Loribelle Spirovski

It's so crowded, especially in Manila.

I think Manila is very different from the rest of the Philippines.

It's not like there's no island time in Manila.

It's very loud and very busy.

So the fact that my mum was always there really was the thing that held me together, I think, as a child.

She took me to something called a manghihilot, which is a, I'm not going to say witch doctor, but it lives in a similar head space.

A shaman or a healer.

Yeah, a healer, exactly.

And he used different herbal kind of, he would put the herbs on the skin and then he'd put like a banana leaf to like press it down, like a compress.

And I remember the smell of the place and weirdly just the image of like a wad of pre-cut banana leaves that looked like cash on his table.

For some reason, that's one of the strongest images for me.

Scary, really scary, because this was back in my grandparents' village.

So, you know, there was no paved road.

We're talking nipa huts, so like little huts on stilts.

And so I remember like climbing up the bamboo ladder up to the house.

And this really strong image of the Manghihilot's very old mother.

And she smiles at us and her teeth are red because she's chewing the beetle leaf, which everyone does over there.

My mum too.

And...

There was barely any light inside this hut.