In “celebration” of Halloween 2020, the 2nd Class Citizens share some of their spooky stories.
Philippines’ Day of the Dead
I was 8 that time. I still believed in ghosts and that the supernatural realm is just here with us somewhere, even without us seeing it with our naked eyes. (Actually, I still do until now but my nerves were made of foam then). So, coming to the town of my aunt that time was quite a challenge. There, kilometers away from the city I lived in, we celebrated Undas. Filipinos celebrate Undas or All Souls’ Day every first of November to remember our dead relatives and loved ones. Customs and traditions typically vary depending on what religion you practice. My aunt’s family is a devout Catholic, while I practice Protestantism.
Usually, Filipino Catholics go to cemeteries to light candles and undergo a palina to leave the souls of the dead in the cemetery. That is, they wouldn’t follow you wherever you go. At least, this is what our Filipino ancestors believed and had passed on from generation to generation. Upon coming to our houses, families undertake pangadyi, mentioning passages and saying prayers from the Holy Rosary and of the Bible suited to the day that is celebrated. I don’t know much about such because I’m not a Catholic but I sometimes join in when they recite passages anyway, especially memorizing these after hearing passages from various days. I don’t understand or speak Latin, but I recite them anyway. Pangadyi are done at night, while every participants are kneeling in front of an altar. An altar, during an All Souls’ Day, is sometimes decorated with the pictures of the dead relative and offerings of food are displayed. It is believed that the dead will temporarily leave their permanent realm and go to the living realm and eat these food offerings.
That was the traditional celebration of Halloween I was accustomed to. There were no trick-or-treats, no candies by the porch, no halloween costumes, no unlimited alcoholic beverages, no cobweb decorations, no intricate makeups, no fancy banquets. There were souls of the dead.
By souls, I literally mean the spirits of dead persons. Before proceeding here, I say I don’t have any mystical powers to let me see the world of the dead. I don’t have that third eye where you can see entities that normal people can’t see. But for sure, I can feel and I know my senses won’t betray me.
As the pangadyi and eating sessions were done, my relatives and I were set to sleep. For purposes of imagination here, rural culture in the Philippines lets you and your relatives sleep in one big mat. All of us lied down, bodies side by side. That time, I was by the door. The entrance from and to the door, that is. Coward as I was, I had no idea why I consented to the idea that I was placed there.
Now you can imagine the next scenes… I couldn’t sleep. I tried to close my eyes and dream of flowers, but couldn’t. It might be symbolic, but the way I was positioned by the door did not let me sleep that time. I was only 8 that time, so I didn’t have any excuses of insomnia. At least that’s what I can recall. I felt that my dead relatives were walking through that door to the altar of offerings that we made. I felt them celebrating as they had once again threaded onto the realm of the living. I felt my grandmothers and grandfathers talking gleefully. I felt them dancing in that one whole room that all my living relatives were sleeping in. Now I couldn’t surely explain how this happened, but in my young mind (and heart) that time, I was sure my dead ancestors were there.
I could remember that I was profusely praying under my sheets to let the idle night let me sleep. I hoped that my dead ancestors would have no way of knowing that I was awake. I hoped that they would not bother me and tell me to join their little feast. I clasped my hands in desperation and hoped that one of my sleeping relatives would wake up. Maybe, that would have eased my fright.
But, alas! That did not happen. My prayers that night weren’t heard. It didn’t help when most dogs in the neighborhood howled and the crows above cawed. So, I just let my grandmothers and grandfathers do their thing while I...observe them.
Up to this day, I still can’t forget that feeling. Of course, no one would believe me but for sure, there’s a different feeling when you mingle with a living entity than with a departed loved one.
The Story of Anika on the 13th Anniversary of International Day of Reflection on 1994 Rwanda Genocide
The day is April 7th 2007, in Kigali Rwanda. I remember I was 7 years at the time, I was still relatively young and did not much understand what was around me, but to this day, this is one of the most vivid encounters that remain in my mind.
