Chicken chewed one of his leather shoes and he's fuming mad, cursing and shouting like there's no tomorrow. Chicken runs to my side of the bed and curls up. I look down, rub her chin and ask, "Masarap ba?" Chicken barks and wags her tail, as if to say yes.

He turns red with anger but all I could do was snicker.

I will always love this wonderful man.

The nightmare is not that there are too many dying patients.

The nightmare is that the people working in this hospital, the people taking care of the sick, are the ones who are dead. They move without thinking, like zombies, no warmth in their touch, no tone in their voice, no light in their eyes. The smell of death emanates, the ghastly stench of rotting flesh.

The nightmare is that they are trying to poison the live ones, to become like them. Living dead, empty heart, blank stare.

The nightmare is that this is not happening in the land of the in-between, in the hospital of shifting wards, but in the waking world where people bleed, where poisons can actually kill.


This state is elevating, as the hurt turns into hating
- Here to Stay, Korn

LILIW

Day 33

May 13, 2007 Sunday

“But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me, the wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you.

And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat.”

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery


We went to Liliw with a lot of expectations. We went there with heads held up high, confident that the three years of Nursing education we had was enough to back us up in doing community work. It was more than enough, actually, but you see, in school, they don’t teach you how to take a shower with a pig inside the bathroom, <span>they don’t teach you how to get rid of all the flies that seem to be addicted to your legs,</span> they don’t teach you how to stop being afraid of frogs. The Liliw experience can never be fully explained in words. Only those who went there shall know it in abstract.

In Liliw, where a long dusty road leads directly to a statue of the Virgin, we learned that the most beautiful things in life are free, that dances under the rain are not only for children and that the moonlight caught in the twinkle of a woman’s eye can cast a spell. At the center of the place is an intersection, a crossroad of sorts that stands for the choice between the road already paved and the road less traveled. We took both simultaneously, both blending into each other until we created a whole new different path – one, which, we wish will serve as guide for future hopefuls like us, those longing to find their place in the greater scheme of things. In Liliw, we walked under a swathe of silver stars painted on the black sky, yearning to catch them so we could save some for the rainy days ahead. We stood over a cliff where we could be closer to the gibbous moon, to which we whisper wishes of triumphs in life. We passed through the snake-like trail, surrounded by trees that hiss flax-golden tales of ghosts and goblins, treasures untold and star-crossed lovers.

We went to Liliw to help without expecting anything in return. We lived with the people to gain their trust and cooperation. They tamed us with their kindness and free spirit. And like the fox who loves to listen to the wind in the wheat because of the little prince that tamed him, we will look at the sky and remember that once we saw angels dancing, daintily stepping on the white fluffy clouds. In Liliw we found it possible to believe again, to see the world with child-like wonder. Liliw. The place none of us will ever forget.

We are glad Liliw happened to us.

/FMEAB_05/2007


***

What you see above is the last day entry, an excerpt from the unpublished Liliw Summer Immersion Program documentation. Much has been said about the Liliw immersion program yet we never run out of words, of stories to tell and blackmail items to squeal whenever it comes up.


BEFORE

Plans to resume an immersion program in our college started as early as the beginning of second semester SY 2006-2007. It began with the Trinitian Center for Community Development or TCCD, the university’s outreach department. According to Mr. Francis Barte, TCCD was looking for a depressed community which could be adopted when President Josefina Suerte-Sumaya who hails from Liliw, Laguna suggested that they try to see this small neighborhood in her hometown people refer to as Valenzuela. After the initial assessment of the place, TCCD referred the community to the St. Luke’s College of Nursing. A second social investigation was done on March 17, 2007 through a medical mission sponsored by the SNA 2006-2007. It passed the criteria for RLE adoption and it was then decided that the SLCN will again be conducting an immersion program and that it will be on April to May 2007.

The next question is who will be sent there?

369 students. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that 369 shouting, screaming, shrieking eager young nurses-to-be simply won’t fit in a community that small, much less a medium-sized house. The college had to choose. From 369 incoming Level IV students, 64 were chosen to participate in the said program, based on their performance in CHN (Community Health Nursing) duty, the deliberation done by the level coordinators with the CHN clinical instructors, and the screening conducted by the college dean, Prof. Gisela Luna. These students – divided into two batches – will be staying in Liliw, with each other at the safe house (President Sumaya’s ancestral home) and with a host family in the community for two straight weeks. Clinical instructors appointed to guide them were Mr. Francis Barte, Mr. Messiah Dela Cruz, Ms. Antonietta Lomuntad, and Ms. Venni Genetiano.


DURING

Magis Team B / Community Team A :: April 11-April 26, 2007 (Team Maitim)

Magis Team B composed of selected students from sections 5 to 8 was the first group sent to Laguna. Their task was to socially prepare the people of Valenzuela for the coming projects that will be implemented by the next team, the first two phases of COPAR (Community Organizing Participatory Action Research). They were the guinea pigs, the foremost group of people tasked to test the waters and establish ties with the community and the local government units. They had to make sure that the community will like them or else it would spell doom to the succeeding team.

They made a community profile from scratch, using whatever resources they had on hand. It was pure resourcefulness that got them through and yes, the never-ending laughter that this group is known for. They went there not knowing what lies ahead. And they all went back here dark, the contrast level between their teeth and skin very high.


Magis Team A / Community Team B :: April 28-May 13, 2007 (Team Maasim)

The second team, which I belonged to, was tasked with the next 3 phases of COPAR. We continued what the first team started and along the way, added programs which the community felt they needed. We stayed at the safe house during the first three days (in the community for the next nine days, and back at the safe house the remaining five days). The real challenges came on the days thereafter when like the first group, we were each paired with someone of the opposite gender and were assigned to live with a host family, all the while doing community organizing work without the comfort of having our cellular phones with us. We were essentially on our own, literally penniless and undoubtedly clueless. We relied on solicitations, the money we earned from quarrying, and material donations to provide for the community projects. In collaboration with several municipal government agencies, we were able to do that and much more.


AFTER

All of us were informed early on that our performance will determine if the immersion project will be continued years after we graduate. We all felt pressured but all worries disappeared at the sight of the smiles that greeted us. In the end, it wasn’t about the grade anymore; it was about sharing ourselves and giving, even at times when we felt we couldn’t bear one more ounce of life.

In Liliw, the world became our classroom and experience, our teacher. We lived with the people, we were one with them. We learned lessons that cannot be found in any book. We forged lifelong friendships and realized that life offers so much more than what we know. Liliw will always, always hold a special place in our hearts