Shifting Outlook

Winter is inching closer, as does its biting cold.
I haven't been able to keep up with my journaling because of all the credits that needed to be filled and the essays that needed to be written...but woah.. I've gained a deeper grasp of what it's really like to live in a slum.

Every winter, I observe temporal volunteers come into the slum to distribute rice, briquets, and other supplies. Mainly college students, they appear in yellow jerseys that distinguish them from the rest of the slum.

Well, I usually visit Guryong village wearing a hoodie and long training pants. Yeah, I know. To them, I probably look like one of the dwellers of this village. But that's not what bothered me—no, it's how they eyed me that really made me want to find a rat hole. Yesterday, as I walked past a sea of yellow jerseys, every pair of eyes scanned me from top to bottom, peeking at the corner as if I'm some untouchable, as if I needed pity, and as if.. I'm fundamentally different. It was the longest and the awkwardest time I've experienced walking up to Paolo Study Room.

I felt like..an animal in a zoo.

And this is coming from someone who doesn't even live in the village. I felt so self-conscious—almost embarrassed. But for what reason? I had no reason to be self-conscious. I love myself dearly. And yet it happened.

So I get it—I get why my students always dress black, why they choose to take the longer route back home, and why they are afraid to engage in a wholehearted relationship with people. They are just as vulnerable to prejudice as I am, and as everyone is, if not more. 

If in all their life people always stared at them as if they're some amusing and unfamiliar spectacle, then my students can't be solely blamed for why they act the way they do.

How could I get across this message to people? How could I get my community to cooperate to give Guryong children more loving attention and encouragement? My head is about to burst!