"ANGELS DAY OUT, ONE DREAM OF ONE ANGEL" with the Bulacan Shutters Club.

  One of the administrators of Bulacan Shutters Club, Aldwin called me up and ask, “Would you like to make a difference?”

        

         Either Carlo or Perry made me a member of the group. Knowing that they too would be there with other fellow I then already recognized.  Whatever the purpose be, whatever it takes, I did say, yes I wouldlike to make my day a different one.

        

  
Unmindful of who am going to be with, unmindful of the camera brand I use (we are 45 present, 44 use Canon or Nikon camera, I was the only one using Sony Cybershot) lonesome as my gadget was, submerged through this valley of shooters.

          Through the effort of SM City Baliuag, Akapin Partylist for the Disabled, Canon Camera Phils., and other  major sponsors, the Bulacan Shutters Club joined hands with their project-“Angels Day Out, One Dream of an Angel”

           


     For the Bulacan Shutters Club, this was a project, a dream come true, for us with the Advocacy in making “Photography a Difference (the BSC way.)”

     As early as six o’clock in the morning, all were set for the event, instructions from the SM management, guidelines from Sir Aldwin, then I fully recognized what this project meant. Persons/Children with disability in Bulacan, were gathered and given a chance to move out from their daily-four-corners-classroom at least for a day.

 
      Each member of BSC was given each, a child to be adopted, cared for, took memorable moments with their guardians, with their teachers, with fellow photographers, and how would they go along with the environment, with the world we live in. (Person with Disability-autistics they say, live in their own world.)

          

   Clarence was the one assigned for me to go along that day.

           

All was set and we bound for Manila for our day’s trip.

         
         Once alighted and formed in rows, children were seemed to be excited. Happier they could be seen, uncontrollable emotions, living in their own world, one could ask, “What’s life at stake with these children?”

       Clarence happened to be the child I was assigned to be with for one-what-to-be-expected-day.

With only a slight vision that he had, I wondered how could I explain things, the color, the beauty, the environment.

         



      On, we went through the depths of our first stop, the Manila Zoo. A challenge for me on how to explain things to a child with slight vision.

          The big elephant, the crocodiles, the snakes, the monkeys, and other residents of the zoo. All of them I tried to explain to Clarence the state they were having that day. As the other children were having fun with their photographers-friend, Rovie and Mayor as we fondly called them, Clarence was way different. He seldom talk, he seldom shared his emotions.

          I tried him to be happy, I tried him to see happy family paddling on a small boat, helped him pointed his hands with the joys I had seen, but he, pointing at different direction.

          He hardly knew his father that left his family before he was born. His ailing mother could not be with him, so his grandfather, tata Nanding was his companion that day!  Then I stopped and thought that maybe that seemed to be reflected in Clarence way of dealing with the realities life had given to him.

          We lived one day with the lights of Manila Zoo and of the Shadows of Planetarium, the Virtual Reef, and other virtual games at the Discovery Center of Malls of Asia.

          The children walked and played in broad daylight in Manila Zoo, they too played excitedly on the dim, the Discovery Center of Mall of Asia. They seldom knew the real meaning of lights and shadows, actually they have no difference at all with their world.  They live on their own, unmindful of the things around them, they were different, for us to understand and ponder.

         

        The day ended with such a relief. What a day filled with laughter, sharings with fellow photographer, and truly cherished the real meaning of life!

I wish I could be with Clarence the next time. I wish I could give extension to his sight. I wish I could let him see beyond what he could not see!.