On my way home from school while riding a jeepney, this man jumps in with a glass filled with ice and water, and sits across me. As soon as he settles in, he starts shouting all these things like "Ezekiel chapter.." "In the book of Solomon!..." "the american...BRITANNICA! ... is the bible! ..." etc. His voice was deep and frog-like. This was enough to make the people beside him scoot away from him ( he was also swaying his glass side to side violently). Unfortunately, I couldn't move coz our side was full. Also, this guy kept looking at me and kept trying to start a conversation with "dun ka nag-aaral noh? *points back to vito cruz*" which made the trip a little bit uncomfortable for me.
Most of the passengers were trying to avoid the gaze of this guy, and some were even snickering. I mean, if you had to share a jeepney with this guy, wouldn't you be scared? or wouldn't you find it comical? If there's one thing I'm sure of, it would be that everyone on the jeep thought of him as "crazy".
"crazy" is a term we often use to describe people who defy the norms which may be comical, stupid, or scary. I used to steer clear from them out of fear, but after taking up psychology, I learned to understand these kind of people. Its sad that the government isn't doing anything about these homeless people who may or may not be suffering dementia.
Probably the worst experience I had was when I saw a homeless woman by the sidewalk and I saw that she was wearing a ring on her ring finger. It was really shiny and it didn't look like the cheap ones you'd see anywhere, it look pretty decent and expensive. Maybe she just picked it up somewhere, or maybe she's part of a syndicate, but maybe, she was actually married. And now she's sleeping on the streets.
What if she had kids?
what if her husband died and then she got so depressed that she ended up that way?
What if her children abandoned her because they didn't have money to take her to a doctor?
Of course, there is no way for me to verify these "what ifs". But the thought that maybe one of these "what ifs" may be true is just excruciating. During this experience, I thought of my lola and lola puy. What if my family didn't have the money to bring them to a doctor? would we have done the same?
I hope not. But then again, there's no way I can verify this.
In other news:
The jeepney I took had one of those "DJ Drivers" (Drivers who love playing their music so loud that they can't hear you when you make "para"). But this one was different because he was playing songs like "safe and sound" ,"stay the night", "birthday -katy perry", unlike the others who would play OPM or mixes that are just.... really bad :( It really made the trip going home less stressful! :D
I really wish we had more jeepney drivers who have good taste in music. I'd pick that jeep over any other jeep any day... haha! :))
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