The Widow & her Mite. Ako at ang hangin.

Blessed is the widow who in her poorness gave all that she could.

Why in my blessedness, can't i do the same for hangin? I love him and yet there is always that thought of me being loved only for what i have. It is said that best to trust your instincts and my guts just say not to trust him.

Do I not love him enough to trust him? Maybe and maybe not.

November 10, 2006

November 10, 2006

The barbecue picnic was comforting. Having to be with very nice people like basim and rabha, masha, zuzu, maha, ala, and their 2 green eyed beautiful girls, Sham and Lulu.

I get the chance to talk to basim about the witch. I just feel I did the right thing because I have protect the clinic from a person like her. The witch doesn’t have a chance to work back here because she cannot pass the licensure exams and if she does go back home, she then has to pass the board exams there plus pass the kingdom exam from home. The option of going back home and returning to the kingdom is the worst option. The most probable thing she will do is run away before her contract expires. Downgrade did the same thing and what’s to stop her when she needs to support her family.

But now that I have spoken about it to basim, and have actually decided to tell Big Boss about it asap. But there is something stopping me. I am going for my vacation and he might ask himself, what is to stop me from doing the same and not coming back? Best I guess to tell him when I get back.

The women and the men apart.

I listen first to the women. Though I don’t understand what they say, I feel them comparing and sharing each their married life experiences with their own husbands. Zuzu tells me to have 2 husbands, one for love and one for having babies….hahaha. It’s Venus talking but I can’t seem to understand.

The 2 men come and I am surprised Basim asks me IF I BELIEVE GALE? Yes I do. Then what is stopping me? I am dumfounded. I understand the martians but am left alone to decide as a venusian.

The love is something developed and you really never know what the Gods will throw unto you. 3 years of bliss then you have the kids, it’s a different stage always, twinned with problems where you also doubt always but you are committed to work things out. That’s what’s important, you stay committed to work things out for the both of you. So don’t be afraid to jump because time is gold…it is the most important you have now which you may not have tomorrow….the 2 men had adviced me well.

You 2 may have misunderstandings but there is always the bigger picture of…where do we go from here to make things better for us?

There is this person willing to walk with you through this life…take it. What am I waiting for? Uh…a proposal?

Basim says if I have all the questions to ask knowing I myself have no answers for it, then what is it actually telling me? I am afraid, afraid of the unknown. Excuse me, he says, we are all afraid and we have survived all of it this long.

Dra Maha said something today that made me think deeper about my career path.

She is working for Abu Badr who used to run our clinic. He rented and paid Big Boss SR26K a month before and he wanted to buy the whole place but Big Boss did not want. Now Abu Badr owns 4 clinics one of which Dra Maha is working for. He is a better businessman than Big Boss but less caring to his people.

This struck me more than anything, dra maha said, “YOU ARE LIVING IN HEAVEN AND YOU DON’T REALIZE IT.” Fortunate we truly are to have Big Boss as owner so we truly have to help him stay happy. Right now, he is not happy with the income the clinic is getting but I do hope things change for the better. I need all the help I can get.

I have 1 more year to go on my contract. I think it best to finally apply to SA without letting anybody else know. I can only hope for the best.

twinkle and the witch

once in my queendom, there was twinkle.

she assisted the queen in all her tasks but she knew deep inside she was cursed. Her curse was that wherever she would go, for sure, there would be someone who would do her harm.

the queen stayed by her side all the time, warning her to be careful. Indeed the others did not like her. The queen often wondered why.

was it because twinkle had charm enough to have all the men to fall in love with her.

was it because she had the guts to get what she wanted

was it because she had the courage to face and solve her own problems as well as others'?

was it because she could get away with murder and a man, Romeo, would still love her?

these were all that the queen knew of twinkle and she was proud of her.

but it was not to be a fairy tale, because the witch came to remind her of her curse.

the witch brewed her anger for 2 months, in silence, and one day, just suddenly burst from her couldron....boiling hot...

armed with her threats and dagger, threatens to kill twinkle. why? because she is poison.

how can it be, the queen asks? but all is too late. twinkle decides to leave to save her life.

how the queen prays she could have helped more. truly there are times the queen would like to kill the witch herself but for what?

