Mark's Pages

May 30, 2005:

The street level is given over to cars and heat. Pedestrians use elevated walkways which connect and criss-cross between the skyscrapers, skirting bank lobbies, plunging right into malls, so that you move from hot and humid to frigid air conditioning every few dozen meters.

On weekends the walkways become campsites. Seemingly the entire Philippina community, thousands upon thousands of housekeepers, seated together in groups on mats of cardboard, cooking over propane stoves, stirring bowls of brightly colored and aromatic food. Talking, talking: the sound of thousands of young women's voices, talking, laughing. A festival of camaraderie, in public on the elevated walkways in a far foreign land.

In the shade of an awning at Statue Square, a women's singing group, with two guitars and layers of sweet harmony, serenade their sisters with happy songs of home.