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Up on a hill, alone, with
no one but the sun glaring at her,
Elen carefully navigates her feet down a steep slope.
She is halfway through an hour’s
journey. Today, however, Sitio Abel
seems twice farther. Elen sits on a rock
to rest, and takes this chance to think about the adult education class
she
taught the other day. Like most days, it
wasn’t a particularly easy day. Her students are mostly poor Tala-andig
mothers
who were not schooled. Many of them were
married off at an early age so their families could benefit from their
dowry. Elen is teaching them how to read
and they are far from laughing children singing their way through the
ABC. These women struggle daily with
competing
concerns. They worry about a child of
theirs getting sick, their husbands not having earned enough to buy
food for
the week, their crops not getting enough rain that month.
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| Elen
has concerns of her own. “Most of the
time, I worry that I’ll finish my classes
late and then
I won’t find a ride home back to the Centro,” she opens up. She dreads the long walks alone through
unguarded fields and hills. Sometimes, she has even deeper worries. She feels frustration when some people in the
new sites view the program and her presence in their community with
skepticism.
She sometimes has doubts about her ability to motivate her students to
learn. But while she feels anxious about
some things in her life, she remembers a much more painful and darker
time when
she felt almost completely hopeless.
Ever
since she was a child, Elen had dreamt of becoming a
teacher like her mother. While very few
in their Barrio could afford to finish high school, much less college,
her
parents toiled endlessly to help Elen reach her goal.
She studied diligently to get grades
that
would make her eligible for college. Her
hard work paid off because soon after, she was off to Malaybalay
City
to earn her degree. Elen was clearly on
her way to fulfilling her
dream, or so she believed.
In the
middle of her sophomore year, Elen’s family suffered
an irreparable financial crisis. This meant she had to stop school
indefinitely. Months passed and still
there was no change in their finances. The
possibility that she would never be
able to return to school crept
into her. Depression was setting in. “I
would stare outside the window and cry my heart out,” Elen painfully
confessed. Throughout
that time, she kept praying for a
miracle. More months passed and her spirit was almost crushed. She contemplated on going to the city to find
work and somehow pay for her tuition and boarding fees.
But she knew enough about the real world
to
recognize that there were no such opportunities available to her. She was certain it was time to abandon her
dream.
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"I
still remember the morning Fr. Kit, our
parish priest, came to the house to give me unexpected news,” Elen
fondly
recalls. “Cartwheel Foundation was going
to support me through college!” She
couldn’t believe it at first. She knew
about Cartwheel Foundation. They ran the
only pre-school in Miarayon. She was also aware of their scholarship
program
for indigenous youth but did not realize she could still qualify even
if she
wasn’t fresh out of high school. Now she
was going to be a scholar. Her miracle
came.
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The years she spent living
in the Cartwheel Dormitory in
Malaybalay gave her many blessings: a
strong bond with other scholars from Miarayon; friendships
with her sponsor, the
Cartwheel staff, and other
volunteers; a newfound
appreciation
for her Tala-andig heritage; and
finally, a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education.
There was one other treasure that
inflamed
her heart --- the desire to go back
to
Miarayon to be of service to the community.
As Elen
looks back on how she got to that steep slope on a
hill, her thoughts are broken by the
sound of children’s laughter in the
distance. She sees two children, running
towards her, probably rushing to
school. She too has to hurry down
the
opposite direction. Her own class is
waiting. Suddenly, she can’t wait to get
there. She knows it’s a class full of
dreams waiting to be fulfilled.
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