COLEGIALAS IN THE PAANAKAN

We have Senior Nursing students doing duty at the Paanakan, for two semesters, in three round the clock shifts. They're from a posh exclusive school in Manila. They're all rich, fair skinned and pretty. I was feeling generous one time and brought everybody turon...but then again they had ordered fastfood. ouch! oh well they're nice enough and very eager to learn. (nanay is making reklamo about the new people from Unciano who don't seem to give a damn)

I thought they'll get shocked at the mere sight of a kayumanggi woman from the masses sitting upright to give birth. I thought they'd faint at the idea of not having epidurals and hospitals gowns. My tita (another nursing student) says that they're so nice to look at doing duty in the hospitals, so nice and neat and pretty, but disappear when someone bloody and screaming enters the ER. Here in the paanakan, they only cringed at the beginning. But when they realized that there inevitably will be times that they will have to do the job.

a good reality check for them and for me as well.

i'm a konyo-phobe. i react adversely to strange, rich and maarte people. but it's not good to judge people so quickly. it's not their fault that they were raised burgis.

but we found common ground by being professional. we all have the same job to be done: caring for the women. and we all wish that we would receive the same kind of care when our own time comes. we have the same fears. we are all women.

At your service,
Delle the Kikay Midwife