RBR CEBU REUNION - THE LONG WALK HOME

It is a known fact that the program of Roads and Bridges to Recovery (RBR) is not a short one – one year, at least, as a matter of fact. It is another known fact that the program of the therapeutic community is fraught with difficulties and trials. Here, within this span of one year, trainees (entrants to the program are addressed as trainees rather than patients) come to terms with the world and more importantly, come to terms with themselves. It is a controlled environment that mimics the outside world, albeit, in a more intense way, in order to bend behaviors and mend ways. Itis a place where you get to learn new skills and habits and a remarkably fresh perspective of life, a place where you learn new things and unlearn old ones. If I were to describe it, I would describe it fondly as being like a school.

And as schools go, we go to RBR, walking our way into it, ignorant of our faults and blind spots. A year or so later, we find ourselves, walking out of the experience, new beings, conscious of the way we are each interlinked with one another and therefore, learned of the fact that we affect others by our ways and by our deeds. In that one year of staying in the therapeutic community, we move about inside a program the way we do in school and we dwell inside our rooms and do our chores, much as we do things at home.

For this writer, walking back into this reunion of kindred spirits was akin to taking that journey of meeting brothers and sisters I once shared spaces, times, and selves with – a journey back home.

It was joyous celebration as brothers and sisters in the program from parts of the Visayas and Mindanano made that special trip for that one night in September 27, 2009, to “walk home”. We came dressed formally, and dressed in new selves. We came with huge smiles on our faces, but with a solemn reverence for each other deep within. We came expecting a diner feast in the historical Marco Polo Hotel, but we also came expecting to be students and brothers once more.

The quaint simple but regal invitation cards drew us out from our private holes and into that special night. RBR’s indigenous Lifeport Band played magnificent tunes and the food was simply, as they say in French, “C’est magnifique!!” RBR Cebu’s three special mothers were there (I call them the force majeure of the center): Dr. Benita Sta. Ana-Ponio, Dr. Fareda Fatima Flores, and Dr. Pureza Onate. Like shepherds guiding their flock, they stayed and mingled with us – nmve lambs no more, patients and trainees quite so perhaps, but sons and daughters definitely.

Seasons pass and seasons go. Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to laugh, a time to weep...” For RBR-Cebu, it was a season of: hello’s once again, a time to harvest smiles and memories, a time to sow unity and fellowship (RBR-Cebu trainees are forming an alumni association for the benefit of the trainees and the center), a time for laughter, a time to weep silent happy tears.

In closing, these “walks home” do not simply occur in parties as this one. Any discharged trainee or patient of MPF-RBR Cebu can always take that “long walk home,” everyday should he/she elect this to be. That is how committed and sincere MPF-RBR Cebu is. Happy trodding everyone!