Life of a Poor Family

Their Ice-Cream Life What is the typical poor Filipino family? It is composed of a mother, a father and their 10 plus or more children dying of hunger and thirst for food, shelter, protection, clothing, security and knowledge. Physiological needs are lacking and unstable for them. They earn money enough to buy a piece of bread, dried fish or egg. In fact, egg is turkey for them. Sardines for Christmas & Luneta for the Holy Week. Lucky if they have jobs. Wealthy if they have TV sets or electric fans. What is less for us is more for them.

Given the task of adopting a family is such an endeavor for me because we do not just talk about teaching nor sharing but impacting lives. It’s not an outreach activity nor a Gawad Kalinga Program good for one day. It’s an almost, if not, everyday struggle for the best of what I can give and impart to these people.

English:

Green tea (matcha) ice-cream with red bean.

It's the picture of Italian ice-cream in a shop of...

It’s like a responsibility of having my own family even for just a while.

This family I came across with lives in a factory of ice cream and sharing a bathroom with ten other families. The father is an ice cream vendor and the mother a laundrywoman both of which has three mouths to feed every single day at least two times a day, if not, once. The father earns a hundred fifty to two hundred bucks a day depending on the weather of course and the mother of very little amount. Earnings just enough for five mouths. Just enough for one day. The first child a high school graduate and not able to continue studies because of financial issues which is always an issue. The second, a second year high school and the youngest, a grade six pupil. Though they...