In this article, I will give to you my story on how it is to be with fellow laborers in a compound owned by a well-known government agency. It will directly change your viewpoints regarding those people. I will prove then that this people are more than just good, hardworking people as what society generally thinking it is. Be prepared, for this article will be longer than as it supposed to.
MORE THAN JUST REQUIREMENT.
It is supposedly a class requirement (An immersion program, more known as the exchange program) in which it was obliged to do such things because it will let us pass the subject. But, it is just more than that. The real purpose is that we are becoming aware of social issues in a way that we enter a life for only two days (for some, three days) of mere immersion, acting as laborers, so that we make part of experience to be shared for the rest of our lives.
The primary focus here is more on the essence rather than just academic quota that chases off the grading system with a purpose of passing the subject, like most students do. It will become part of the inner self, molding personalities that they are become a person of others once they finish studies and already looking for work.
PREPARATIONS - ORIENTATIONS + GUIDELINES
The preparations, actually, takes a week or two, varying academic circumstances, but anyways, I will summarize this to you.
The professor gives us the insight, implying that experience is the gift a person has to be brought on until lifetime. Aside from that, there will be realizations that are based on work experience, and never to be relied on just stories, pictures, and perceptions or mashup ideas made by such a person.
Within the duration of this two-week pre-deployment phase, there is a mass, with an inspiring homily, an opening program, and the enrollment. in the mass, it has been said that a person will be indeed acquire more wise ideas from the experience. Aside from that, there will realizations, as mentioned earlier, that life is indeed as it was. The opening program is significant due to lighting candles, in which signifies wisdom and guide in the way to the two or three-day immersion.
Also, the enrollment is also the striking part of the preparations- in which it has its own requirements. The enrollment comes with a first come, first serve basis with a work place ranging from easy to difficult. Since I want to have the experience more challenging with a great significance, I chose a farm-related area as a work place, for only two days.
MOMENTS OF EXPERIENCE ON HAND
Life is indeed what it was. People were divided into different classes. And on speaking of which, discrimination usually occur without open consciousness on the things. On that, it came into my mind about the word “laborer” describes a person who do their fairly tough jobs. In specified cases, there are times that there is a sense of prejudice that is subliminally applied and never to be taken noticed by many. Most of the time, I am looking good to see and to talk with simple and hardworking people, but there are times that it such unnecessary things keeps uttering in my mouth, with nonetheless focusing on the situation without looking in the bigger picture, in a larger perspective. It was not that offensive or consciously taken concerned, but partly sensitive in nature. At first glance, there is already an assumption given based on what is physical rather than the undertakings they usually have. I would take things for granted, focusing more on my life, my grades, my family, and my friends. There are social issues that baffle my mind, and to be involved, but only limited to theoretical ideas that is taking glance. Maybe I know more, but not knowing the reality of realities, life has to offer to me.
It was not until that I was immersed in a social program focusing on “being” with other people. At first, the idea of “being” with others were almost as simple as a bond like a friend usually has as far as I know, but then again, it is more than that. I learned a lot of “hardships” of what it is to be with others. In my case though, working under the sun, I learned that removing the outer portion of the coconut is already a struggle to do, especially when I’ve done it for the first time. It may seem easy in my eyes, but then again, it is indeed difficult to do. The same applies to me when I cut each and every coconut shell using a bolo where it may bounce and facing a risk of having the fingers bleeding and accidentally cut and separated from the rest of the body. Another risk is that when I am carrying those coconut shells into the furnace, considering that the shells, plus the layer of coconut meat inside it, will make the weight so heavy, in my case I cannot bear it, but to a certain point, the workers in the area did it. Aside from that, carrying loads and loads of those shells have the probability, in this case for me, to go out of balance and the load is gone to waste. It was tiring though, and the pain in the different body parts intensifies, as the wisdom is earned.
There is something more I can far describe from those what I’ve believed for. Like, having those handicrafts easily made wherein the machines that will do for a job, especially for a first-timer, is indeed risky to do so. At that moment in time, I need assistance, as well as my fellow enrollees, to have some of the tasks finished involving those handicrafts. Inasmuch as being with others is concerned, they are friendly, giving, and funny. Another thing is that we’re making friends with those employees. Being friendly comes a lot of things where in this case, I’m just got to know better with anybody else, with the given point in time that we’ve shared some of that strips of time we have, compacted in the small amount of three-day opportunity. It was well worth it. We are happy to be together at our merienda time, in which it was the usual thing to do there before going home back to respective places. One would give a handful of nilagang saging during merienda time as an act of gratitude, a job well done. It was worth it. The experience is dazzlingly amazing. The hardship with the fruits of labor is in there. Gone appreciated, the people I’ve met there is overwhelmed with joy out of simple necessities.
There is so much to be appreciated here. But there is one thing that I realized as human person during the processes. I realized that I can understand more about the lives of those people as well as myself by simply “being” with them. It maybe needs a minor adjustment, but the wisdom is earned there. It is simply to live with the person as the way they live, without any barriers, or doubts, or even complaining about the simplicity of life. In fact, as a student, I usually make my life complicated, with the tendency of being worried in most of the requirements every professor as to give, to comply, and to attain grades. But as I met simple people, they only made a living, without worries. And from that alone, I find myself lucky, for I have the possibility of taking far greater opportunities in the near future. But then again, these people will serve as a testimony of being human. Rather than socialize, I value their works as they help to make lives better. I must say thank you for them, for what it is really, being a human person.
REALIZATIONS
We realized many things. Many amazing things that may carry on for the rest of our lives.
It was in fact benefitial to us students to focus beyond the four corners of the classroom. More than just academic, it makes us a man of others, or let me say
we give essence of what it is to be human.
It is indeed difficult, but we must learn to be with them.
