I just recently had an exposure trip with a couple (there were 40+ of them!) of students from school and I realized how different our views were when it comes to community service.
I remember doing community service back in high school. It was so much fun not because we got to get out of school but because we got to experience something unique and very humbling.
During my first year in high school, we had a market exposure. We had to buy ingredients in a wet public market for our cooking class. We were suppose to make pancit canton. The school made us ride a jeep...take note...no security guards. When we got there, our teacher instructed us on where we were suppose to meet and then set us loose at the market. It was funny at first because most of my group mates have never been to a public market. I think the tinderas were secretly laughing at us because whenever we would ask for the price of the ingredients they would answer in Spanish (e.g. kinse, kwarenta, singkwenta). We'd look at each other and say "Ahhhh kinse" and then someone would whisper "What in the world is kinse? How much is that?" Some of us would mimic the other buyers and start sniffing at the vegetables so that we wouldn't look stupid. That really was a great experience. Even though we smelled bad and the place was really hot.
On my second year, our exposure trip was cancelled due to the lahar flow in Central Luzon. Sophomores would always go to San Simon, Pampanga to meet with our sister school there and interact with the farmers. It was a bit disappointing but we got to go to San Simon on our junior year. It was a short exposure but meaningful. We ate with the family that we were assigned to and brought them lunch. One of my groupmates, Sasha, brought Jollibee hamburgers and fries with her and for them eating Jollibee was already a feast. They could only eat at Jollibee once a year because they couldn't afford it. Some of my classmates went home muddy that day because they actually walked the rice fields with the farmers!
But nothing could beat my senior year in high school. For fourth year, we were to spend 3 days with a family who lived along Boni Avenue. We didn't sleep there but we got to spend 8 hours a day with our foster family. We accompanied our foster moms and dads (and even siblings) to their daily activities. My foster dad was a tricycle driver so I spent one morning riding at the back of his tricycle waiting for passengers. My foster mom was a stay-at-home mom so I did chores with her around the house. I ironed clothes, cooked Adobo, swept the floor, washed the dishes, solicited money for a funeral, etc. As we went around the barangay, I would see some of my classmates chatting and working with their foster parents. One was even washing clothes because her foster mom was a labandera. At three o'clock we would hang-out at the nearby sari-sari store and drink Coke from a plastic bag and play watusi with the kids in the barangay.
I am so proud and thankful that I was able to go to a school who had a heart for service and was able to instill in their students the value of humanity. In all our exposure trips, no one ever complained of the heat, the smell, and how tired we all were. That was all part of the experience. I have batch mates who were the daughters of politicians and business tycoons but you would never hear them complain during our exposure trips.
No one complained at all.
You're probably wondering why I wrote this blog...I'm just frustrated. Frustrated because some of my students chose to complain when we went to "camp." They complained so much they were not able to appreciate what was right in front of them. They complained so much they lost the essence of what the activities were all about. They complained so much that I was ashamed to be their teacher for that day.
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