While You Reap What You Sow, They Eat What They Reap.

I love the idea of doing a job that directly influences and impacts your life. In this case, the women that we worked with spent their days in the paddy field, farms and ponds, where their life’s work was basically their source of nourishment. There is a great sense of satisfaction and achievement that births from this. For that simple reason, I feel that the Bario locals have a lifestyle that most of us urbanites should be envious of.

In contrast, here in the city, our daily jobs or education revolve around indirectly influencing our future. We spend our days in the office, hacking away at the computer to collect a measure of currency that hopefully would be sufficient to put food on the table. Or, we burn the midnight oil, hoping to finish a last minute college assignment on time, so that one day, we would have a high paying job that would further improve our living conditions.

There is always that level of uncertainty at what our future offers us. However, with the simple life of the Bario women, comes a sense of fulfillment that one finds hard to come across in a fast paced, technology driven and hectic city setting. Sometimes, amidst this future driven schedule, we lose sight of today. Thus, we lack the luxury of living in the now.

The view from the longhouse, simple and beautiful.

As expressionist Hoffman said "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.". Being away from what you’re used to, most often times helps you recognize what you truly need to lead a good life. Living in Bario (even for a short time) has implored me to refocus my life and goals as to stay true myself and not lose it while on my journey into the future.

Jedida Ravi