I remember travelling with my brother and mother to Kigali for the event which we were invited to by our foreign mission based in Kigali due to the previous ties we had with the country. Upon arriving the previous night and settling in our Kigali hotel, I remember my mother telling both of us “Now I do know that you two are scared of seeing zombie-like creatures because of the movies I keep telling you to stop watching but you refused to listen, therefore tomorrow, whatever you shall see and hear, if it is too much, remember to always cover your eyes and years, if you cannot do any, just cry.” From hearing this simple yet straightforward statement, it still was difficult to paint a picture in my mind of what to expect once we headed to the venue.
The venue being the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the museum which was opened on the same day three years ago, was the starting point to understand what went wrong in the year 1994 that left close to a million people dead. And for me, at that time I had a very strong understanding of the genocide events, having lived in Rwanda in my very early years and with the interactions that our family had with the people who survived the horrific ordeal, it was more than just a fundamental step to understanding what happened, but rather, it was the connection that we built with the victims of the post-genocide era that were struggling to come into terms and get back to their normal lives.
I remember arriving at the venue, and after all the formalities and speeches were done after the head of dignitaries and various diplomats present, we were taken in by one of the museum volunteers who was very much pleased to show us round. She was a Tutsi (do not really remember her name but we shall call her Anika) and was a survivor of the genocide who had briefly fled to Uganda before making her return in the year 2004, where she got to work in the museum. I remember her narrating to us how the attackers stormed into their makeshift camp that was set up by the church, where at the time, she was with her two brothers and mother. The time was 3am in the morning, when the majority of the camp was asleep and when the attackers came, she remembers them scampering through every single tent and rounding up everyone, Since the attackers were majority Hutu who were slaughtering the Tutsis who were running away from the brutality that was befolding at a tremendous rate. During the rounding up of the people, the mother was able to prepare both and during the frantic desperation of attempting to escape, the mother was caught up in the process and as the two children attempted to try and beg her to join them, it was already too late and two other samaritans were able to rescue the children, as the mother was left to the mercy of the Hutu attackers. From the moment of escape, to the moment they arrived at the Uganda border refugee reception centre, Anika did not have a clear idea of the events that had unfolded before her eyes in the past two days of escape. Therefore after she settled in the camp with her brother, where they remained before getting a chance to move into Kampala in 1998 where she worked as a hairdresser and her brother a shopkeeper at one of the roadside shops before returning to the country in 2004 where she finally got to begin the long trail of following up on the fate of her mother. Based on the narrations she got and the data records she was able to get from the deceased centre, she determined and found that her mother was butchered on the night of the raid and that her, together with close to 600 other people residing in the camp, were murdered while another 300 were missing either as a result of escaping or were not completely accounted for.
From her story that she spent time narrating, I could genuinely say that it was the first time I felt horrified by what a human being could do. Because all my life I grew up knowing that God gives life and that he is the same person who takes away life because he loved his people very much. However in this scenario, I literally saw the devil do his work, I could see people who were given life by God, taking away the life of others that God had planned to take at his own time. And for the kid that I was, I was trying to imagine how Anika as she was 15 years old, watching her parent separate from her never to see her again, and also from the harrowing experience of seeing murdered people all over on their way to Uganda, these lives were clearly not taken by God, but rather butchered by a bunch of bad people who were lied to through a morning talk show on a radio station. The whole constant scenario of “hurry up, the Hutus are coming” and having to literally leave what you left behind in the name of running for your life, the life which you are not sure if you will have it at the end. From the story of Anika, and the photos and videos that she was willing to share with us of the atrocities committed, the people left behind to grieve the loss of their very close ones, and those who were killed, brutally left on the streets with no sense of dignity or respect, for me was just too much to handle and made me continuously question myself to this day, how could people like this go and sleep at night knowing very well of what they have just done? Like how do you just wake up and decide that you are going to follow what the radio says as well as other people and decide to take away lives of people whom you used to live with, work with and talk to? I remember being stressed about it and having so much resentment of anger because I could not imagine that such bad people, people who I would refer to as ‘Vampires’ could actually exist.
Therefore looking back at what my mother had warned my brother and I before the ceremony, concerning vampires, she actually indeed had a point, the fact that Vampires do not only exist in cartoons but rather they too exist in very humane form and they always surround us, such that when the moment is right, they will take full leverage and pounce on you.
How about you? What is your share of a horror or thrilling experience?
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