I am stucked here, in this far place, alone in our mission house. The place is so dry and the weather is so hot! The city is like an oasis of cold water to me, yet it’s so far away!I took this opportunity to go to a computer shop to update my FB & FV, and this, and then buy the things that I will need because I think I will not be able to get out again from the community. No,not this week perhaps. And the only gadget I have is my cellphone!
My father and mom went to Cebu last Monday, taking with them my prime students and the laptop! I was left with the women and children, save only Ka Lito, an elderly student of mine in the Leadership Training Class, is around, acting as the community’s Team Leader while the others are away.
I admit, I can’t work that hard these days. Unlike in the past months. I can no longer climb the window of my house, lift heavy things, do bunong-braso, walk kilometers, run faster than the goat and paddle. It’s awful! So I spend most of my time roaming around the community, talking to people, eat with them, do tambay, give simple life- encouraging talks at our night prayers, tease the kids, smell the wind at night, sit by the banana trees, read, sleep and think if someone out there is also thinking of me! (parang meron nga ah?).
But the chill of being here, like trapped in the middle of a hot cake is my suspicion that this is one of those “Talk- to- me- and-if- you- will- not-going- to- talk- to- me - I-will- get- you- to- a-place- where- the- only- face- that- you- will- see- is- Me-because-I-want-you-to-see-things!” stuff. And I am right again!! Only things are more personal this time.
I’ve been handling the training here for almost 4 years. I started with 13 students vying for community leadership, and after 3 years, I was left with only 6 people. 2 women, 4 men! Half of them gave up!Giving up doesn’t really make good of anything!! But my efforts were rewarded and now is that time– 3 of them went with my parents to do teaching themselves in the minority in Cebu, applying what they have learned here. And I am glad! It’s worth all the time that I was being left alone here and now they will multiply! It’s as if, I too, multiplied in a handful of them and I am amazed at the network system God has. By December, one of them will be selected as the community and spiritual leader, for all time! We all look forward to that.
There is nothing sweeter than a life being changed. From nobody to someone. And there is no sweeter success that being an instrument of that change, it’s sweeter than gold!
I received a video featuring hunger images of Africa. They are not kids like ours, they are tribal kids unminded by the corrupt government and the people not belonging to their class. My heart did break but mere pity won’t do a thing. Saving our food and water would do great things for us here but it will do a lot greater if the food and water we saved, we donate to them! Di ba, mas maganda? We can be instruments of change. Sabihin naman, pano ipapadala ang mga naipong food at water– aba, may impossible ba sa may gustong gumawa ng ganung bagay?
I am saying this, not because I am growing old but because I saw that life is so fragile and like a “grass easily withered away”. I saw a motorcycle accident victim in an emergency room in a hospital at 7:30am; alive this minute, dead after 20 minutes! and he was the second one! Imagine, umiyak ako sa bangkay ng iba?
Life is not only taking, it’s also giving away… so that life could be called “real life”. There is no happiness in merely living for oneself and family… we need to give away some things sometimes, like donating blood to the blood bank- it won’t make you sick but rather would make your blood cells healthy and your body strong! When we have more, let’s give to the less, so we will gain more!
The El Nino we’re experiencing now is not all that way dreadful, although to PAGASA–it is! The extreme heat of the sun is tell us that we need to pay attention not to nature but to ourselves, to re direct our paths and change our future. Impossible?
Possible!
Masyado ng seryoso at mahaba ito… mahal na babayaran ko dito!
Take the road less travelled!
No comments:
Post a Comment