I’d promised myself I wouldn’t puke.

I almost broke that promise as the man with the glass-shard paddle scraped it, repeatedly, down the other man’s back and blood started rolling out with enough intensity and volume that it was an angry red stream – not just an accidental, forgiving ooze. Then the whipping began. With each clack of the mop-like bamboo-and-rope contraption as he swung it around his body, back and forth from one side to another against his back, the blood spread and the bamboo sticks got redder and wetter. I felt a little sick, but at least he was several feet in front of me and walking away in the opposite direction. The line of bare-chested men progressed to the side of me, headed for the man with the glass-shard paddle for their turn at Good Friday penitence and absolution of their sins. I realized too late that not all of them had yet to be carved and some were already swinging. In the slight and sudden panic that comes with that cracking dawn of realization-come-too-late, I turned and frantically tried to jump out of the street, but a combination of Filipina-woman-onlooker, bicycle, dirt mound, and treacherous pothole left me with nowhere to go and no time to get there. I cringed outwardly and heaved inwardly as I felt the splatter of consequence for sluggish reflexes on this early morning. I was covered with drops of fresh blood on my wrist, shorts, and probably in the open cup of local beverage I was carrying. And the day was just beginning.

We’d gotten up in the dark at 3:45am (if you call it getting up after only going to bed at 2am) to meet our Filipino taxi driver, Lito, who was entirely too perky and rarin’ to go after a ridiculous 8 hours of sleep despite the ridiculous time of day. Ray and I stumbled across the street to the 7-Eleven for a breakfast of pineapple-orange drink and a bag of Cheetos (you can tell our brains were functioning real well) and back out to the taxi for the two-hour journey to San Fernando, a small and religiously-fervent town 40 miles outside of Manila, in the Philippines. Actually I don’t know if they’re religiously-fervent the rest of the time. But I can attest with (a bloody) firsthand certainty that they are for at least one Friday of every year.

The light was just starting to show when we pulled into San Fernando’s town limits and Lito slowed to a stop on the side of the road. It was the first of many times throughout the day that Ray and I would sort of wonder what we were looking at or doing exactly and just look around to see if we could figure out what was going on. A few minutes later, some people with a loudspeaker and somewhat haunting, obviously prayer-filled song came around the corner onto the large, empty main street, carrying a huge cross. The “some people” were followed by a flood of dozens, and hundreds, and millions and billions of Filipinos. They eventually trickled away down the street towards the dawn. We drove on.

We drove to the site of the crucifixions. I knew from my online reading that they wouldn’t happen til about noon, and then with crowds of thousands of people, and an unbearably oppressive heat. But it was only about 6:30a now and it was a stark sight against a cool-ish morning’s backdrop: three lone black crosses on an artificial hill in the middle of a vast and empty field.

Well, empty except for the satellite dish-laden news van and the McDelivery booth. Signs that it’s going to be a strange day…

In case that wasn’t awkward enough, how bout the group of tourists, local and foreign alike, standing around the crosses on the hill, taking turns posing…on…the crosses. I’m not religious or especially into iconic imagery being sacred, but that made even me feel awkward. We averted our eyes so we wouldn’t burst into flames and went back to our taxi driver and the very fluent New York-raised Filipino parking man who was hooking us up with his friend the “tricycle” driver.

One of the first things that struck me about the Philippines was the many, varied, and bizarre forms of transport. We thought we’d seen a lot in India: horses, camels, elephants, miniature donkeys, rickshaws designed for 2 and carrying 45, cycle rickshaws designed to be pedaled by someone 25 and being powered along the rickety streets by someone at least 147 years old. But the Philippines’ transport is something else entirely. You’ve got bicycles with essentially an attached park bench on the side. Bicycles or motorcycles with a gazebo bolted onto the side. Stretch Jeep/truck…things…with benches in the back along the sides with a roof; I believe these are the “Jeepneys” the books talk about. And my personal favorite: the motorcycles with the space-age cosmo-blaster sidekick car, hovering about 2 inches off the ground, not even coming up to the handlebars of the motorcycle, clearly designed for maybe half a person, but only if they are 12 years old or younger and severely undernourished – and what also happened to be the contraption that Ray and I were now being herded into, for reasons (and prices) unknown.

We had no idea wtf was going on, but we’d basically expected that to be the case for the day, so we just went with it. If we don’t feel threatened, we’re game. We did however, insist on a pricetag, over-inflated as it was probably going to be (though being new in the country and as-yet with no reference point, we’d be unable to tell), despite our New York-raised Filipino parking man’s insistence that it was no problem, it was his friend, just pay whatever we think. What we think is that is a very bad premise in which to engage in anything, to our experience. Finally we arm-wrestled a quote of 200 Pesos from him. Clearly an entirely arbitrary number, and clearly for still a very foggy picture of what exactly we were going to see in this…cosmo-blaster space car. But, hell. Worst case scenario, it was 4 bucks to see where this oddity of a day and a machine would take us. In we squashed.

