A walk in the park

“Mukhang wala ring epekto yung petition natin,” shared the coach as he watched his team, my daughter among them, make the most of the last few minutes of sun to complete the day’s training session. I really don’t know for sure, I told him, but the letter from city hall I received months ago did say that they’re abandoning the plan to put up gates around Burnham Park and the concreting of portions of the Melvin Jones grounds.

As the sun continued to set, he shouts to the team, “Lipat tayo dun sa may ilaw,” and everyone moves towards one of the few lamp posts in the area. The team has been training diligently almost everyday after school. Most of the players get off at around 4:00pm, it takes them about an hour to get to Burnham Park and change into their jerseys and warm-up. The sun sets quite early these days, so they usually have just an hour of sunlight to train.

With the onset of the dry season, it’s also football season in Baguio. It’s also park season and every afternoon, seeing several football teams training, a group of ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts playing a game, children running around while they parents lazed on the mats laid out on the ground, a few pairs of young lovers dreaming of their future under a tree, an old couple perhaps reliving the past as they walk around holding hands (this is where they could have met, this is where they could have spent afternoons as a young couple, this is where they could have brought their children on weekends…), I know that just like our family, they too would be going home with a sense of calm. That’s only one of the wonderful things that being in a wide, open space surrounded by towering trees and colourful blooms provides…

…along with a renewed sense of being wonderfully alive and being one with the earth with the smell of grass and the feel of the ground under the warm sun on your skin. And that little smile we give each other as we pass each other by walking around the park… that forges a sense of community way better than empty slogans on tarpaulins.

The sun sets, it’s time to go home. We get up and brush off the grass on our backs, gather our things and start walking out. We pass by Lake Drive where the few remaining children on bikes beg their parents for one more round on that trike and off they go, pedalling as hard as they can, with cold wind on their faces, ahhh the exhilaration, excitement, the happiness, they won’t be able to do as much of that when they close that portion of Lake Drive for a whole month to sell substandard products from China and food prepared under questionable sanitary conditions – is it worth depriving children of a wonderful experience for whatever amount they earn whenever they hold the Market Encounter during the Flower Festival… besides, what does a tiangge have to do with a festival that was originally meant to celebrate God’s beautiful creations that this beautiful city has been abundantly gifted with?

We'll make the most of the next thirty sunsets at the park without the unsightly sight of haphazardly set up stalls that ruin the very essence, the very soul of what a park should be.