Personal Essay_place

The Philippines has an extremely poor transportation system. Bumpy main roads make passengers sick just in thirty-minute ride; traffic regulations are often ignored; and accurate maps are not equipped well. So, I had not got out of my second-hand Hyundai Starex driven by private driver when I was on the road. I even rode in my car every morning to go to school that was just beside the gate of my village. Therefore, the Starex was the only place I could observe and indirectly experience the lives of poor Filipinos.

             Whenever I was going to SM Mall of Asia, the biggest shopping center in Asia, I passed by small children who earned few pesos by selling withering Sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines, on the dangerous road where speeding cars randomly passed by. I was guilty of being pleasant to look around the mall for new clothes and shoes because the images of the children in worn-out clothes and flip-flops overlapped. When I looked at the price tags, I found myself calculating how many Sampaguitas they had to sell to afford the shirt I could buy without hesitation. I realized how thankful I should be to have time and money to enjoy shopping in the biggest mall in Asia.

             On rainy days, when I complained about the muddy road and irritating humidity, what I could see through the windows of the Starex were small children who came out and took a shower in the street with the water falling from the roof of a drug store. They ran here and there naked. They did not mind how other people would look at them. They did not seem to know how much polluted the rain drops would have been. For those children in slums, who could not pay for water bills, the polluted rain drops were the only water source for shower and laundry to make them clean. Again, I was so thankful that I could take a shower with purified, sterilized water at private bathroom at home whenever I wanted.

             When a strong typhoon, whose name I do not remember now, struck the Philippines, torrential rain randomly poured down. I was on the way home after a luxurious dinner buffet with my family. A slum area that I had to pass to get home was flooded, and the water came up to the knees of an adult. The Starex was stuck in a water puddle. Then a bunch of children pushed their ways through the heavy rain and pushed the Starex from back until it got out of the puddle. They knocked at the window and asked for tips for it. I was thankful, but shocked and felt pitiful at the same time. For them, heavy rain was not an obstacle but another way to earn money. I was again thankful that I could seek shelter and cover myself from heavy rain.

             The opaque window of the Starex was the only window the life of the poor. Whenever I passed through the tortuous road between old houses of the slums, I could most realistically experience the harsh conditions of the poor. There, I was grateful for what I have and grateful for the very simple things: enjoying my leisure time and shopping; taking shower with clean water in my own shower room; and, having a place to hide from rain. Then there, I started to dream of working for the poor in the future.