And so we drove along for about 10 minutes, an oddly scenic, picturesque ride through the small town. I felt for a moment like I was in a rustic old painting of the old Philippines, as children frolicked, chickens darted across the street or in yards, roosters crowed, bicycles pedaled, women washed, men stood on corners, propped against their elbows on chest-high brick walls, leaning casually and talking to their neighbors…and all the funny, completely unique and adorable forms of human- or vroom-vroom-powered transport outnumbering regular cars by about 400 to 1. I laughed as our cosmo-blaster ker-thumped us over an especially ingenius makeshift speedbump: an old tire sliced to be laid out flat on the road, stapled together with another one to extend the width of the road and anchored down with a large rock. Efficient, and not a single tax dollar spent!

Eventually, we stopped at a crossroads. Not a metaphorical one. The kind where you sit there in your cosmo-blaster and wait while your Filipino taxi driver and your Filipino cosmo-blaster driver get off the motorcycle and discuss for 5 minutes in Tagalog who knows what. It was apparently decided that we’d end our cosmo-blaster ride (now, that wasn’t the several hours, going to see “everything” that New York-raised man had promised!) and stand here on the street for awhile til something happened. We shrugged. Ok. At least he only charged us 50 Pesos ($1) instead of the 200. We stood for a few minutes, then Lito randomly decided actually we’ll go for a walk. We didn’t know if we were actually walking TO something or just walking, so we just waited to see and walked on. Turns out it was just a little amble around town. Saw the jailhouse. And the highway. And back to the streetcorner to stand around some more and wait for something. Ray and I just laughed. Oh, Day.

And so we stood, Ray was interviewed for the news (you know, the usual), we bought some local fare for breakfast – we weren’t quite up for our brilliantly-purchased Cheetos breakfast – which was a sort of noodley chow-meiny concoction, with squishy things that Ray said were mushrooms. I didn’t think they looked much like mushrooms but thanks to 2 hours of sleep, couldn’t think much beyond that so just shoveled some in so my stomach wouldn’t eat itself entirely. I chewed. No that definitely wasn’t mushroom. Oh well. We went and sat in the shade along the side of the road with a large congregation of natives, who soon all had their eyes and attention trained on us, in particular Whitey Ray (ahh, blissful complexion of mine! I’ve been mistaken for Indian, Nepali, Sri Lankan, Singaporean, and Thai – and really am half-Filipino. Convenient, eh!? :)). Maybe it’s just because I’m less on edge here owing to the blood relations, but even though they look here, they don’t stare, and it’s not as uncomfortable as it was in India. That said, I wasn’t the one who was having to nod and smile exuberantly for forty minutes while the 70-year-old jokester of the group in some unknown form of English made jokes about fish and ocean and something about 7-Elevens? Good ol’ Ray.

So that was about the time the whippings began. We got our blood shower that I mentioned above, then were escorted by Lito to some random porch which I’m not sure if it was a house or a shop or who knows what, but there were a few broken plastic chairs, a wooden table, and a bench, and for the next 4 hours or so I contorted myself into various angles of circulation-killing attempts to sleep on all of them. I’d read online it would be scorching here this time of year, and so far it had been quite pleasant. I had intended to get a good night’s sleep before our big day (right, like that ever happens), but in retrospect I am so glad we hadn’t. Even sound asleep and drooling in my upside down lotus missionary position suspended between the wooden table and broken plastic chair, I could feel the heat starting to boil the mercury. It curled around us like an invisible wildfire. Had I been fully conscious for it, I would have been entirely miserable. This way it wasn’t so bad. And when the ice cream man came around, Lito got us a Filipino ice treat with beans, which we sucked out of a plastic bag. Nummy! Strange… But nummy!

Finally at 11:30a it was time. Once again, “time for what?”, we didn’t know. But it was time. So we went out and stood on the street. After about 15 minutes, the whippers walked by, no longer whipping, but well bloodied-up and starting to limp (by the way they were barefoot on the sizzling ground too). We gave them a wide berth, lest they decide to start up with the whipping again as they went by.

Soon Romans with feathered hats and fake bronze chests came in with chariots and horses. Wtf is going ON?? Then Jesus came and was tossed up on the stage at the end of the street. We could see exactly nothing due to everyone in the crowd having brought their gigantic rainbow sun-umbrellas. But there was some yelling in the microphones and Ray interpreted this for me to be the trial.

The crowd started moving and Lito and our newly-acquired was-it-a-shop/was-it-a-house friend quick waved us on so we could get a shortcut back to the field with the crosses, where the “main event” of the crucifixions would take place. They’d asked if we wanted to follow the procession and walk for two hours through the heat or take the shortcut and wait for two hours in the heat for them to get there. We gathered that walking meant a possible forecast for more blood showers the whole way. We opted for the sunny day in the fields.

