Comfort Zone: Undetected
By: Arcent Arquiza
It was a morning of another day, time to rise up early from our small, thin, and individual beddings that we brought with us and cook for breakfast- a chore that was not common to most of us. Foods to be cook were done in an old-fashioned manner, with fire woods. It took some time to start a fire, another several minutes more to cook the dishes, longer compared to using a regular cooking stove. As cooking was being done by pair, other unoccupied fellow group mates soon rise up from their beds, not to wander on the place, but to do their laundries. Yes, we do our own laundries in this exposure. Although almost all of us knew how to do it, this chore is still uncommon for most of the group as it was done by our loving mothers or dedicated housemaids in our respective houses. Food is served and ready to eat, the group gathered on a small payag which is destined to be our “dining room”.
It was another day having a healthy meal of fresh vegetables from the backyard as source of meat was scarce due to unavailability of a market and no refrigerator to store our food supplies. The group even joked that we might have kwashiorkor sooner or later due to the absent source of proteins. And yes, speaking of refrigerator, the sweet and refreshing taste of cold water that we just took for granted in the city, does not exist! We get our water supply from the faucet directly thanks to God we do not get it from rain water and deep wells as previous batches experienced on their community exposures. Didn’t I tell you that cooking was not a common chore for most of us? What more of washing our own dishes and cooking utensils. Yes, in the community, we do all these chores. We cooked, we washed the dishes, we do the laundries, we clean our house, and we manage for ourselves. This is what we are doing for our stay in the community. And this was not the purpose of our stay. This was just the “consolation prize” if you know what I’m talking about.
Our objective of stay was to help the community to become a healthy and self-reliant barangay- the third strand of the curriculum of our school, the Community Strand. We are assigned to barangay Lower Sto. Niño in the municipality of Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur for 4-years and our job is to develop the barangay into a new level of community wherein health services are provided and Socio-economic aspects will become stable. The barangay stretched for more than 400 hectares of vast plain lands and some upland. And we needed to conduct a house to house survey to all households present to the barangay. We traveled by foot most of the time, crossing rice fields, climbing hills, and cross rivers with only 2-4 large bamboo poles tied up together as the bridge.
We worked all day conducting surveys, interviews, and observations under the heat of the burning sun- yes it was so hot that it made our skin dark even with protective gears. Paper works were also a major task that we should accomplish during our stay. The data that we gathered should be collated and presented it to the barangay leaders, another challenging task that we faced. Working in the community is not a joke, it needs full focus, determination, perseverance, and most of all, cooperation. A group will not succeed if the members are not on the same cause. How is it for you to do your objectives in the community while you are still the one to do the house chores? That’s not all to consider, since our community exposures are done every after semester, facing the fact that remedial for failed exams during the former semester or R1s will be conducted few days after the exposure. Therefore, those who were unsuccessful in the exams will need to spend time studying. But unfortunately, they will need to study out of their comfort zones. Having less comfort in studying, fewer resources for studying and the pressure of accomplishing the requirements of the community exposure will be a challenge to the remedial takers. With cooperation among the members, challenges are faced not by individuals, but are faced by a group, thus, we prevail.
To sum up everything, life in the community was considered different from where we came from. It was like we were set out away from our comfort zones. Little we care for these things before, and now because of this community exposure we were able to learn the important values in life- the realities of life in the community and how to deal with it. The next exposure that we will return, we will already be ready for the challenges that are waiting for us. Till the next then!
