Constantly moving

Hello everyone!

Yesterday we traveled around Manila in our big bus looking for the

streets that everyone grew up on. There were big thrills and lots of

disappointments as so much has changed over the years and the city has

been rebuilt after the war. We found Penafracia which is the street

that Grandma grew up on but when she lived there it was a dead end

street filled with beautiful homes. Now it is a narrow one-way street

filled with shops and shacks. Grandma knew that her home was no

longer there, as it had been torched by the Japanese when they

realized they were losing the war and grandma got a pass after her

liberation to go and find her home and she saw her entire neighborhood

flattened.

Today we traveled 60 km to Los Banos, as we traveled out of the city

and the smog a beautiful landscape of lush green hills, banana trees

and rice fields opened up. Today is the 64th anniversary of the

rescue of Los Banos and we arrived to the University campus (the camp

was situated at the agricultural college) to find a banner welcoming

those internees who were rescued so long ago. There were some

filipinos waiting for us when we arrived that had amazing stories to

tell of the war. After the camp was rescued, the Japanese returned a

few days later and in retaliation to the filipino guerillas who helped

organize the rescue, the Japanese murdered over 1500 people, most of

them women and children. One woman who was there today said that her

mother sent her into the field and told her to wait. When the

Japanese came they killed her entire family and eventually found her

in the field where they held her head under water 3 times trying to

get her to name all the guerillas. She didn't but they somehow

decided to let her go.

I sat in awe today of the human spirit and the power resilance as I

watched my grandma and the others who were rescued from the camp talk

about where the paratroopers had landed in the fields and what it was

like that day when angels fell from heaven to rescue them. I learned

that after the fighting had begun and bullets were whizzing through

the air, my great grandma Evalyn got up from the floor of their

barracks and used her pliers to cut a hole in the fence so more

paratroopers and guerillas could squeeze through to join the attack.

Tomorrow we leave Manila and head to Bagio for the next few days. I

hope to send another email there if I can. We return to Manila on

Friday and depart for home on Saturday.

I hope all is well at home.