Even so, along the way as we walked briskly down the sidestreets towards the crucifixion site, periodically we’d hear the tell-tale oncoming clack-clack of repentance coming down the street head-on. I’ll never forget the strange and oddly giddy feeling Ray and I had as we looked at each other with these knowing smiles filled with a mild panic and a mild rush of adrenalin at the purely bizarre fact that we were a) in the Philippines, b) running around these streets behind two Filipino hosts that we could barely communicate with and mostly having no clue what we were doing all day, and c) actually having to jump off the street and run to duck behind trees, walls, buildings, or highly amused locals to avoid being hit with BLOOD splatters. What a trip this is! What a strange and wondrous world we live in!

After about 4 of these near-miss dodgings, we made it back to the field. Unsurprisingly, it was no longer the stark and empty field it was from the morning. Now there were masses of people, ice cream vendors rolling around with their umbrella-covered bicycle-cum-ice-cream-cart contraptions blasting their merry tune, coconuts being chopped up and served, children running around, locals absolutely PILED into (or under!) tarp-covered trucks, rickshaws, cosmo-blasters, you name it, trying to escape the angry sun. For our part, our taxi driver left us and retired to the parking area to wait for us and our was-it-a-shop/was-it-a-house friend found us a local tourist who was thankfully willing to share with us the shade of his van trunk lid for the next hour and a half or so. Good thing because if not, I’m pretty sure I’d have been willing to skip this thing we’d specifically come out here to see if we had to stand out in the direct sun, it was that hot by now.

Eventually, things started happening up on that hill. First the flagellants arrived. If they were bloody and limping before several hours ago, now they were nearly comatose. They were followed by teams of paramedics with stretchers, I think ready to catch and cart them as soon as they pitched over after paying their respects to the crosses on the hill. As far as I could tell though, no one needed them. So the paramedics melted back into the masses.

Later, the fake-bronze-chested Romans (I’m calling them Romans and Ray says they were, don’t sue me if that’s wrong) rode up on their horses and presumably readied things. A white cross made its way up the hill and was perched on its side. The black crosses were brought down, nails were hammered, and then the crosses were stood back up with live bodies attached. The heat had gotten to me by now, so this is all kind of a blur. I thought I saw Jesus. We figured it was time to brave the direct sun to go take a look. Ray and I bid our Filipino fellow-onlookers goodbye and made our way up closer. There were slated to be some 23 crucifixions this day. We’d already agreed emphatically with each other that we’d be good to see one and then call it a day.

I didn’t have the energy – or the stomach – to push my way up with great commitment. I was nearly impaled or eye-gouged by everyone’s umbrellas as it was, and it took great care to sneak by the cars that were parked all over without rubbing against the blood-spattered sides. I was still regarding my penitent’s-bloodstain on my shorts with a lingering sort of nausea; I didn’t need more on me.

We got as close as we could muster without chancing heat stroke or permanent blindness and got a few pictures of a real live person with real live nails pinning his hands to a real live cross. I took a moment to take in the whole event, listened to the sounds chattering on around me, felt for the vibe of the occasion. Oddly, while it attracted hundreds of tourists and onlookers, it didn’t feel touristy. I thought I’d feel awkward taking pictures, but I didn’t – it had been encouraged by the locals since we’d arrived that morning, and without ulterior motive. No one asked for Pesos in exchange for pictures. We’d only bought a little food to hold us over all day, and paid one dollar for a somewhat random – but enjoyable – cosmo-blaster ride, and that had been the extent of our contribution to their economy; they weren’t trying to attract tourists there for our money. Ray and I weren’t there to partake or share in any religious beliefs or rites, just to come and (respectfully, if confusedly) observe what there was to see. The huge field now teeming with people and with three black crosses standing up on the little artificial hill, now with three live bodies attached to them, it seemed a little like a circus, and yet…not a disrespectful or un-solemn one. I wouldn’t call it solemn. But I wouldn’t call it un-solemn either.

With some relief at an interesting but long day complete, we made our way back to the taxi. We stopped along the way to hold a couple of the brightly-dyed chicks that were available for sale (yes we considered taking one or a rainbow home with us and selling or eating them along the way, but managed to move ourselves along), then collapsed back into the car, glad for the two-hour air-conditioned ride home.

Later that night, a friend shared a link with me through Facebook to none other than AZCentral.com back home, which talked about the rites that had taken place in the far-off land of the Philippines that day for their Associated Press readers in Arizona. The judgmental and rude comments at the bottom of the article contributed by Arizonans who probably never had and never would actually come to see the event made me sad. These people who do this aren’t crazy or stupid or even disgusting. It’s just what they do. For as much as an oddity of an event as it was, it didn’t actually SEEM an odd event, being there. It seemed earnest, and…natural. Like of course this town does this. Just like Vegas does casinos and drive-thru weddings. Just like Aspen does skiing, or New Orleans does Mardi Gras. San Fernando does live crucifixions and street self-flagellations. The Catholic church officially does not endorse this event. No, it isn’t a typical way to observe Good Friday – even here in the Philippines. It is, however, very unique, very interesting, and I am very glad we got to go see it for ourselves and have such a bizarre but somehow befitting day in doing so. Blood splatters and all.