This week, I have been continuing to say goodbye to the people I've gotten to know here, taking my lense and zooming back out from the minutia of the day to day to a larger focus on my experience here, the overall feeling of things, the sights and smells and experiences. At this point, I feel that if I don't zoom out and look at things from a larger perspective, I'll wallow in wondering what will happen to all the people I've come to know. Many of the people don't have much of a future to look forward to, with an uphill climb ahead. I've seen progress in our little town, the first fast food joint opened up a couple weeks ago, along with the first gas station. A couple new micro loan businesses have opened since I've been here, banking is more accessible, and international aid is more of a reality with more and more access to the internet. Despite the progress, there's a lot of people, namely the fisherfolk and older community members that will never realize the luxuries of the progress that's happening all around. The divide grows, and while elementary-educated rice farmers toil in the fields pulling a plow with a Karabaw, wealthy kids sit in an internet cafe in town just a couple miles away, playing interactive video games with people half a world away.
When I came here a couple years ago from the states, I knew that I would see my American family and friends again. I didn't worry that they would someday lack food on their tables or be at risk of assault and being mistreated. However, I'll go home now, and most of these people will remain frozen in my memory as they are now, and I'll never know what happened to them. That's what makes leaving here hard. I won't miss the food or the heat or the confusion, but I'll miss knowing that things are okay.
Bathroom at the Barangay Hall.
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