this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on March 5, 2009.
ON MY 23RD BIRTHDAY, I FOUND MYSELF SANDWICHED between my Mom and my little brother on a nine-hour direct flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Four thousand eight-hundred thirty-three miles away, my Dad, a poster boy for the Middle East OFW, who has been working in the Kingdom for more than two decades, awaited us.
If there was one place on earth I least expected to find myself in, next only to Antarctica, it would be Riyadh. It is a land of merciless heat, cold winters, fierce sandstorms—and our countrymen’s dreams of a better life. Here, women walk around swaddled head to foot in black abayas. Talking to a man who is not your brother, son or husband can get you arrested and thrown in jail. That and taking the bus, which is for guys only.
In college, steeped with idealism and with our professors’ “love of country” speeches ringing in my ears, I had decided that I would work and make a life in the Philippines. The American dream was not for me. My background was middle class enough so that our family’s survival did not depend on my seeking greener pastures abroad.
Everything had seemed mapped out: a writing career, great friends, the hustle and bustle of city life, malls, concerts, coffee shops, horrendous traffic. When life in Manila became too insane, there was always my beloved hometown of Bacacay to go back to.
But the best laid plans often end up skewered or tossed to the wind.
Saudi Arabia is home to more than one million Filipinos. Yet my new home was the complete opposite of the one I left behind. Where Manila is noisy and chaotic, Riyadh is quiet and orderly. There are no sidewalk vendors, no trash-cluttered corners, no pot-holed roads. Crime is a rarity. You can walk around with your bag unknowingly open and still have your wallet when you get home. Public structures are well built and deserve spreads in Architectural Record.
The old neighborhood of Batha, a warren of buildings cluttered with shops, restaurants, cargo forwarders, and remittance centers, makes you feel right at home. It’s the Filipino quarter, where you can grab a bite at Quiapo restaurant or shop at Manila Plaza. Indian and Bangladeshi salesmen hawk socks and shirts yelling, “Bili na, sister. Mura lang. I give discount!” Saudis manning their gold shops mutter, “Kuripot,” when a kabayan gets too pushy.
The Kingdom, home to Islam’s two holiest cities, Makkah and Madinah, is one of the most conservative societies in the world. Alcohol and pork are banned. There are no cinemas, bars or any public place where unmarried men and women may mingle freely. Women are not allowed to drive. In non-exclusive shopping centers (yes, there are women-only stores and banks), male staff will offer to get you a size 36B or recommend a good foundation to match your skin tone.
This peculiar mix of tradition and modernity, staggering wealth and devout worship can be fascinating and confusing to an outsider like me.
As a woman, I am bound by many restrictions. Yet I also enjoy the customary respect and regard for women here. In banks, I do not need to get in line behind men; I can sail straight through to the front. If anyone dares harass me on the street, next to delivering a good solid right hook, I can count on someone to help me out. In fact, on weekends, the many malls that dot Riyadh are open only to families. Bachelors are kept out so ladies aren’t ogled at or pestered.
I expected to be bored to tears or to feel boxed in by all the rules. I didn’t expect to find a second home and a new perspective on the life of Filipino workers abroad.
The OFW experience is a lonely, knotty, jubilant, tragic bag of stories and for those in the Kingdom, it is no different.
As success stories go, a number of Pinoys occupy high positions in the Kingdom’s largest corporations. Once, while attending an international festival at a school, I saw two Filipinas walking by, toting Louis Vuitton bags. My friend pointed out that they were nannies to Saudi royalty. When their charges get tired of last season’s handbag, they simply pass it on to yaya. Adding to that surreal experience, a Saudi teenage girl I knew to be some prince’s daughter walked up to me and asked, “Meron kayong adobo? Halo-halo?”
But success anecdotes aside, more Filipinas suffer beating, rape and horrendous other abuses at the hands of their employers. Stories of kababayans not being paid more than six months’ salary are so common, hearing about them has become like watching news of corruption back home on “TV Patrol”—you have grown so accustomed to them that you have become desensitized.
And perhaps because life can get lonely and monotonous, many shun this enforced simplicity for a life of new complications instead: with a new husband, a new wife, or new girlfriend. A friend once went to a party and was shocked when someone asked her if she and her husband were “legal” (colloquial speak for legally married, and not just living together with a fake marriage certificate).
The upside to tragedy and misfortune is seeing the courage and bayanihan among our countrymen. On weekends, a kababayan, who works at a local bookstore chain, pedals his bike around our neighborhood, selling siopao, palabok and kakanin to augment his income and send his daughter through nursing school. Many community groups continually raise funds for distressed kababayans and NGOs back home, most popularly Bantay Bata. An old high school friend has been working here for four years to finance her four siblings’ education.
For all the lamentations that “life is hard in the Philippines,” I miss my country. I can see the longing, too, in my parents, who religiously watch the news daily on The Filipino Channel, commenting on the day’s events and railing at local politicians embroiled in the latest corruption scandals.
For the moment, my feet are firmly planted in the Middle East. It is here that my family and I can be together, before time and circumstance part us again. It is here where I can pursue my own dreams, and where, against all expectations, I have made a life. I guess our best laid plans don’t always turn out the way we want them to because there’s something better waiting to surprise us.
I don’t know how long I am meant to be here—three years or 20. But I take great comfort in the thought that for all the ease and security of life here, one day I will go back to that noisy, chaotic, glorious place we Pinoys call home.
