sa dagat: bago ang lahat

Cervini café.
A few of the fifteen Jesuit Volunteers from the Manila Local Community hung outside the cervini caf playing a fortune-telling game to ease up the anticipation hanging thickly in the air. Questions varied from “who will fall in-love with her supervisor?” or “who will be assigned the farthest?”

It would be about an hour before the fateful envelopes would be given out. THE ENVELOPE. The envelope that would plot our lives for the coming year. Where we will be assigned, who our partners will be and what organization we will be working for.

While the game goes on, I had the wishful thinking of being assigned in Palawan. Who wouldn’t want to thrown away there? Beaches and mountains and deer and giraffe and ten-thousand year old skeletons! But somehow I know that wasn’t where I will be. I knew someone else would be luckier than I.

And so I kidded around for the other prize catch. “Ako ang magiging partner nung taga-Georgetown!” Yup, there was a Fil-Am JVP who studied in Washington. He wasn’t around during the pre-orientation seminar so he was an object of curiousity for most of us. And of course, how can I not wonder, “gwapo kaya yun?”

Laughter filled the air with the silly answers the cards gave us. It helped ease the knot in my stomach as we waited for the clock to strike one in the afternoon. When suddenly a call from the Pollock building. IT IS TIME.

We entered the room with much nervous energy. The chairs formed a semi-circle facing the blackboard with THE legendary JVP map of the Philippines looming larger than it did that morning. Rose went up to the board and explained the areas and the organizations plus the work the volunteer will be doing. When she came to Mindoro, I knew I was doomed to be assigned there.

Looking less like Elmo and more like a POVS (Program Officer for Volunteer Service), Rose said something like this, “The volunteers who will be assigned in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro will be working for Communication for Evangelization and Development Center or CEDC. One will be assigned as a Video Production Assistant (and here I feel a tug in my gut) and another will be working as an Administrative Assistant.”

And as Rose rambled on about the other areas of assignment, I thought to myself, “but I want to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher.” But somehow I knew Mindoro was my destiny. As Rose finished up with the litany of areas, we were being given our envelopes

There is a tradition to the envelope. All volunteers must wait for everybody else to get their own. Before opening, the volunteers hold hands and sing “Panalangin sa Pagiging Bukas Palad.” A song quite appropriate for anyone whose fate is written on a piece of paper. With my eyes closed, I sang with much feeling. I had to remind myself that JVP was my thanksgiving and service for all the blessings I have received my entire life. I had to trust the wisdom of these people on where I will be most fit.

The song was done. The time has come.

Everybody was to open their envelopes together. Paper ripped here and there. My own included. And my instincts was right, I was assigned in CEDC. And more eerie was I was partners with the Georgetown guy. Oh no! Spreakening-dollars!

Energy built up in the air. Most of the people seemed happy with what they got despite not having any idea where there area would really be or what it will be like. They were still names that sounded good on paper and looked far enough from Manila on the map. Bukidnon, General Santos, Leyte, Zamboanga… yada-yada. While I looked at Calapan… not even a pinky away from Manila on the map. Darn! I so wanted to be far from home. Sigh.

Ignorantly, I went up to Rose and asked one of the most important questions on my mind. “Rose, may beach ba dun?” And with her usual loving motherly manner, “Naku, Anak! Magsawa ka! Ayan o (points to the map and shows an island surrounded by… uh, water). Nakapunta ka na ba ng Puerto Galera (I shake my head)? Malapit lang iyon. White sands dun.”

With the words white sand, I felt a little better.

But not completely. I’m not sure if I do like Mindoro or if it will be friendly to me. With nothing happening yet, I decide to take it in stride and accept the fact that I am not teacher material. Or rather, I was too appropriate for the job that it would be ridiculous not to assign the only JVP communication arts major like me to an office named Communication for Evangelization and Development Center doing production work.

Yeah. Sure. Why didn’t I get Palawan or even Bukidnon? Hmph.