ayah enna
A fresh grad who finds herself waking up after lunch (GMT+8, mind you). She is into videogames, anime & manga , certain book genres, a bit of music, and dogs. An introvert, she is generally slow in warming up unless she sees that a person has at least a common interest. She knows too little of HTML so she had to download this pre-made layout.
(It's really more of me being invisible, on SMS or using meebo)
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mayo 16, 2005
Straight from one of Ayah's diskettes, here's a reflection paper she wrote recently. Why? "Because I can," (Prieto, 2005) <- ang hindi makafigure out kung saan galing ang quote na ito ay hindi nanonood ng commercials sa local TV channels =P Eto, may time ako para magblog eh wala ako malagay. Teka, LPEP ng CBE nga pala ngayon. Bukas ang last day ng classes ko dahil wala kaming finals sabay pasukan nanaman uli sa Lunes ;_; So here's the reflection paper. Mahaba po ito kasi dapat at least 3 pages sa short bond paper ang required tapos 1.5 space.^- I know it's a lame title
Some of the students from Mr. Raymundo's RELSTRI M72 class, including myself, had their community service in the Missionaries of Charity's Home for the Destitute and the Dying in Tayuman last May 8, 2005. It was a whole day affair, beginning at 8:00 a.m. and ending at past 3:00 p.m. In most of the participating students' cases, we met with our facilitator, Mr. Bong Quiamno, and assembled in the McDonald's branch beside DLSU on or before 7:30 a.m. of that Sunday. By 7:30 a.m., we went out of McDonald's, crossed Taft Avenue, and went to the LRT station. We rode the LRT going to Tayuman Station and when we dropped off there, we rode a jeepney going to Immaculate Conception Parish. Beside the parish is the Home for the Destitute and the Dying.
This was not the first time that I have been into a home for the aged. When I was in fourth year high school, our organization held their Christmas party in Hospicio de San Jose. In my visit to Hospicio de San Jose, our organization focused more on the elderly residents. I had the opportunity to talk with some of them. One that sticks to my mind from that visit was that of this grandmother whose children and their families are in Cebu. All of her children migrated there; however the old woman had a hard time traveling so the children decided to have their mother housed there. What striked to me in her story was that her children and their families manage to visit her there once in a while, during holidays. Of course, there were also stories from the other old people about them being disowned by their own families thus ending up there. The old people in the Home for the Destitute and the Dying more or less shared the latter.
It is still unthinkable for me how people could possibly throw out their own parents to the streets literally, especially that the occasion for the day of our community service was Mother's Day. I felt guilty that I was not spending the whole day with my mother, more so considering that she is a widow, but she told me that my education should go first. I would have chosen the other available schedule for community service for summer term had I not have another class aside from RELSTRI for this term. I am aware, nonetheless that there are a lot of possible factors why those people ended up in such a miserable place like the Home for the Destitute and the Dying.
For me, that place still lacks some amenities even if the residents there are living a simple life. When I looked inside the wards, it seems that the electric fans are too few to ease everyone from the scorching heat. It is a hassle for a hired help or a volunteer to drag plastic chairs with an occupant who cannot walk on each one of them when things like wheelchairs have been invented and are in use for decades. The one that raises my concern the most is that the residents who are mentally unstable are living alongside those who are not. Our facilitator explained that putting them in an institute that handles their kind of problems would aggravate their condition more.
If the facilities were not an eye-opener for me, doing simple chores do. That is how I initially got to interact with some of the elderly. Rendering service for others makes me feel good about myself because I do not useless. I finally got to converse with one of the elderly residents when I assisted her back to her ward. Her name is Salvacion and according to her, she has been living there for many years. I was too shy to ask why she ended there in the first place because I do not want to make her upset and it is rude in my part, bearing in my mind that we just met. Instead, I asked for her opinion about the facilities and treatment that she is getting in that place. She told me that sometimes the services are good, while in other times they are bad. She also told me that some of the people she is living with are mentally unstable and she is uncomfortable with that.
After our quick chat, I was informed that one of the old men had just died. Hearing this news knocked to my head the fact that this place is primarily a pre-departure area. Death is inevitable, yet if one is to die with not so satisfactory living conditions and services that are for the sake of a monthly salary instead of out of love, to me, it makes the last moments of these people's lives miserable. I went to the chapel to see the deceased. He was already lying in state in a simple wooden coffin that was painted in white. I feel sorry for the deceased that he died in a place where people like him are there because they have no home and no family to take care of him. Even when the whole activity ended with the processing, I did not see any mourners in that small chapel.
The community service also introduced me to a very interesting old woman named Basilisa "Sally" Berzuela Ces. We were amused to hear her tell her life story in fluent English, a story that moved me to try to help her somehow. She was a teacher in Bicol who could have published some textbooks had the publishers' conditions were good enough for her. The publisher wanted to buy her manuscript but in doing so, they would get most of profit. The royalties she would get had her works been published are meager. Around twenty years ago, she broke her pelvis in Manila and was not able to return to her family ever since. She also talked about her husband whom she hated. Our facilitator suddenly suggested that he might try to help her find her children. I also want to help except that I do not know anyone whom I am close to from that region. What really caught my attention is that she wanted to write a book about living in a home for the aged. I told her that she should pursue this idea because her situation is unusual for Filipinos, given our family-centered orientation. I wanted people to become more aware of this phenomenon. Lola Sally told me that she would do so if she had lots of paper and a typewriter. However, the nuns operating the nursing home would probably not allow having a typewriter donated in accordance to their principles. I am still looking forward to having this idea materialize.
This activity made me more aware of the reality in a nursing home here in the Philippines. While my previous visit to one was geared towards entertaining the elderly living there, this visit was closer to what really happens inside. What I have just said in this paper needs to be done and I want to act upon it. I feel sorry for the aged in these homes yet at the same time, they are fortunate that they are not wandering on the streets. It saddens me that there are people who could be so ungrateful but I am not one to generalize that. In the end, the people in those homes humbly wait for their time to finish but in their hearts, there might still be an emotional burden lingering.
revolutionized the world at 4:04 p. m. | | #
