Every morning, Alberto Lagarda Evangelista, 71, leaves the two-storey, lemon-yellow home he has lived in for the past decade and walks to work at the cemetery next door. As a caretaker of about 20 graves, Evangelista earns just 20,000 pesos (£315) a year, a sum so small that he must share his house with seven other people – all of whom are dead.
Evangelista lives and works in the Cementerio del Norte, a sprawling, 54-hectare green space in north Manila that is also home to some 1,000 other families. Here in the Philippines' largest public graveyard, century-old tombs have been converted into stalls selling sachets of shampoo and instant noodles, clothes lines are strung between crosses and car batteries power radios, karaoke machines and television sets. Evangelista's home is a mausoleum housing eight graves. The breezy second storey where the owners pay their annual respects to the dead doubles as his bedroom. "Just look at my view," he says, pointing his cigarette out towards the grave-studded horizon.
Today, the shady lanes are busy with the sundry activities of any normal neighbourhood: a group of boys plays basketball; adults while away the afternoon heat with sodas and playing cards; couples canoodle atop the graves that double as their beds; and women prepare chicken adobo in their mausoleum cafes. Full story...
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Evangelista lives and works in the Cementerio del Norte, a sprawling, 54-hectare green space in north Manila that is also home to some 1,000 other families. Here in the Philippines' largest public graveyard, century-old tombs have been converted into stalls selling sachets of shampoo and instant noodles, clothes lines are strung between crosses and car batteries power radios, karaoke machines and television sets. Evangelista's home is a mausoleum housing eight graves. The breezy second storey where the owners pay their annual respects to the dead doubles as his bedroom. "Just look at my view," he says, pointing his cigarette out towards the grave-studded horizon.
Today, the shady lanes are busy with the sundry activities of any normal neighbourhood: a group of boys plays basketball; adults while away the afternoon heat with sodas and playing cards; couples canoodle atop the graves that double as their beds; and women prepare chicken adobo in their mausoleum cafes. Full story...
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