Rainy Reflections: Contrasting Comfort and Suffering in a Cityscape

It was an icy-cold morning. The rustling of the roof, as droplets of water strike, awaken my sleeping body. I slothfully descended from my room. The television was already powered on. My father is watching Unang Hirit, waiting for class suspensions. The breakfast my father prepared were fried rice and embutido from yesterday’s meal followed by a piping hot milk. After the meal, I put all the china on the sink. My body was freezing as I took off my clothes.

During my bath, I couldn’t even pour a full tabo of water; my body was shivering. I wore then blue shirt and maong pants. Outside my house, the flood is about a ruler high. I just hoped for suspension of classes for my first day in college.

To get to the LRT 2 Pureza station on time, I did not hesitate to wade on the brown slimy flood to ride on my father’s old tricycle. While I am inside the tricycle, I wiped and cleaned my foot and legs.

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As we move towards Pureza station, we were confronted by a heavy traffic. The run-off on Jesus Street was about a centimeter high. Most of the student commuters decided to walk barefoot —carrying their shoes alongside with them. Along the corner of Jesus Street and Estero de Pandacan, a massive queue of commuters and passengers waiting for a Nagtahan jeepney had blocked one side of the road. When we reached Nagtahan bridge, we haven’t moved a meter for five minutes.

During that five minutes, I encountered an old homeless man walking at the side of the bridge— topless, almost naked and completely drenched from the rain. He was dragging a sack containing all of his possessions. The plastic bottles at the base of the sack were clashing as the sack strikes the ground. The pedestrians walking at the side of the bridge flee far from him. I wonder how did he get by the rain during the night I am sleeping peacefully. I wonder how street dwellers manage to survive the hell brought by the rainy season. The encounter reminded me of a child street beggar seen on our church every after 9:30 AM Sunday mass. The child is about 10 to 11 years of age, wearing a maroon Nazareno bandana.

The thing about this child is that after the mass, he will immediately proceed in front and he will hug the priest for a considerable amount of time. He stinks. One can see the dirt at every nook of his nape. As he hugged the priest, he is murmuring “Father, father”. Some members of the crowd hesitated to approach the priest and some performed pagmamano to the priest while keeping their distance to the child. I wonder if he will go out and play or he will stay at his shelter, if he has, when rain pours. Another child street dweller rendezvous happened during one of our practical exams in GE 10. Three child street dwellers had come across at our site, even though it is raining, in front of UP Main Library parking lot, and touched the department’s expensive optical instruments.

Two of the children are boys. The first boy is wearing an adult shirt; it is difficult to visualize whether he wears shorts or not. The second boy and the girl have snot dripping from their noses. The three of them ranges from five to seven years old. The girl jumped in front of our station and said “Ate, picturan niyo nga ako”. Seen by her companions, the other two approached our station and imitated the girl. When my course mates reported this to our professor, the three ran fast and vivacious across academic oval even though it is still raining. The water droplets falling from the acacia trees proved an impeccable complement to the overflowing innocence of the three.

How about street dwellers with disabilities? There is an instance when I was walking towards the Pandacan jeepney station from Nagtahan, I saw a blind man sitting on the floor while holding his blue umbrella. The rain is light and the sky is dark. The chilly wind whispers abruptly as if it was threatening the whole city. His most defining feature was his eyes; it is as white as marble. There is a large clear milktea container lying beside him containing one twenty peso bill and three coins. There is a cardboard in front of his chest covered with scotch tape; it contained the scriptures: “SA MGA NAKAKAKITA, KONTING TULONG LANG PO, SALAMAT PO”. I am very tired at that instant that is why I just passed him by. I just wished for suspension of tomorrow’s classes after that. But realizations from the street dweller couple made me reflect truly my current standing in the society.

One time it was raining hard at Pureza; a street couple offered their help for some of the commuters to traverse the LRT station to the motorcycle station, which is about 20 meters away. My umbrella is nothing to the gust of the cloudburst. The gust blows like a blizzard except that it drops water, and not crystals. The couple lived on a rusty pedicab patched with different tarpaulin of different politicians who ran last nationwide elections. A plump gloomy askal is tied beside the wheel of the pedicab. The pedicab was positioned underneath the LRT station platform. The woman yelled at the man, “Oy, silungan mo sila hanggang sa kanto”.

The man unfolded their capacious colorful Micromatic umbrella— enough to cover three people including the man. I thanked the man afterwards. With these encounters I made with different street dwellers, one thing is certain: I am not serious in delving into one of the major problems faced by our society — poverty. For so many times, as a student, I hoped a lot of rains for classes to suspend. Even though most of the rains are brought by light monsoons, I did not even think of light rains as a disastrous natural processes. If I can wish for a suspension of classes to appease myself, can I also wish for the suspension of the street dwellers' sufferings during rainy seasons to soothe their mind once and for all?

Only one will remain clear; the classes can possibly be suspended during rainy seasons while the sufferings the street dwellers experienced will continue even though the rainy season has ended. Now that I have reached this point, it felt hard to compare the comfort I’m feeling and the suffering the street dwellers experiencing during rainy seasons. The rejection by people, repression of nature, physical hindrances and insecurity in daily necessities highlight the great wall that separates them from the rest of the world. This great wall is unapparent and eventually, it will entrap them to the living hell. After a long rainy voyage, at last, I finally arrived at UP safely on my first day.

I went to the academic oval and I captured an image of a tin yellow light passing through the intricate network of branches of Acacia trees along with the historic Melchor Hall. The earthy scent of the ground from rain shower emanates along with the sweet smell of the grass and dry leaves. Thirty minutes after my arrival, the Quezon City Local Government suspended the classes in all levels. I've seen the joy to most of the students when the suspension of classes was announced. The fun was intrinsic; nobody probably knew that the happiness was due to a guaranteed safety from the local government. Beyond the great wall, there is also an intrinsic feeling beyond the gates where the dwellers didn't even knew the guarantee of their safety.