Manila in Manila

This past weekend I traveled to the Philippines to play ultimate with a pickup team in the Manila Spirits tourney. One of my teammates (left) was coincidentally named Manila -- so she wouldn't forget where she was from, her parents said, before they looked it up in the encyclopedia and found several other cities of Manila. This one has got to be the biggest, though, sprawling and densely populated. The streets are jammed with cars, buses and jeepneys -- the uniquely Filipino mode of public transport, originally made from US military vehicles after WWII and decorated colorfully (right). I've experienced comparable traffic conditions elsewhere, but I've never witnessed such an extreme gap between the rich and poor. I was met at the airport by the family of the girl I'm sponsoring through Children International. That evening I found myself in one of the most exclusive, and heavily guarded, 'villages' in Manila, mingling with employees of Lonely Planet, the Asian Development Bank and other high-powered financial and governmental institutions. In other words, my ultimate frisbee team, the Dharma Bums. (Yes, that's Jack Kerouac on our jerseys.) Despite our average age (35?) and being seeded higher than we could handle, we managed to pull off the Pool B championship. Team Philippine narrowly won the tournament in one of the most intense games I've ever watched... and the crowd went crazy.

PS photo credits go to Ms. Manila