I woke up one morning and everything that I have are gone; my soft pillows, my bed that is comfortable to sleep with, my room that offers a lot of things and of course, my parents who would definitely wake me up to make me start running my errands for the day. Alarmingly, it seems to be just one of my childhood nightmares. I collected my self-back and tried to grasp my composure as I tried to awaken myself from a horrendous dream. But wait, I cannot wake my self up as I was awake all the while and everything that is happening is authentically in occurrence.
As I observed these few changes as I woke up with nine unique individuals sleeping closely together with just a mosquito net as a division. At first, I still cannot believe that it was not just dream and was not just a product of my inventive mind. But nevertheless, as I came into my senses and I had slowly realized that I was no longer in a place where I could say as my comfort zone but I was in a place that was unfamiliar for me and definitely lacked the essential things that can make my life comfy.The first few days were not as bad as I expected and my fears that were form beforehand turn into delightful state of affairs and subsequently faded away as we immerse with the community and live with the people. Personal struggles oftentimes surface among us as we battle our own cry for comfort as days goes by. Days turn into weeks and evidently we were challenged by the way things were, but in contrary with our fears and hesitation, we stand fervently hoping that with our sacrifices today, as we reached out to the people of Tinglan, it will make us better doctors and good examples to other’s someday.
-Alfie "PIPO" A. Paghubasan (2009)