Opportunity Dawns on A Teenager Abandoned by His Mother

Tonton. His mouth is distorted due to a motor defect. His toes are slightly disfigured also. He is computer literate.

My family moved into this compound from a rented apartment about two kilometers away.I was welcomed by Manny, a retired employee of a government agency near the one I used to work. He was a co-employee of a close acquaintance. He reminded me that we used to bumped into each other then. Out of politeness I entertained him until finally I dug into my dusty memory that we indeed had crossed paths sometime before. He was a plumber who learned the craft on the job.

He had gone to school as far as grade 5 in their hometown in Pangasinan.He could read and write and talk a halting English if sometimes ungrammatical. His family lived in a makeshift house with roof of galvanized iron laid on top of each other. Some could fly away, I could imagine if a strong typhoon ever visited it.

His wife was a short roundish woman; they eloped as common law husband and wife. They had a son who looked like the woman.They adopted one boy who had twisted toes. His mouth was uncontrollable that he could hardly speak a straight word. They said they took pity of the boy who was abandoned by his mother.

Manny had received some cash when he retired. So the family was not really hard pressed. Except when he ventured into what is called “ginto-ginto” or dealing with gold bars that could be accessed by some secret codes or maps. It is believed that these are treasures hidden by some Japanese soldiers who kept the maps they left with somebody when they retreated or before they could be returned to Japan. He invested a lot of his retirement pay on this spurious business and exhausted it without gain.

Manny was a former heavy drinker that he contracted colon cancer. He carried with him a bag where he defecated through a tube connected to his large intestines.

One day his cancer laid him down and spent him until he expired.

Their son had married and had three children. He learned how to raise ornamental plants in a nursery he could sell. But the wife has a problem raising the adopted boy, called ‘Teddy. He goes to school. But when Manny died, sending him to school has been a problem. He reached primary grades. His mind is alright. Only his toes and mouth showed some motor problems He can read and write.

We engage his services to move our garbage to the collection site some 200 meters away every weekend. Still a young teenager. However, he has picked up a vice of smoking. I surmise from peer pressure.

I can see that he has some potentials to be taught the freeRise game. He had not shown any tendency to violence. In fact, he is an obedient teenager, having teen taught good manners by Manny and wife, Soledad.

I plan to recruit Teddy as a gamer of freeRise to earn for his keep and donate rice to the needy like him as well.