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      The Siquijor community center was a true community center. I played basketball and ping pong there, watched people pay their electricity bills, watched graduation ceremonies, the police office was upstairs, etc. and then there was this event:

Free circumcision! Come one, come all!


The setup
     

Excitement! "I´m next! I´m next!"

Ping pong in the same place
     

Ping pong boys


     I had plenty of time and opportunity to take circumcision photos, but I was so nauseated by this that I just shot a few pix and got out of there.
      I asked someone why there was such a crowd and they said it was too expensive to have it done normally. People came from all over and they waited in line for hours.
     (On a tangential note, this is a very big difference between Philippines and a place like Thailand, for example. It is virtually impossible to just ask a random person a question like that and have a conversation due to the language barrier. I need to interact with locals, even if the subject is circumcision.)
     

Notice the cringing toes on the boy

     Cockfighting. This is the national pastime of the Philippines, it seems. The birds are in cages or tethered everywhere. (Accordingly, no one gets any sleep in the Philippines.) People were really into it. Some had imported birds from America where supposedly the fiercest fighters are bred. (Who knew?) I went to a couple of fights. Lots of drunk people gambling, and yet no one minded me taking photos.

Video of a typical fight (34 seconds)
     


The briefcase of the cockfighter
     

A sharp blade is attached to the cock
     

Near the end the man brings the birds together to see if they both have some fight in them.

Bloody, losing bird
     

Bloody, losing bird
     

Winning bird

Sometimes I think the whole point is to bet
     

Whoever runs the place is making major coin


     

     


     

     


     

     



Lechon baboy (Roasted pig)
     

Lechon baboy
     

School transport

     If anything other than corruption and natural disasters represent classic Philippines, then it is these cars. I dumbly kept telling myself I would wait until my last day in Cebu to get the best jeepney photos I wanted, but I was rushed and only have these.

     

     


     

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Philippines
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Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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