"Why am I doing
this?" This is the question I continually asked myself when we were
passing through the wilderness of the deep and scary forest, when we were
climbing steep passageways bordering cliffs, when we were being chased by a
carabao, when we were basking under the heat of the sun like being stranded for
days on a desert and when we were perspiring like ice cubes on fire. We
experienced all of these things and more when we were doing our survey for our
community exposure.
But before we entered
the "Death March in Bataan" phase of the survey process, we had to
first formulate our tool for surveying. The survey tool contains the questions
we will be asking the respondents as part of our assessment of the health
status of the barangay. The most difficult part of the formulation of the
survey tool was the part where we had to translate all the questions in Bisaya.
We had to rack our brains to find the translation for most of the terms we used
in the survey tool. After that, we had to divide ourselves into smaller groups
with 2-3 members per group and start our surveying per household.
During the first few
hours of the first day of our survey, we were all fired up to go to each
household and interview the people. But as the day progressed and the locations
of the houses became more distant from one another, it was like all our energy
got sapped out from our bodies. We slept like logs that first night of the
survey. We did the survey for 6 days and within those days, we have experienced
a multitude of things.
We were like on
Amazing Race where we had to pass through road blocks and detours just to get
to the next house. But after every road block or detour or challenge that we
faced during our survey, we always had a pit stop, where I always get my
question “why am I doing this?” answered. It is so that we could interview the
people of each household and get
to know them better.
Most, if not all, of
the people in the barangay live in a small studio type house made of light
materials. Some of these houses have seen better days. The floors of some
houses are broken and the children living in those houses might fall through
the holes and hurt themselves. A lot of
houses looked like they would fall apart when a strong wind blows through it. Even
if their houses need urgent repair, they do not have the funds to do so. I
remember one mother I interviewed shared to me a story of how they cannot even
afford to buy food. She told me that there really would come a time in a year
that the whole family would only eat salt and root crops like cassava. This is
a common occurrence for most of the residents of the barangay. But even though
they are experiencing these struggles in their lives, they can still smile
about it and go on with their lives. After hearing the problems the people of
Goin are experiencing I suddenly felt ashamed of all the complaining I did. To
think that I just experienced one week of walking under the heat of the sun for
long hours while the people of Goin have been toiling under the heat of the sun
for years and when they go home they still have problems to face like budgeting
their money to buy food and despite of all their struggles they still go on
with their lives and have not given up.
I realized that even
if we get chased by carabaos, even if we had to pass through scary forests, and
even if we were being baked under the sun, all these things were worth it
because of the people we met and the stories of their lives that humbled us.
I am glad that I faced all of those challenges during
our survey week because if I did not pass through that scary forest, I would
not have experienced the beauty and freshness of the scenery beyond that scary
forest. I would not have been able to reap rice, to ride a carabao and most especially
find a home among the people of Goin. The people of Goin are very accommodating
and cheerful people. They have accepted us, 8 strangers from Zamboanga, like we
were their long lost children or siblings.
So the next time we
question ourselves, “Why am I doing this?” just remember this lyrics “Behind
every dark cloud there’s a silver lining.” Hence, whatever challenges life throws at us
we must move forward and endure these challenges because at the end of
every struggle we will be able to meet amazing people and experience God’s
gifts to mankind.
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Written by: Anna Ricca "Nikki" Barre
Nikki is an anime otaku who loves eating meat, sleeping and lazing around but she is a PROUD ADOPTEE of the people of Goin.
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