The month of January has come, and the time for the first quarterly taking of the

year for the Operation Timbang as well or as we commonly know it as OPT. This first
taking of the OPT runs from January until March, and the second one starts on July until
September. The meaning of the said operation is already a dead a giveaway of what it
means, operation timbang as in to weigh. Who you say? These are the 0-5 year old
children. And no, its not just any staff or worker from the barangay hall or health center
that takes these measurements. We have a Barangay Nutrition Scholar or BNS for short
for every barangay and before they are appointed as one, they are trained first.

So you may think this operation timbang is easy because its just the taking of
height and weight. What you dont know is that the height board that is the tool to be
used for taking the height and the salter scale for the weight is pretty heavy. Now
imagine your barangay is located at the mountainous parts of a municipality and you
have to hike up to get to the sitios of the barangay. The job of a BNS is interesting and
an adventure at the same time. How can I say this? I myself was assigned in one of the
areas that I just mentioned earlier. I experienced the bringing of the height board and
hiking up, there may be occasional slipping included especially if it rained last night or
the other day because Im not talking about nicely paved cemented roads here, Im
talking about the muddy, steep and a bit rocky ones. And I also learned that its best to
wear long pants and long sleeves because you never know what shortcut the BNS will
take you, whether the jungle looking one where you get to your destination faster but
you get itchy after or the open road which is the longer route.

Taking the height and weight of children is sometimes a challenge because it

wont be smooth sailing as always, what I mean is some of them were afraid to get their
measurements taken so they end up crying, worst case scenario, they will kick you if
they get the chance. Im not really sure what they are scared of though if it was the
height board, did it look like it was going to eat them? If it was the salter scale, did they
think they were going to hang there for a long time? I have no idea. I guess this will
remain a mystery to me. But overall, I can say that Im glad I get to experience and see
how the people that resided in the mountains are. It was a priceless one.