Colonialism

After returning from the resort, I went for a walk around the city of Cebu, and I think I discovered where the Spanish landed in the Philippines... here is the church, the Basilica de Santo Niño.And across the street, here is the fort, Fort San Pedro.Its kind of funny, because when you enter these two spots, you really feel like you are in the city of San Antonio, but this feeling falls apart when you walk back outside. Inside the church, they had an area where you could wait in line and visit Saint Niño, and I think the church had a 24 hour mass going on too. The center of the church also had a court yard, with statues of saints and a fountain... Here is a view of the court yard seen though spanish church style bars. There was a shaded hall-way around the outside of the court yard, full of people sitting and laying in the window sills. It was kind of hot outside, and I guess this seem like a good idea.

One of the more negative aspects of Cebu, and maybe you can put some blame on the topic of this post, colonialism, but maybe not, is the extreme poverty through out the city.This was a real eye opener for me, I have never seen such living condition before.I did not really feel comfortable taking photos in some of these neighborhoods, but I feel people here had no hope and were just living day to day. Everything seemed to be a struggle and I'm not sure how people could cope with this. The most difficult aspect of all of this was there was so many kids that from day one, you know they are going to have a difficult life. The two photos above are actually in the city of Tagbilaran on the island of Bohor. On the photo above, this is what you see when you exit the boat and walk down the pier towards the city. I think the government tried to hide part of the slum behind those billboards. And it should be noted, not all of Cebu is like the three photos above, there are parts of the city that boast higher incomes, but between the port and the financial district, these areas are difficult to find.