WE #151: Living in a Little Island in the Metro

Every time I leave the house, I always observe this area, the Pasig River. For me, this is one of the most beautiful place in our community. I grew up in this place and I could tell how much I am fortunate to live here. When I entered college, my classmates always asked where I lived and they are always amazed when I say our house is on the Island because they don't believe that there really is an island here in Manila. But this is true and if you can see it on the map, it will look like an island. Our main mode of transportation is the boat to the other side of Manila. The Jeep is still there but it will take a few minutes before you can get out and also, its route is different. But if you go by boat, you can almost reach some of the big establishments in such as church, grocery store, and other Malls.

As I said before, I can say that I am lucky because I live in this place because even though we are in the City, I still feel the provincial type of living and I having easy access on every thing like food, malls, thrift shops, repair shops and more. Although this river has become contaminated, I am starting to feel grateful because it is slowly returning to its vitality and beauty, thanks to some foundations and group of voluntary workers who are having a very hard time just to maintain the river's natural beauty. As the elders say, this river has a lot of natural resources and little by little it has been damaged and polluted because of the people who populated it in Metro Manila and scattered. To be honest, until now I can observe the real reason why this river is dirty. A lot of people still end up throwing garbage here and some youngsters still bathe even though it's very grimy. In reality, it is very difficult to discipline some of the people here and even the officials of each community are having a hard time how to discipline some of the people, especially the children. It is true that there are also a few cases of drowning in the area and only here temporarily will other people stop swimming.

Even this is the current state of our river, I still appreciate the hidden beauty of it and I know it's not too late for this river. In this photo, I want to raise awareness that we should be cooperative when it comes to maintaining cleanliness in our environment. With the natural disasters that happen in our world, let this be a lesson to us and not always rely on the plan implemented by governments. I hope we can learn to make a way even if it's small because once we help each other, I really have a vision that nature will be able to go back to its natural beauty.

This concludes my 151th entry for this week created by sir @galenkp.

✨ The Writer ✨