubble. . . I'm getting there though. The truth is that I love being a photographer, I just feel like an ass sometimes flashing a nice camera in the faces of people who have so little. That said, The poor here seem to be the happiest. I met a lady today also who is a missionary from Canada who invited me to photograph the children who live at the big trash dump in Manilla where she does her work for God. I'm going to see if those kids look happy, I doubt it. Since I slipped that Satan joke in there and some of you are still grinding your teeth about my heathenism, you should know how inspired and heartfelt I was for her cause.. and yes, in the name of God. Nuff said!
So, yesterday I took a ride to this little island on a pretty cool passenger boat. Then got a room and fell asleep until late enough to do the usual evening walk, get a one hour (professional-meaning no happy ending!) Massage for 5 dollars and have a few beers. We're getting close to the rainy season here (I love tropical rain) so every night there's a lightening storm over the ocean. I watched mine last night in awe of the power that is our earth.
Today, I rented a moped and drove around the island. First to some waterfalls where ,cool enough, the owner of the mopeds sons raced out there to meet me to show me the best swimming spots. We joked and laughed, I let them play with my camera and swam.
Today was hot! At first It was silly, I felt the sunburn coming on and told myself that my skin was just "drunk with the sun" .. Yeah.. Now my skin has a hangover!
After the waterfall, I drove to the other side of the island to "white beach" for lunch and told everybody my name was Santiago ricardo domingo smith for fun and that I was from a place near Holland called "you'llnotknow" and that since it was actually an island and that if one was to refer to my home as a nonresident they would have to call it "isle notknow" --- Jerk! I know. I always give in and tell them it's a joke in the end and we laugh whoever it is.
Now, Sunburnt like the bad ass mopedrider that I am, I'm taking it easy waiting for that evening lightening storm.
Here's my attempt at a moment of ZEN- how commercial I know! (I could stop here and that would totally be it. But I wont)
I met an old Filipino man who when asked where a good place to eat exotic national food was told me just to find the most expensive place to eat saying in a loud and pronounced v oice "cheap will cheat you" Now it's funny because I talked to an ex pat living here the same night who told me that the reason to live here was because it was so beautiful and cheap.. but even further down the chain of conversations of that night another ex patriot that I spoke with who had lived here for even longer than the first expat told me the same thing as the first old Filipino man.. mostly spinning yarns of all the times he thought he had a good business deal in this country which turned out to cheat him or his friends. I asked the last man- " would you ever live some where else?" He looked in my eyes and said "Never because if the world falls to shit, these people have a lot of practice making it beautiful!"
Peace, the pictures are at face book but their image loader is so slow that I have to give up half way through until I can find a better way. I have no privacy settings for viewing pics there so even if you're not on my friends list you can look up Brian Stelter and find the photo's in an album called " a little bit of the philipines"
Brian
Children whom live in a large trash dump.....I can not wrap my head around that idea.....
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