How She Changed

My girlfriend asked me for some help, she's a social worker working for the government. Now, taking up a Master's Degree and they were required to write a public narrative about themselves and their cause.

She's so confident that I will be able to get the facts straight since we've been together for too long now (actually, 7 years and counting). So I drafted this short narrative about her, I hope my words are able to convey what it intends to.

Here it is!

How I changed

Back in 2006, when I started taking up BS Social Work at the Notre Dame of Marbel University I can't say that it was my selfish and chosen field of study. My mother was a frustrated social worker, studied and graduated but did not take the licensure exam because of marriage. Another factor is my peers in high school, before graduation on the fourth year my friends are already talking about these nice sounding college degrees and social work is one of them. I did not want to be left out at that time.

I fear isolation from my friends. That's why I ended up enrolling in a school where they would go too and taking up the nice sounding course with fewer maths. After that it was all indoctrination about the "innate dignity of man". I have studied the history of charity in the Philippines and the world, various life preservation, protection and poverty alleviation and reduction models that I find it hard even today to understand. I was doing well, never had a failing grade and got included in the dean’s list almost every year.

But, there’s this sad realization that despite the good grades and the theoretical astuteness, I still can't feel the passion of helping. At that time I was thinking that it wasn't just in my system and hey! This wasn't my choice, in a sense I was coerced to take this up and whatever the outcome will be I somehow will find a way, pursuing another road than what I was prepared in school to lead.

Then comes graduation and internship, we were designated in a remote area within our province where we are going to stay for three months. At first I struggled, source of water is not safe, there's no internal plumbing and the area itself is prone to violent attacks from anti-government factions notorious for kidnapping and rape. But as the time goes by, being awakened by roosters announcing the slipping of the sun's golden rays on the hillside. Having to fetch water on my own for my own, finding something to eat on my own and having a daily dose of their other difficulties around me, I began to sympathize with them.

I saw the daily hardship but in the midst of all that, I saw resiliency and faith, and they also exude a sense a good nature that ultimately led me to embrace and understand an adage the for so long left me confused more seriously, and that is despite the sad realities of this world, man by nature is good. And after that I don't when and how but the sympathy transcended to empathy and then and only then did I see the need and importance of helping. They already have the inane resources and all they need is a little bit intervention here and there so that they will be able to up lift their condition.

That experience was really an eye opener. When it was time for us to leave, I wept inside not because I will be missing them or the place, not because I survived through my own personal hardship but because I learned a lot. I am thankful and somewhat amazed that a desolate place in the mountain side without even a decent source of electricity and its indigenous but civilized people was able to teach me something I failed to learn in school.

All those things that I was able to gather I used since that day up until this very moment in the performance of my duty as a social worker. That's why today, I may not be the best there is, but I can proudly say that because of that small phase in my life I am able to touch the lives of the person's I met and helped.

The vocation and bow of charity does not need to come naturally, as what I have learned from my case. It can be experienced, and it all depends on your openness by then, all you have to do is look and listen with the sound of the soul and the language of the heart.