sundays

this picture is super blurry because it's taken from a moving bus (stupid, slow me), but i'm putting it up because i've been wanting to capture this phenomenon but didn't want to be rude by being so in your face. so instead, i'm being sneaky about it. every sunday swarms of overseas workers, mostly filipinas i believe, congregate in parts of central and hang out. while you can't really see people's faces in the pic, you can at least see how large the numbers are. and this is just one area. they also meet in underpasses, along walkways, and on sidewalks of closed down streets (which i think might be closed specifically for them). they mostly sit around and play cards, probably gossip and chat. they also play with eachother's hair while listening to music. some read. the first time eug and i experienced this, we walked through a courtyard to get to this restaurant, there were some small groups practicing choreographed dance numbers. i wondered if it was something they did for fun to pass the time or whether they would be eventually performing somewhere.

these women, on their day off, basically have no where to just hang out freely. their rooms are usually very, very small - narrow enough for just a bed smaller than a twin-sized. and i hear they don't get air con either so it's not exactly a place they can bring even one friend to chill comfortably. jamie and i wondered why there wasn't a place - some sort of rec center - where they could go, but i guess that would actually require planning, and time and money...