morning walks

Before i take a bathe every morning, I usually drop of my 5-year old half brother to a community school located on the next block, the next street after ours. It probably takes us 2-3 minutes before we get to my brother's classroom, where his classmates are already hop-hopping in their seats and their teacher (who's also a neighbor of ours) tries her best to calm them down.

Even before we pass through the school's makeshift gate, I buy him something for snacks which usually consists of an orange juice and a biscuit, or anything that wouldn't cost much but would already allay a kids want for munchies. Today it's Koko Krunch. (I also bought the same, which I'm eating now.) Around 7am we pass by the streets already full of children playing Chinese garter or some other street game. Even before the morning class, these kids, with their battered uniforms and worn-out shoes -- some with looks as if they were not groomed and given attention to by their families -- already reeks with morning sweat.

But the sight of these unattended kids won't make up for the squalor that's inside the school. It's typical of a public school, just the same as with the kids outside -- unattended. Though some parts of it are cemented, the main stairs made of wood is already deteriorated that the moment Batista climbs through it, he would surely have a bad fall. A lot of unmended chairs are just stacked up and left rotting as well. Some of the kids went here and there carrying some pail of water, raking up detritus, watering the plants, etc.

Before reaching my little brother's classroom we pass by several rooms with elementary classes. I often hear children reciting in chorus the passage Ma'am has given them or sometimes, I would also see Ma'am filling the entire board with chalk, while the children are copying the same. Some classes are just on their way for yet another morning dose of Jumping Jacks.

Education, the only legacy we can leave our children. Now, at least I can make sense of the statistics. I see it every morning.

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I arrived early at the office today. 10 minutes before 8. Official time is 8:30. At this early, some of us would walk to the nearest Select store outside the office building either for the missed breakfast or something to much on snacks. I accompanied Rio this morning to re-load her cellphone. I didn't buy anything but rummaged through the racks of magazine for something new. Unfortunately, Newsweek and Time cost 110 pesos.

Newsweek's front cover is the losing war in Iraq and soldiers coming home. Time's was about the US election, and why it's not everything but George Bush.

On the other hand, you might want to catch this short video clip of George 'Stutter' Bush in The Christopher Walken show. This is hilarious. Hail America!

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