Court in Session!

Dapitan, 2008

One of my pet peeves about living in Asia is the incessant and often futile use of horns. Motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks; one louder than the other. The noise pollution can sometimes get under my skin.
 
Mostly to no avail, I've seen prohibitions against using one's horn around schools, hospitals, even just residential areas. So perhaps I'd be forgiven if I thought this sign told me I couldn't honk near a court house.

How fun to learn that the only court on the block was a tennis court!

This is for Lesley's Signs, Signs.

L is for Laundry

The letter at Alphabe-Thursday today is L and I offer you... laundry; yes, colorful laundry drying on a small mosque in Cotabato City on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Unfortunately I did not get the name of this lovely little mosque, because I presumed it was on the sign you see in the top photo; but what it says is "Sahro Ramadan Al-Mubarak" which means Blessed is the Month of Ramadan (do correct me if that is a wrong translation, please).

 Cotabato, 2009

Building a Bamboo Bridge

Dapitan, 2008

This bamboo bridge was being built to take diners across the river to a new seafood restaurant on the outskirts of Dapitan, in the southern Philippine province of Mindanao. Linked to Louis' Sunday Bridges.

D is for Drum

These are exquisite reproductions of the Maranao temple drums that in the past the sultan would use to call his people to town meetings.

 

Manila, 2009

I found them at a native craft market called Tiendesitas, but they were likely made by traditional woodcarvers in Lanao del Sur on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The Maranao tribe, largest of the indigenous Muslim Moro ethnic group, is well-known and admired for their beautiful arts and crafts - weaving, wood and metal craft - as well as their epic literature.

The one question I had that I could not find an answer to is why they are called temple drums when followers of Islam worship in a mosque.

Today I am joining Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday where the letter of the day is D. You'll be surprised how many creative posts "D" can make.