Little Things About Me: My First Article Entry

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When I started my adventures on far away lands – some people found me as a dreamer. Others found me uncultured brute. My peers and friends described me as friendly animal that can kick you off when it is needed. But what the people were talking about me were just the downside of my true nature. Yes. I admit that I sometime acted as a wild beast. However, there were also people admired me! Thirty-Seven years ago, I visualized becoming an accountant and a writer. I knew my parents could not afford to send me to school to finish those courses I had wished for. However, I did not give up dreaming. In 1976, I was about sixteen year old and had just finished my elementary; I decided to leave my parents. Contrary to the will of my parents, I still had left them and lived the way I could have to. I knew that to live away from my family was not easy and productive. I had slept under pine trees that were robustly standing around our town plaza. I had used some old scrap cardboard and old newspapers as my gasket and beddings. Sometimes, I had slept on the height of the tower of our town church. Other times inside the waiting shades and fish market along with other deserted children. I had become immune from the mosquitoes bites, salty smells and the freezing darkness. There were nights I was weeping, remembering my family but the homesickness for them did not change my decision. I made friendship with those children who were also at my age. I mingled with them. Thus, it became easier for me to be with them. The fish market was our source of living: Lifting of goods from market vendors in exchange of some money to be divided equally among ourselves were exciting and memorable experiences for us. Until I decided to work with a construction group, located in front of Felipe Abrigo National Memorial School of Arts and Trades (FANMSAT) now known the Southern Samar National School of Arts and Trades (SSNSAT) in the town of Guiuan, Eastern Samar. At first I felt intense pain on my body, prickly fingers and feet but despite heavy and hard works I was happy to receive the 15 pesos for a day’s work. There were nights I was anxious. I could not sleep in the barracks due to chronic fatigue and pains. I wept and wanted to go home but the advent of the future surpassed what I felt – especially when day time came I was watching hundreds of young students entering the school gate, I pretended I was one of them carrying books and notebooks. And the difficulty and fatigue from hard works eventually disappeared. Six months later, the construction of the five units of apartments were done. But before leaving the place, I stood up in front of FANMCAT with my promise that I shall return to study high school. I was sixteen year old when I finished and received my Grade School Certificate, from Mayana Elementary School, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, Philippines in 1976. Then I started my high school in 1977 as a self-supporting student and I received my Secondary School Certificate from Southern Samar School of Arts and Trades, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, Philippines during the school year 1980-1981. Following that year, I took up One Year in Bachelor of Science in Industrial Education from Southern Samar School of Arts and Trades, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, Philippines. In 1994, I again had dreamed to go abroad. I was lucky though because I did not experience much difficulty in acquiring an overseas job. My uncle-in-law who at that time was the chief accountant of the company Kawasaki Helicopter Saudi Arabia – Finance Department helped me get my current job by recommending me to the administrator of the company. A Philippine based recruitment agency, FB Allan processed my papers and I was able to go out of the country as a documented OFW. I also believe that education and learning can be achieved anywhere and any time but it will depend on the person’s willingness to learn. It either by books and other reading materials, schools and a home study program. I am a product of a home study program. I started my creative writing course with The Writers Bureau in Manchester, London in 1999 by mail. Home study program is best for people who have no time to go school and who are busy working. I also believe that sex education should be taught to young ones with values – needed to reduce premarital sex, early marriages and moral depravity. The youth should be trained to become responsible and morally upright citizens. Children and youths should be taught how to cultivate values and how to admire them. All these should be integrated with sex education – to help them appreciate the beauty of sex as a gift of God to mankind in the context of marriage not from what they discovered from pornographic magazines and video shows. As recorded on my journal, it is vitally important too to learn the language of the host country – this is needed especially for immigrant workers when talking to people of that country who cannot speak English language. Thank you. Paul Pruel Your MyLot Friend - visit if you have more time.