Fishballs and Sticks
When I was still studying at my Alma Mater as a gradeschool student, I never let a day go without eating at least a stick of street food (fishballs, orange eggs and the like). Of course, everyone can jump into a standardized conclusion that such food is dirty. My best friend keeps on calling it the eat-now-regret-later kind of food. It’s funny because after he kids around like that, we go on eating like we don’t know any better. Perhaps it’s the taste of danger that we savor best.
One particular rule though that we always abide by is to break the stick from which we ate before throwing it away because the might vendor pick up the sticks that is scattered around his place in the plaza and use it again for some other customer. I once saw an incident one afternoon during my fifth grade when the man who sold Bopis (pork insides I think), started picking up the littered sticks all over his place and putting it inside a plastic bag. I was shocked because before then, I hardly believed the rumors of the stick recycling biz. Of course I didn’t care much then but the thing is that I never forgot how dirty they worked.
Who could blame them anyway? Life is hard in this country right? Finally after all this years, I got another chance to see a vendor doing the same thing near a private school. I couldn’t resist but ask why he would even go to the extent of jeopardizing other people’s health for the measly cost of a stick (less than fifty centavos).
“Manong, bakit mo pinupulot yan? Di po ba marumi na yang mga stik? ”*
The man slowly turned around and laughed at me.
“Ha? Kasi, ayaw na ayaw dati ni Father Paul na nagkakalat kami sa paligid ng eskwelahan. Eh, wala namang basurahan dito kaya kahit saan na lang nagtatapon ang mga bata pati na mga drayber. Ako na rin tuloy ang naglilinis.”**
I was in shock. Here I was, mocking for half of my lifetime the way he behaved in his line of work, only to be shamed by the simple fact that I had forgotten to acknowledge. My stereotype mind simply judged all lowly artisans and vendors, for that matter, as crooked. And to think that all these years I was one of those who not only broke the stick but also one of those who scattered the stick in the ground after I ate. I was the one who had a low sense of responsibility over others.
That afternoon was an eye opener and I have the good vendor to thank for it. Instances that demand morality have its way of seeping into our routine lives and often, sacrifices to make them pass perfectly are hardly significant. Often times it doesn’t make you poorer or richer in any aspect, but it simply makes this world a better place to live in. Cliché as it is, that’s the bottom line of all this rambling; Life or something like it.
*Sir, why did you pick it up? Isn’t the stick already dirty?
** Because Father Paul really despised littering around the school. There is no trashcan here so the children and the drivers tend to litter anywhere. So I just have to clean after them.
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