(757) Lilies of the field

There is a Filipina who is my friend. A good portion of the donated clothes that passed through my hands went to her. She has been acquiring cartons from a shipping company, they deliver the empty carton of a desired size to her employer's house. She packs the items into the carton as tightly as she could. The shipping company charges by volume, not weight. When the carton is full, she seals and addresses it. A phone call will bring a van from the shipping company to pick up that carton and to leave her a new carton.

At first I only give her clean and unbroken clothes that are not too old. Then she explained that the weather in her hometown in Luzon is cold for half a year. Even a long sleeve shirt with no buttons and a few stains (even though properly washed) is useful for the farm workers when they work in the fields. Then I have the presence of mind to ask her, since my country women could be rather fat, but obviously her country folks with not much to eat could not be the same size. What do they do with the bigger blouses and skirts? She related how they painstakingly unpick the stitches and convert a big flowery cotton blouse into a children's pillow case. Remnant pieces of cloth is then patched into a bigger piece to be made into other uses. Even pants that could fit nobody is unpicked to convert into shorts for boys and girls. I finally got the idea that nothing is wasted as these people have little means of income, going out to buy cloth is not something they do whenever they feel like it.

Fifty years ago, my own mother and father were barely out of poverty's grip. We have enough to eat but cannot be too choosy about the choice of food. My grandma and mum brought up a whole crop of children without buying neither cloth napkin nor pampers, they used worn and holey legs of their old pants. I wore hand me downs until I was five years old before I wore my first new dress. Those clothes that came to us need hours of patching. Hardship does build character. I look at today's youth who sport the newest models of hand phones, they do not seem to be any happier or more secure than my generation.