living in the real world

I met up with Jing in Makati this afternoon. She told me this story about a girl she met while being an usherette in CCP. This girl has been having a hard time continuing her education because her family doesn't have enough money. She was only able to enroll last semester because her classmates chipped in for the PhP1,500 tuition fee.

Yes, I already know that things like this happen in the real world. But you don't really know until you've had an encounter with that person. Labor trials and immersion in school was a good experience, giving us a chance to know the Other. Still, the fact that it's a school activity gives it a feel of being contrived as opposed to YOU going out there in the world by yourself and meeting these people without someone in between. I don't mean that it's contrived in the sense that their poverty and state of living is contrived--I mean that it's like there's someone beside you saying "here. here are the less privileged people. this is their experience. learn from them." That's a totally different way to experience things than going to work and meeting people and THEN getting to know the story of their life.

I still have a lot to say about this, but I'm still sorting them out.