The Class of 1975

This time we made it to Sunday mass on time, the car not even needing go into 4WD since all the muddy patches had been filled with gravel. Sorting that out had not been straight forward but that is another story.

I did not accompany Rodelyn and her son to church this time. Instead I drove on to the market to wait for Nora Luglug who had insisted I should come along to the free clinic that she and her old school friends had organized for a village south of Lagawe.

When after some unplanned delays we eventually made it to the Hucup Barangay Hall, there were at least 50 people waiting for us. Through the local Barangay officials, word had gone round the villages in the district that a doctor and a dentist would come for one morning to carry out free circumcisions and dental work.

The “Batch of 1975” as they called themselves, arrived with snacks and drinks to provide to all the patients that had registered. And after treatment, free pain killers and antibiotics were provided as required. “We asked local pharmacies and pharmaceutical suppliers to help out with these,” I was told. “They agreed to provide donations, as did our friends whom we asked for cash to pay for the snacks.” Their friends gave about 500 pesos each, That’s about $15NZ or nearly twice the daily legislated minimum wage. Even if you are a professional earning a little better than that, it is still real money that shows a true sense of charity.

The Barangay volunteers had already a list together with nearly 30 boys needing to be circumcised and even more people wanting to see the dentist for free. With neither doctor nor dentist available in the district, an expensive trip to town is unavoidable for anyone needing medical attention. And even if one was prepared to put up with the lengthy waits at the public hospital, the lack of basic medicines and scarcity of diagnostic equipment did not encourage a visit there.

But the Barangay building had a little room where the health worker could do check-ups and administered prescribed medicines. Today it provided clean water and a treatment couch.

The volunteers that had come along to treat or help organize patients were part of the Class of 1975, which was the year they graduated together from the Bosco High School in Lagawe. Now, years later they were the doctors, teachers and just good citizens that occasionally volunteered their Sundays to do charitable work in their community.

Dr May Diaz worked at the Public Hospital during the week. Today she had brought her scalpel to trim the foreskins of boys aged 7 to 11. As the day progressed, boys appeared walking awkwardly with their hands down their pants, grimacing less as the pain wore off.

The dentist also was working through a busy list with a very basic set up involving an ordinary chair and a helper holding a dish with sterilized instruments. Since most involved a tooth extraction, every patient had first to undergo a blood pressure check.

As this was going on, I used the opportunity to sit down with some of the volunteers from the Barangay to find out more about this community. Councilor Jaqueline Paddayao had only recently been elected onto the Barangay council. One of the causes she had campaigned for in her electorate of less than a thousand residents, was to make the district alcohol free. “It is a serious problem but all of us at the council agree that we should prohibit the sale of liquor in our local shops.”

But the real issue according to Jaqueline was poverty. “We need more opportunities for income. Raising pigs and chicken has real potential. Except the upfront cost for feeding the animals for the 6 months until they are ready for sale are really hard for families that have no spare cash. And then when you sell them at last, you and your family need money so urgently that you can’t set aside any savings for the next lot.”

Or something else happens. ”I have been raising 7 pigs but recently we had several deaths in our village and I had to give my pigs to the funerals. But I am sure that if you organised it differently it would become possible to have a real income.”

Then I spoke to Elizabeth Dinamling, the district health worker. She explained that simple illnesses like pneumonia, and diarrhea from unclean water caused problems, especially for pregnant women. Of concern was also the rate of underweight children that their monitoring program recorded, with 10 counted in the past year. “The mothers cannot afford to prepare special infant food but instead just mash up the food that is cooked for the whole family.”

By the time I came out of the Barangay Hall, the queues had reduced somewhat.

The Class of 1975 simply started off by collecting used goods to fundraise for local help and has since grown into a group frequently seen doing projects like this and imitated by graduates from other years. Without any government assistance, or direction from other agencies, as lifelong locals they know where their help can make a difference. This is where inside knowledge really counts.