I have very little experience working with the community closely. Even though my work is tightly connected with the serving my community back in Kazakhstan. I have never personally interviewed them, nor heard their concerns and the everyday challenges they face. I live in the same area of the city where I work and it takes me an average of 15 minutes to walk to my office, but I often take office bus or a taxi. Essentially I am unable to communicate with people outside of members of my family, friends or co-workers.
During this trip we visited a lot of cities and villages called “barangays”. The farther we went from the main cities the more the level of poverty grew. Some places had really terrible roads, the day after such trips my entire body would ache. But I was hardly suffering since I could get to my destination by van with AC. While we were driving to some barangays I saw at most two cars—since they depend on motorbikes primarily. I used to see people driving scooters or mopeds for pleasure back home, and they sat alone. Here, people used mopeds to carry the whole family; father, mother, two kids. I could not help but think how dangerous and uncomfortable this was.
I observed people living in houses that I would never imagine someone could live in. They contradicted the images of homes that existed in my mind. I always believed that the materials used for a house, should be able to protect people from cold, wind, rain, snow, to essentially have strong and steady material. The houses that we saw were made of wood, cement with tin roofs made from palm leaves and etc. I am sure when it is the raining season, water goes through their roofs or if there is a strong wind houses could collapse. Probably I am mistaken with my engineering evaluation/estimation, but as I said before this challenged my ideas of a home. I saw children running around without shoes or when they did have shoes, they were very worn out. My initial thoughts were about children hurting their feet.
Some barangays residents lacked access to nearby hospitals and schools. We heard that when there is a pregnant woman she is sent to her relatives or friends who live in barangay that has a hospital. There is also a great share of women who delivers their babies at home. I remember my grandmother telling me how she delivered some of her children at home and how they died. The reasons for their death were the absence of basic medical care. I understand these cultural similarities between Kazakhs and Filipinos, but I am still in dismay of home delivery customs. On the other hand, these people have practiced various cultural customs such as home delivery for extended period of time and I am sure they are aware of the risks associated with these practices.
So after seeing all these things, the more I realized that I have never been this close to communities and see their level of development. There are many communities not only in Mindanao, that need further support from civil society organizations, or government agencies to make their lives better. I realized how essential it is for people serving their communities to go and do researches to widen their minds by going to villages and places where they have never been to, in order to feel better connection and responsibility in their jobs.
