The (Boy) in Pyjamas

My friend Toni calls himself a superhero boy.

Sporting a red cape, super tight blue space-suit-like-wardrobe, and muscles the size of Texas possessing brute force which can knock down everything that gets in its way, that has always been my mental image of what a superhero is. Blame it to Justice League or Marvel, that is how they will always look like, at least for me. Toni was no superhero.

And so am I. I cannot be a superhero. I do not have the capacity to fly X number of miles in a matter of .01244245 second to rescue drowning people from an overloaded ferry somewhere in the South. Nor can I stand in between two collapsing buildings, disintegrating into pieces while keeping people away from getting hurt. This is not The Man of Steel on call. I am a boy wearing pyjamas.

In Global Xchange*, you will have to confront the fact that you cannot and never will be a superhero. For some reason, GX is not a boot camp that will train you how to turn back the hands of time, it will not teach you how to manipulate the minds of other people and it will certainly not involve flying. I have to deal with that for five months. Indeed, things do not usually come the way we wish it to be. More often than not, it takes a different form and we are compelled to believe, we are obliged to accept it but at the end of it all, we would not wish that it was in any way different, for it is simply the best the way it was.

In GX, time is valuable in any way you can imagine. If you were born sloth, you have to grow as an antelope, you have to be fast, and otherwise, hells will break loose because your boss in the UK will think that we, Filipinos, have a slightly altered way of telling time—a way that is unacceptable.

Time is of the essence in this programme, if you have five months to make an impact in communities, how will you do it? Others may say, there is no way, but we challenge ourselves more than we challenge conventions. WE DO IT, AND WE DO IT WELL! It is not about the numbers you produce but the worth it delivers to people.

In GX, we don’t read minds, we don’t interpret actions, instead, we feel the pulse of people. I have learned that the best way to connect to people is by listening to their stories, not just by hearing them. For in hearing, you get consumed by words and babble, whereas in listening you are frenzied by emotions, which in most cases are the pillars of a genuine relationship.

Sometimes, I wonder why certain relationships do not click while others happen in a heartbeat. It may be because of time or being apart. It can be because you are not both ‘men on a certain mission’ or it can simply be because it just doesn’t seem right. One thing is for sure, speculating and overanalyzing will bring you nowhere and that is GX lesson #163 in my learning journal. You don’t force relationships, you just let it happen.

In GX, we don’t fly, right of course, Manila-London and back plus the domestic flight to Cebu. That is the only flying you do in this programme—the one in its utmost literality. On the contrary, GX pulls you back to the ground, again and again and again. It’s not about achievements and adulations, it’s not about spectacular media mileage, and it certainly is not about raising the full 180,000 pesos for the team. It is about riding the habal-habal the way normal Cebuanos do in daily life, it is about being drenched in the rain while walking towards the shores of Olango Island, the way fishermen do in low tide. It is about making complete fools out of yourself in a drama workshop for the most vulnerable areas of the province to human trafficking and kicking the same football with the out-of-school youths. I have learned that the more we engage to people, the more we realize that we are all the same at the core. We cannot be classified on the basis of our skin color, social class, educational attainment, personal convictions, and what not. 

London Gay Pride Parade

In GX, you should not be afraid to freely express what you feel, who you are and be in touch with your inner self. Yes, I have joined the gay pride parade in London, I have sashayed from Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square while cavorting a V-neck River Island shirt with my cardigan and red skinny jeans and loafers. Who cares? Do you? Then F@#% $^&!!! Yes, I have kissed a random guy in a gay pub called Windsor Castle after our community farewell, it was epic.  Not your cup-of-tea? Areet marra, I did it for myself and not for you.

I have made myself HUMAN—again. And GX has helped me in ways I can’t enumerate.

I may not be a superhero, but I am a superhuman (Chris Brown, is that you?) I guess I am settled with the fact that I am just a boy in pyjamas, not wanting to change the world on a grand scale but one small deed at a time. 

Global Xchange Team 107, Birmingham, United Kingdom

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*Global Xchange is a six-month exchange programme which gives young people from different countries a unique opportunity to work together, to develop and share valuable skills and to make a practical contribution where it is needed in local communities.