School's Out

It's been two weeks since I've been going to my daughter's school and I would be fetching her and my wife at the back gate afterwhich we would take a taxi ride going home...Normally my wife would handle this and pick up our only daughter at around 4:15 p.m. during school days...they would also get up early and my wife would take our daughter to school each day...they would even have early morning arguments between 4:00 - 5:30 a.m. ...while I was still dozing off...this is the normal routine of my wife and daughter during school days...well...I had so many things to do at the city because of my work...i had appointments with our insurance agents because of a recent accident, meetings with our legal counsel on various legal and labor related matters, meetings with the municipal mayor of consolacion because of the said accident that occurred.in that city...this gives me the opportunity.to go out of the office..to fetch my daughter and wife at school...this is the world of my wife's daily routine...in school i would notice that the mothers and fathers of children have informal groups barkadas or social organizations...wherein...small groups...of parents form a support group at school...the number of groups vary...sometimes they are formed because of socio-economic status...sometimes because of spatial relations...sometimes because their chiddren are classmates....or they may need to borrow homework or notebooks.... sometimes to coordinate with teachers and lessons....sometimes because they need to borrow money from other parents....one can also see that an underground economy is formed to supports the needs of other parents...or for financial needs...or because some parents are OFWs ...sometimes they are formed simply because of the human nature of needing other people which eventually leads to friendships and relationships that are made through the years ...they would watch out for the children of other parents as surrogates before the original parents will be arriving....you could also see parents changing the undershirts of their sons who were just busy running around and playing or clowning in the school grounds...there are also students munching their hearts out with junk food...cars parking...and cars zooming in and out at the gate...the banter of so many kids talking and teasing...at the same time...such scenes of course would take me to those years of one's childhood...elementary and high school years...of urban city life...one by one the crowd will slowly become smaller and smaller as all the kids are whisked by the parents....back to their homes...until tomorrow for another school day...