An Outlandish Dream

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)

eyes wide open

The raindrops are falling hard on the nipa roof and I can almost feel the small hut sway with the storm-like weather outside. The windows are already closed but still the strong wind blew out the candle that served as the sole source of light in the room. I want to pee but I hesitate for I must endure the muddy 10-meter walk first to bridge the gap between our hut and suffocating comfort room. It’s dark outside and no one will accompany me. Everyone in the group is asleep—or at least I think they are. Dare to ask if one of them is awake, I do not; for we are not in good terms. The slightest movement, I’m afraid to make for we are lying down fully-crammed on the cold wooden floor covered only by thin blankets. We are only inches away from one another, separated by mosquito nets in this one-room hut that can hardly contain the ten of us. Due to my inability to contain the urge to urinate and despite my fear of going out alone, I forcedly get up to reach for my flashlight, and open the door…

I flicker my eyes open as well and now I’m out of my imagination. Those were the fears I had before our community exposure for we were told to expect the worse. Rocky roads, scarce water, limited food, no network coverage for phones, a rotten house and countless inter-personal conflicts were among my list of worries. Surprisingly though, my group mates and I underwent the challenges of our first exposure and actually had fun being together in one sturdy day care center that we turned into a home.

True, we will go through the same and even more struggles again and again in the future but we now know that we just have to swallow our fears and pride, gather our courage and open up our hearts and achieve our goal in bringing out the best in one another and of course, in our community.