When Life Was Great… Not On Our Own Terms

I've been to a lot of apostolates of indigenous peoples, but it was only in my immersion program that I was fully able to appreciate what it really means to live in a community where life was really great without the comforts of city life (of course I do confess using Mobile Facebook during the first and last day, but it was a different matter altogether).

Our immersion group was assigned on Sitio Maporak, Zambales. We had to board the bus going to Iba at seven in the morning of Friday. We reached the town at about eleven, took the jeep to the river, and crossed it (with much force, since everyone of us crossed the river as if we had been through a rough foot spa) to reach the peaceful community of Aetas near the mountainside.

Once we reached there, we got assigned to our foster parents. Mine was Tatay Alfredo, a sixty-three-year-old farmer who knows just how to build not just his family, but also the Aeta community. Not only was he able to send his daughters to school as scholars and his sons to different working places, he was able to keep a small farm both in the mountains and in his back-, no, courtyard.

He served us with a lot of veggies freshly picked from his farmlands. As soon as we arrived, we ate sardines on okra and the small, bite-size ampalaya, which has a different bitterness compared to the Manila-exported ampalaya that we have way back in the seminary.

After that, we went outside with his grandsons and granddaughters, headed straight to the river where each and every kid bathed in, picked green Indian mangoes, and had stories until the sun sets. On the first day, we had a total taste of barrio life, which I admit was not totally away from modernity, because before we slept, we had to watch TV Patrol and an episode of "May Bukas Pa," something that most of the mothers and elders in the place were looking forward to.

We woke up early the next day to do "Harvest Moon" work, as we watered the plants in Tatay Alfredo's farm. As we did that, he taught us a bit of Farming 101, telling us that veggies shouldn't be watered everyday, and that veggies would lose the taste of freshness if they will be sprayed with chemicals. We afterwards went to the Elementary School started by the Ateneo. All of us took part in building a simple bench where all our energies were spent on transporting sand, mixing cement, and laying it down, and we did it for the whole morning, while we were thinking of things to do for the community afternoon and playing with the bunch of kids we were with.

Come the community afternoon, where all of us presented, played games, and shared touching stories of being with our foster families. Of course, it was all important, as we were able to take a step back and reflect on our day-old stay in the community. But the most exciting part of the day was that all of us, boys and girls, were able to finally take a bath into the nearby river. We were all there, jumping and wading in joy, as we brought our towels, shirts, soaps, and shampoos and took a bath. All of us had fun playing like kids and cleaning ourselves up in the river, and when it was dark, we came back and rested earlier than usual (while some were still able to gather and tell their own stories).

The next day was basically a day of goodbyes for everyone. After packing our things and having our processing, we already bid farewell to our own foster families. We wholeheartedly thanked them and made our way back home to Manila.

And what did we bring back after this two-day stay in the mountainside? Well, more than the bags of bananas and indian mangoes, there is the experience of the joys and consolations of the simple life, a short length of time when we did not think of everything that concerns the city, most especially the looming concerns about academics. However, I had to admit that, like Father Roque, I was able to have true philosophical insights during my stay in the barrio. Most of us, including myself, admitted that it would be too hard to go back to the city, since the simple life is just too hard to leave, but then, it's time for us to live our life as they live theirs, so inevitably, we have to say goodbye.

And to end this (seemingly unorganized) account of our rich experience, I would like to end with an emphasis on a fact. We were there not to feel that we are lucky to have a modern life. To do that would be to define life" fundamentalistically," on our own terms. Instead, we were there to experience the other, an entirely different world, with a different set of consolations and problems, but that which we could possibly enter. Perhaps helping this community comes as a corollary, for what is important is that we were able to be one with them and fully experience their life.

*Pictures to follow*