Elementals

I'm an American living in Cebu province, Philippines, where my wife is from. We've had a few experiences here which I'll tell you about, but first a brief description of the neighborhood along with a couple of events that happened here years ago:

To get to our house, a small concrete 2-story, you turn off of a paved, fairly busy 4-lane road onto a tiny dirt and broken rock alley, turn right at the sari-sari store, go straight for 50 meters or so, then the alley makes a sharp left as it goes around the corner of a large, vacant lot on the left. It goes straight for another 50 meters then turns sharply right again, then straight ahead to a dead end. My wife's mother's 1-story bungalow house is just where the alley makes that right-hand turn, and our house is just next door on the same lot. The entire area along the street is basically my wife's "ancestral home" in that at least half of the residents along the alley are her aunts, uncles and cousins on her (deceased) father's side.

When my wife was still a little girl, in the mid-80s, her family lived with her grandparents in their house which was just where the alley and the main road meet (now it's a small vacant lot). Her parents were just having their bungalow built, and my wife was asked to take some food up to the construction site for the workers' lunch. As my wife approached she heard the sounds of ongoing construction, men talking, etc. But when she got there, it became suddenly quiet and no one was there- the workers had already gone somewhere else to eat.

In the mid-2000s there were some squatters living in the vacant lot next door (the one that the alley makes those sharp turns to skirt the borders of) and which also had a bunch of large and very old mango trees at that time. One of the squatters woke up in the early morning and had to pee, so he went outside. He saw a white lady sitting on one of the branches of a mango tree, just looking at him and smiling. (There are streetlights along the alley so it's quite easy to see at night.) Not long after that some men came and cut down all those trees.

In December 2009 my wife and I, along with our puppy, came to my mother-in-law's bungalow to stay overnight on Nocha Buena (Christmas Eve) we were living in south Cebu City at that time. I hadn't even heard any of these stories about this neighborhood yet. It was 11:45PM. My mother-in-law was in her kitchen preparing the traditional midnight supper of ham, spaghetti and fruit salad. My wife and the puppy were taking a nap, but I'd drunk too much Coke to be able to sleep so I went outside to smoke and watch the fireworks (they have really good fireworks here, like the ones you see only in professional displays in the US).

While doing this I distinctly heard footsteps walking along the alley, just on the other side of the gate from where I was. I went and looked over the gate, and since their house is right on the corner I could easily see for 50 meters down both stretches of road. There wasn't anybody there, yet I heard the footsteps walk past and go off down the road.

In July or August 2010 the 2-story rental house next to my mother-in-law's bungalow was vacant so she offered it to us rent-free, just so there would be some people around to watch over the property as there were some petty thefts occurring in the area. Everything was pretty quiet for several weeks but one Friday night my wife went to a birthday party for one of her girlfriends; leaving me alone with our two dogs (we'd bought a second puppy).

I was upstairs using the computer and at around 8:30PM I heard a young woman's voice call out the name of our oldest dog in a "glad to see you" tone of voice. I thought my wife had unexpectedly come home early so I guiltily dashed downstairs to clean up when I noticed that the dogs were still asleep, not excited as the would have been if it had been their "mama" arriving. Of course, no one was there and Karen didn't come home until her expected time.

One evening we both heard my teenage sister-in-law Kim shouting for Karen (my wife) to come over. Our houses are only a meter apart so it's easy for them just to call out when they want Karen to come over. Karen shouted back that she was busy, but then a few moments later went over to see what Kim wanted. She came back in a few minutes saying that Kim said she hadn't shouted for Karen at all.

Another time the same thing happened only in reverse: one evening we heard Kim shouting at Karen asking her what she wanted, when Karen hadn't called for Kim at all.

One sunny Sunday afternoon Kim was in the bungalow alone as her mom had stepped out to run an errand along with Karen. I was also alone in our house (along with the dogs, as usual). Kim said later that she heard a voice whispering, "Kim! Kim!" like it was calling her. She looked around but couldn't find anyone. The funny thing was, I also heard a voice quietly calling for Kim. I assumed at the time that it was my mother-in-law, having come home before Karen did, but I later found out that it was nobody at all (no one we could see, anyway.)

My wife says that all this activity here was due to "elementals", which are earthbound spirits that aren't ghosts, having never been human. They were originally attracted to the place because of the old mango trees and other large, old trees in the area, she says.