It has become an unspoken rule that every weekend, the whole family eats dinner outside. On Sunday morning, my grandpa calls the house phone to tell us we’re going to have dinner with my aunt and her family along with a reminder to pick them up at their house 5 o’clock sharp. What happens at dinner is exactly how you imagine family dinners to be, with the adults catching up and talking about the news. Once the bill is paid and the leftovers are wrapped, grandpa’s eyes slowly meet those of us in our youth as if to relay us a message. My youngest cousin immediately goes to him and whispers, “Grandpa, pupunta na ba tayo sa National?” and that is when we kids begin to get up and go to the next part of the night: splurging at National Bookstore. …show more content…
Barely seeing my surroundings as I wait in line, I mentally compute the total cost of everything they picked out. I become the practical person my parents raised me to be as I look at the price of each object, asking my cousins to replace what supplies are too pricey with ones who are worth every peso. I hold my youngest cousin’s hand as the cashier scans all the items. I become aware of the different kinds of people exploring the wonder that is National Bookstore. I observe how the little children cling to their mothers while the groups of teenagers crowd over the romance novels in the fiction section. Each person piques my curiosity, as I try to figure out the stories behind these faces. Despite all this, what steals my attention is a poster with tiny people drawn on a chalkboard, along with the words “Project Aral” scribbled on it. As it turns out, Project Aral is one of the store’s projects in which they give public school students from different provinces a set of two notebooks and one pencil for free. It is in that moment when it strikes me how lucky my cousins and I are to have been granted this kind of privilege. With no hint of uncertainty, I grab a set of the notebooks and place them on the counter. It’s a small step but nonetheless, I feel a sense of accomplishment, knowing that at least one kid would be using a notebook this school year. After gathering my cousins