My May vacation is about to end, I still have things I’m supposed to do that I haven’t done yet but once I get myself to doing them those things WILL be done, and done well (as much as I could), I tell you . But for now I live a worry-free life: this is how I keep my balance (I’d like to believe that I keep myself multi-dimensional, as opposed to flat, you know, so I play my other “roles” to the hilt at this time – especially the “bum role”, which becomes recessive during class days, hehe.) and I think I have loaded up enough good vibes to last me a year.
Who would fail to absorb the good vibe when you have spent the first week just bumming around, doing absolutely nothing? When you were able to spend the next two more weeks doing things the way you wanted to (like eating or going wherever you want whenever you want)?
Who would fail to absorb the good vibe when on the third week you find yourself in this situation: lying on a raft one night, feeling the cold wind touching your skin; being lulled by the sea with the stars above; discussing with a high school batchmate your individual lives, goals, aspirations, mistakes, pet peeves; being nice, caring, sarcastic, cynical, silly, grateful about people, things and events; laughing out loud, giggling or sometimes just being quiet together; and finding a common ground in the process, thus confirming that years and distance will never severe that bond you’ve formed back then. Because no matter what each of you have become, no matter what each of you will be, you both have remained and will remain who you’ve always been in the core and each of you will always recognize that friend in that person. Deym, I’m so senti! I guess that’s what the sea does to me. Just imagine if that Palawan thing with the batchmates pushed through, then I’d probably be in senti heaven. So thank you, Lisa, for inviting me, even if the call came just the night before the departure day, hehe. And thank you, too, to the kind people who accompanied us. I love the cabanas. And no, unlike Ate Shawie, they’re the only cabanas I love.
Nasiraan sa highway ang mga lakwatsera… papunta pa lang ‘yan, ha.
And then there were the Gurong Lingkod stints, which I always volunteer for so that I could do something for others in my small way, but end up enjoying and feeling enriched in the end. We re-checked the Election Returns in Ateneo, but since we were using the 6th copies already, it turned out to be a very taxing task. I thought, a little dugas won’t hurt, so I peeked in the envelopes and worked on them only when the markings were clear. If they were unclear, I simply put them back and got another one. It turned out that everyone was doing that, too, so good luck to the next batch, hehe. But at least our batch finished almost two boxes of ERs. We were given free breakfast meals before we started and when we finished our shift we were invited to eat another free meal for lunch. The joke among us was that after eating we would be told that since we ate another meal, we will have to do another shift, waaah!!! We weren’t told that, of course, and as we were leaving the building we could only hope that next time, the election system would already be computerized.
After that, off to Biak na Bato we went, to teach English to local tour guides. Someone from last year’s volunteers told me that the guides were prone to saying “Take care” when warning tourists of slippery steps and other dangers. It seems that they did a good job, because this time I didn’t hear that but instead was told several times to “be careful”. We were toured the first day for our “needs assessment” and probably lost a lot of body weight from sheer exhaustion, what with all the caves we had to visit and the long trekking trail. We added “watch your step” and other spiels about the places we visited. As I was watching my step while going up a steep slope, my head bumped against a fallen tree that was lying almost horizontally overhead, and so we added “watch your head”. The second day was spent for lessons and spiel memorization. The third day was the actual demonstration of the things they’ve learned, and so we again did the whole trek while they were tour guiding in English! It was very tiring but, because of the tour guides’ enthusiasm and efforts to learn, was also very rewarding! Aside from that, we also enjoyed our three days’ taste of life in the province, and the side trips we made to rivers, fields and more caves where I saw, for the first time, stalactites and stalagmites! (I’ll post the pictures later) We have gained more friends, and we volunteers have become better friends, too, I think.
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Just last week, too, I had that Ate Shawie cutie McDo moment with my three-year old niece, Sam. We went there, just the two of us, and she was so happy! She’d sing over and over again “I’m a little teapot” complete with actions, with me (I was whispering), while she was enjoying her chocolate ice cream. What I found embarrassing was that she would often blurt out loud enough for everybody to hear, “Sarap!”. Shh, Sam, shh… I think I should take her out more often.
So, yes. May is about to end. But I enjoyed it immensely. And come June, I will be ready to face yet another school year. I wonder what the year would bring, how crazy work life would be, but I think the interaction with the children would become a reward in itself (as it has always been) and then things would seem to be just as they should be.
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