The Man on the Bridge: Part 2

A month had gone by since I visited Robert. I had driven across the bridge and past him several times, but I had not made the time to visit him again. I decided to stop by and visit with him on the way to a weekly meeting that I have in Manila. I parked my car at the bottom of the bridge and began walking toward him. I wondered if he would remember me. I also wondered how he managed to live in that crack between the bridge and the wall. As I got closer, I saw a 3x10 foot piece of corrugated sheet metal that served as a roof. The crack was filled with trash from the foot of the bridge all the way to the place where his roof began. The doorway to his home was about 8 feet down in this crack. He had no door, no windows, no lights (except by candle) and no electricity.

Robert greeted me again with a large smile. He remembered my name, and as I walked up he said in a mixture of broken English and Tagalog, "Your the guy from Christmas who gave me the bible." I asked him if he was reading it and he said yes. I quickly learned that he spoke very little English, while he in turn learned that my Tagalog (although better than his English) is limited. I sat down with him on the railing of the bridge and we slowly talked. We struggled to understand each other, but between my limited Tagalog vocabulary, his limited English, and a few hand gestures, we seemed to manage. I learned that he has been living by the bridge for three years with his older brother who takes care of him. Robert turns 34 in March and has five siblings. When he was just a year old, he had a very high fever (maybe a result of polio?)which somehow lead to the paralysis of his legs.

As Robert and I continued to talk, he began to cough and asked me to wait for a minute. He climbed down from the railing and crawled on his hands while dragging his legs and the rest of his body along. He disappeared as he climbed down into his make-shift home. A few minutes later, he reappeared and climbed back up next to where I was sitting on the bridge. He showed me his inhaler and explained that he has asthma while he continued coughing. I told him that one of my sons also has asthma. I thought to myself, "It's not surprising that he has asthma since he literally lives just a few feet away from a road where thousands of cars drive everyday." I asked him if I could look at his inhaler to see what kind of medicine he was using. While examining it, I quickly noticed that it was empty. At this time, his older brother Angelito (Lito) rode up on a bike with a pill to help ease Robert's breathing. I asked him why he didn't just get another inhaler. He said, "Kasi, mashadong mahal ito (Because it's too expensive)." I took the empty canister and told him that I would buy him a new one and bring it back after my meeting in Manila.

After my meeting that evening, I returned to meet Robert and Lito. Lito met me by my car at the foot of the bridge to help me carry a few bags of stuff that I picked up for them. Once we reached their home, I noticed that the darkness down in the crack seemed to have multiplied without the light of day. The passing headlights of the cars revealed the smile on Robert and Lito's faces. Along with the medicine, I picked up 10 kilos of rice and about a dozen various kinds of canned foods. I didn't know whether or not they had a can opener, so I bought them one. While talking with them, I became a little worried about the food I had bought them, because I realized that they only had about 6 teeth between the two of them. I knew that they would have no problem eating the rice, but I wasn't sure if they could eat the canned fish I bought them with so few teeth in their mouths. I later found out that they managed.

This was my second visit with Robert and his brother Lito. Click here to read more.