New Books from Booksale

I love going to Booksale. It's like going on an expedition to some historic archaeological site. There is always a new book to be unearthed and discovered. 

Over the past few months I have bought some interesting comic books. These are not the usual superhero-type comics, but are more of the alternative type. I don't think I'll ever get to buy these books in the mainstream bookstores or comic shops.

What makes these books so attractive to me are its price (costing less than 150 pesos) and its art work. The stories are engaging and I think the drawings make the characters more interesting. I might do a review of each book in a future post.

Aside from these alternative comic books, I also found some RPG books hidden behind one of the coffee book shelves. Most of them are fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons books. I think the price is reasonable, but I decided not to buy it since our RPG group has abandoned playing 4E.

Updates on the Veggie Garden

The weather has been good to the vegetable plants in our little garden. The hot morning sun and heavy afternoon rains made the seedlings sprout faster, growing several inches over the span of a few days. The best thing is that I don't have to do any more watering since the rain is doing it for me. 

It has been almost two years since I bought my first set of seedlings. I remember purchasing one small pot of citrus mint, another pot of citrus basil, and a pot of lagundi seedlings. There was a feeling of excitement and fear when I brought the plants home. I wasn't sure if I was watering them correctly or if I was giving them too much or too little sunlight. Weeks passed and the plants survived. I decided to treat the whole garden project as an experiment, to see how long I can keep the seedlings alive and see how big I can make them grow.

From these three small pots, my plant collection grew to include two calamansi trees, four giant pots filled with ginger and tumeric shoots, several pots of basil herbs, three large cans of bell pepper plants, two peppermint pots, and one lonely cherry tomato plant. 

I did encounter some failures with growing potatoes, kamote, garlic, and onion plants. Apparently they don't do well with the soil or I have been watering them the wrong way. I am still hopeful and learning. Good thing we have Google and Youtube to help provide gardening tips and ideas.

Last August my mother-in-law gave us a set of vegetable seeds and we started planting them in small cups. A few weeks later, small seedlings started to sprout and we manage to transplant them into bigger pots. Now the seedlings have grown into young happy plants. These are the new additions to our growing urban garden:

 

Cucumber plant

 

 

 Guyabano seedlings

 

 Kalabasa (Squash)

 

 Radish

 

While on the road home...

I was driving back home yesterday afternoon when I saw three young toddlers squatting side-by-side on the sidewalk. Normally I wouldn't pay them any attention, but since traffic was heavy, I began to notice them. They appeared to be three or four years of age, covered in dust and grime, wearing tattered shirts without any shorts or underwear. The eldest one, a skinny brown girl, looks around self-consciously as she relieves herself on the sewage drain below her. The two smaller boys were laughing with each other, playing their game while taking a dump on top of the same drainage.

I drove my car a few meters forward, passing the kids, wondering why I felt a little troubled by this incident. I've seen a lot of street children around the city -- sniffing rugby, aggressively asking for alms, cursing you if you ignore their pleas. Years of living in Manila had made me both indifferent and angry at the plight of these young beggars. But at that moment, I felt a familiar sense of despair  creeping inside me.

As a fresh college graduate, I remembered having a lot more empathy and concern. I truly believed that they were the neglected victims of a cruel society. I was foolish to think that I could have made a difference. Back then I had that desire to help them out, to restore their dignity and fight the system that continuously abuses them. So I did my share of volunteer work at the local church and even joined a few protest movements to speak out against this injustice. But somewhere during that time, I had a change of heart. Maybe it was the idea that poverty was an incurable plague that infected the city or nothing that I did really mattered. Eventually I stopped caring about them, focusing on other things that I can control, like my career and my family.

The car in front of me moved another three or four meters. I quickly pushed all these troubling thoughts to the back of my mind. My car was now beside a half-empty jeepney parked next to the sidewalk. There were two men standing at the back of the jeep, hooting and calling for passengers. One of the barkers kept his eyes on the kids, checking if they were finish with their business. The other man drew out something that looked like a small gun from his baggy pants.

For a moment I panicked, I wasn't sure if the weapon was real or not. The pistol looked authentic from a distance, but it could have been made entirely of plastic. The barker grinned as he held the weapon, as if he was prepping himself up for a fight. I looked at him as he played with the gun, his companion called him, and he quickly pushed the weapon back into his pants.

I took a couple of deep breaths as soon as I drove pass the jeep. I was moving further and further away from these disturbing sights. But I could not push back the faces of the people I had just seen and the feelings that have started to bubble up inside me. It was foolish of me to think that I was totally safe in my car, inside my own little cocoon, protected from the harsh realities of this city.

It would have been easier for me to close my eyes again, pretend not to see the parts of our society that have been crumbling for ages. The bitter truth is that we are only as strong as our weakest members. The children that sleep and shit on the streets today may become the harden criminals or the industrious workers of the future. Their experiences on the urban road have shaped them into the people they are right now, and it will continue to shape them in the years to come.

I am thankful for this experience. It came as a wake up call for me, reminding me of the judgements I have over other people, particularly the less fortunate members of our society. I might not have the answers to poverty nor do I have the dedication to help uplift their lives, but at least I am now awake to face this reality.