Kids Needing A Ride

I was on my way to Trinoma, my everyday route towards the MRT North station when I saw 2 kids, a 3 and a 5-year old, waiting for a Jeepney.

The second jeep, labeled 'QUIAPO' passed and then the guy, who was the younger one, moved forward and talked to the Jeepney Driver, ‘Manong wala kami pamasahe, pwede pong pasakay?’ That statement was told in what seemed like an angelic voice. Without any hesitation, the driver nodded with a YES. The kid smiled, then gestured the girl to move towards the Jeep.

Both of the kids can barely reach the handle which will lead them to their seats. I was supposed to be in a hurry but the scene was just too moving for me to continue walking. I stayed there for a couple of minutes recalling the smiles I saw on their faces, the pleading soft voice and the driver’s affectionate stare. I told myself that, how mushy or how nonsensical it may seem to people, I'd share that encounter in writing.

I was wondering where their parents were, whether or not they were lost and where they were headed to. Yet I did not need answers to any of those questions. That fleeting moment made me think about the feeling of euphoria each time I see the smiles of people whom I have helped in a way or two, that fleeting moment validated the fact that one need not be wealthy, to have that heart of giving, of helping.

***Sorry for the lame attempt in having this entry as something post- worthy. Just felt I needed to share this.

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Blog entries are owned and copyrighted by Leah Bulacan © All Rights Reserved 2012. Unauthorized use, copy, editing, reproduction, publication, duplication and distribution of the blog content, without author's explicit permission, is punishable by Law.

wishin' it's milk and honey- for everyone

i support World Vision Foundation

i have dreams, so does everyone.

i want to further my career, to procure a house, to one day settle down with ease.
i want to have more so that i could buy the stuff i only see in magazines, to sit down and worry about what to wear and what tourist spot to visit next, to be snuggled with luxury. heck, who’d say ‘no’ to those?
but i know that i know more than that, i want a simple life, i’ve always wanted simplicity. yes it feels good to be wealthy, but do we really need to
be?

i don’t need a foreign boyfriend who can lead the way to a greener pasture, i don’t even need a greener pasture, what’s the need to search if Philippines is my beloved home and it’s green enough for me, i’ll live here as long as my body would allow me to and i’ll never have to leave to make a living.

i claim this place as what the Lord promised as the lee flowing with milk and honey, i’ll be successsful, and by success i don’t mean material prosperity. i am happy that i am able to help my family (that their eyes are in their distinct glow during 15th and 30th, haha), that i’ve got a nice paying job, and that He bestowed me with creative pair hands, that in my own little ways, makes a difference.

whenever greed comes knockin’ at my door, let alone wants to smash its way towards my entity, all i do is think about the less-fortunate ones who’d die to be in the comfort i’m at, i think about the man with the big tumor near his jawline who barely makes it through the day, of the woman who can’t buy her prescripted pills, of the homeless family who doesn’t know where they’re headed to.

and that’s when it hurts not to have more, the more i think about them and their lives which is way far in being luxurious, the more i wanna be more, the more i wanna be more involved in investing to charity.

yet it’s so deploring to think that while others brag about their new pair of flops which is worth other people’s one-month wage, when others sip from the bottle of a mineral water which is too costly that it’s more than enough to give decent meals to hundreds of empty tummies, when others does not know anymore how to spend their money, a bigger percentage of people struggle to survive. life definitely is unfair, but it’d be more tolerable if everyone owns the heart to share.

it feels so good to be able to help- to share a piece of comfort that we enjoy, but it sometimes hurts a little to have limited means to do so. i wanna be more, i wanna have more so i could give more…

Blog entries are owned and copyrighted by Leah Bulacan © All Rights Reserved 2010. Unauthorized use, copy, editing, reproduction, publication, duplication and distribution of the blog content, without his explicit permission, is punishable by Law.

what is 'your little moment?'

i saw two people counting out their money today. the first one was an officemate who held herset of one-thousand bills.perhaps she had to make sure that she will not fall short of money for the eighteen- thousand monthly fee she pays for the apartment she lives in.
the other one was a vendor counting out his twenty-peso bills. you could right away tell how many he’s got- he held three of it in his hands- his income for the first hour of selling sweet corn, kakanin, and puto. ‘he gotta earn more, ‘ he might have thought. he tucked the bills in his decrepit wallet and thought about the nine people awaiting his return at home.
that moment i saw the fifty-year old man counting out the money he’s got, probably the only money he had for the day, i could not help but cry. i thought about the luxury of residing in an eighteen-thousand-a-month apartment complex (ours is just half of what my officemate is paying), on getting the food you want on fancy restaturants, on getting to go to places only (she can go to dubai, singapore,japan whenever she feels like to) wealthy people can go to, and on being so many times more fortunate than those people whom their sweat we see out of their hardwork, those people whose callouses we notice, those people whe endures lots of hardship in their work in a daily basis but whose salaries are not enough for their daily needs.
i thought about my officemate without any hint of envy to her status- i thought about the big difference of other’s people status to another group of people. at this point, a man might be happily driving his newly bought chevy and at the same time another man is sleeping under the bridge where the rich man is treading, sleeping his hunger away.
everytime i see someone begging alms on the street, or someone who’s obviously sickly but is unable to get medication due to poverty, i can’t help but cry. i’ve always thought about them with the hope that may someone help them surpass their day-to-day battle with hunger, social seclusion, and the other problems caused by poverty, and by thinking so, it also led me to ponder about the own comforts that i have which i oftentimes complain about.
i know that i cannot trade places with them- because that’s not the way it shall be. but at that time that i stood before the man who was earnest in giving his family a decent meal, i knew that in my little way, i could help. few minutes later, few minutes before the man had to carry his basket of goodies to sell to a nearby street, i saw the man’s genuine smile after i handed him the set of six twenty bills for the six sweet corns i bought from him. i smiled back, teary-eyed. i can never forget that smile.
i know that this sounds over-dramatic, but there are these little moments that may seem weird to some, but may mean a lot to you. these are those little moments which creates the heart of giving, the little moments which motivates someone to be good, the little moments which make someone aspire and help make the world a better place.

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