The case of the Outbreak Manila

My good friend Olive had just arrived from the US. The last time she, Bry and I were together would be the screening of Sex and the City 2. So we were all excited to learn she was coming back, not for good though.

We decided to see each other on April 13. Days after Olive got here so she can adjust to the time difference. We thought of heading to her house for a pool party and a movie marathon after dinner. But Bry had a better idea.

Bry knew someone from Greenpeace, who was looking for volunteers to become zombies for Outbreak (Manila) BGC 2.

What is Outbreak Manila? It is a marathon, but with obstacles and darn zombies. Runners are given three red flags that represent their lives, and it’s the zombies’ task to get these flags. Runners without any flags at the end of the race are considered dead, while those with at least one are considered alive. Sounds easy right?

Well, it’s not. First, we had to look for costumes. I thought of coming in as a vampire, but that would be weird. A vampire/zombie? No. Bratty had a Fred Flintstone costume, and I really considered wearing that, but just in case, I brought my handy goth costume (all black).

Olive came as Babydoll from Sucker Punch, Bry was a hipster, Jason (Bry’s hubby) was a regular zombie, Marvin (Jason’s bro) was another regular zombie and Monica (Jason’s sis) was a hiphop zombie. I really felt that Fred would’ve been so out of place so I chose to wear my goth get-up.

I was wrong. When we got there, there were a lot of other weird costumes! There were the usual doctors, nurses, firemen, brides, etc. There were also couples from the 1920’s with awesome hats. I was hitting my head in remorse. Fred would’ve been so cool!

Anyway, we got to the assigned place at around 1pm. I thought we were late but we were actually the earliest ones. A make-up school was tasked to turn us from beautiful creatures to gory flesh eaters. And they were good!

There were about 70-100 zombies, and we didn’t have to pay for anything, nor did we get paid. We just had free make-up, and food.

It was kinda hot, and we were afraid the make-up would wear off.

There were a lot of photographers inside the tent. There was even one guy with a video camera roaming around and getting shots of us in different angles. (That guy turned out to be from Kapuso mo, Jesscia Soho)

After hours of waiting, and posing, and acting, and finally, eating, we were instructed to leave the tents and go to our respective zones. We were assigned to Zone 2.

Hmmm, the organizers are nice, but there were situations that we felt would’ve been better organized. We had to jump from one bus to another, go from one part of the street to another. Anyway, no biggie, it was just confusing where we really had to go.

When we were all set up, it was already past 6pm. I guess the first wave of runners started late too.

All the while I thought we were just supposed to stand there and get flags. No. We had to run after the runners, and worse, stay away from those who shove us aside forcefully.

I tell you, after 19 waves of runners, touching different body parts, downing bottles of cold water, getting hit, shouted at and stepped on by the runners, we were a tired lot.

We were supposed to swim right after, but we all opted to go home instead.

Anyway, it was a good experience. Our handler made sure we were fed and given water so no complaints.

Next year, we might come back as zombies again, or runners. Less forceful runners.