Other than the attempt to introduce trick or treating into the UK recently, All Saints always seemed a bit of a non-event in England. But here it is very different.
On All Saints day, the Filipinos go to the cemetaries en masse. Grace, Richard, Nell and Mary went off to Tarlac to visit cemetaries there, leaving me on my own. So I decided to go for a day out.
Predictably I headed for a shopping mall south of Manila. The roads were empty, where normally you would be crawling along behind jeepnies and tricycles, I could bowl along at a steady 50 or 60 mph. Until, that is, I came to a cemetary. At every cemetary, traffic slowed to below walking pace. Every jeepney, tricycle for muiles around seemed to parked outside. There were market stalls set up and hundreds of people in and around. This was the case at 8.30 in the morning and still at 8.30 at night when I drove back home.
In the evening the cemetaries were all lit up. There seems to be electric lights in every tomb and there was a real party atmosphere. The day is used for tidying up the graves, placing and planting fresh flowers as well as giving a chance just to be with their dead relatives and friends.
As I was siting having a coffee, someone asked me why I hadn't visited a cemetary and I replied that the cemtary I would want to visit was thousands of miles away, and I thought of Ipswich cemetary and my Dad's (and maternal grandfather's) grave and my grandmother's grave. Both of which are still not properly marked. I must get headstones for both of them.
Predictably the next day Mass was packed, so much so that Fr. Rico delayed starting the 8.00 mass until 8.30 to allow everyone to get there!
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