Justice is for the Gods to do, for the world to conspire.

Twinkle wherever you are, be patient, forgive....and lastly.....hope. We can still live happily ever after.

trash

things like trash never did bother me before.

all my things were scattered all around me, mom used to say I have this affinity to buy "trashy" things...then why am I so sensitive to it now.

perhaps living alone and having to fend for myself has taught me a lot.

CLEAN AS YOU GO.

being alone does teach you that because you have no one to rely on but yourself.

i open my door & i see, not my trash but the trash of 4 other girls i live with....who cant even throw the trash down 3 flights of stairs????!!!!!

i ask myself now, does it bother me that they don't care about the stench it leaves the hall or does it bother me more that its outside my door?

more of the 2nd reason i think so i guess i will have to bear throwing it myself...hmph!

clean as i go...if i truly want to live by my words....then don't rely on anyone else....even if i'm cleaning other people's trash as they go.

God bless me.

desert

desert is so barren.

you see only emptiness in him and you fear there might just not be enough to keep your mind stimulated, your patience tested.

desert promises always to be there for you and love you forever.

you see words that can only be proven in time.

desert is so thoughtful, attentive of you and caring.

you see yourself returning his favors, gifts and merely giving back what he gives you.

why do you do that to desert?
perhaps you are not ready to go into another relationship yet?
perhaps you might fall into the trap of loving only the idea of loving again?
perhaps you are wary of his intentions, he is married after all.

all of the above and more.

paid forward

today is a happy day for the merciful husband forgave his unfaithful wife and accepted wholeheartedly his wife's son from another man.

all feared the husband would not be able to accept and feared for violence and chaos in the family...but lo and behold.....time has aged husband well....to ripe maturity.

husband has made his own mistakes in his life and life has always forgiven him with another chance....he has simply paid it forward.

God bless you husband and thank God for the parents we have who have shown us the value of humility, forgiveness and love.

loving the idea of loving

carlo told me one day, i think with hangin, you only loved the idea of loving but did not really love the person.

this is the 2nd time i have been accused of such and by 2 people thousands of miles apart.

it may be true but it shakes me to feel that if there is truth in what they say about me, then would that mean i have never really been truly in love?

37 and never been in love.

i alwayd asked hangin before, how did you know it was me? he said it just is. so you just know without understanding why?

they also say loving someone is like that, you just do. no need to question why also.

naawa naman ako sa sarili ko.

so loving the idea of loving and hoping you would get to love the person along the way is not the way actually?

we must love the person for who he is, accept him for what he is.

well i guess i tried to love the idea and the person but they were just 2 different things ....irreconcilable.

nakakalungkot.

why twinkle is sad

1. she has been working the best way she can and yet has been tagged as a bad influence simply for being herself

2. she has family concerns direly needing financial help for her mom but has no one to turn to

3. she loves a man and yet her sister insists on a dowry he cannot pay for now due to his own family concerns

4. she is attracted to an arab capable of giving her much but cannot see herself leaving her most loved.

5. i have told her to look for another job as the owner of our clinic has only negative thoughts of her

6. downgrade's leaving is somewhat blamed on her, even indirectly

with all these in her mind, her once bubbly self has simply..... "burst".

downgrade is gone!

so sudden, downgrade slips away from us in the heat of the afternoon sun ... freely and courageously facing the unknown, carrying with her all that she can bring....and all of our trust.

i am more afraid for you now, you have chosen to trust those who can and will abuse, use and even hurt you. All because you could not accept the downgrade in your salary, and the thought of serving 2 nonagenarians, and being all alone by yourself.

but did i not make myself clear when i told you this is better than trusting the potential bastard, crazy man and even killer disguising itself as a helping hand? this service to boss would only be temporary and things can and will get better...just be patient.

your weak self could not keep still and have more faith.

i pray for you downgrade wherever you are in the kingdom, be safe and take care.

time is gold, money is paper

funny how after reading this line, suddenly people started coming to me asking for financial help.

of course there's also the line to be careful with dealing with money and friends, you might lose both.

there's stargate who cares but has sudden needs for his father and brother.

there's twinkle whose mother is going to need kidney laser surgery.

there's downgrade who by a misfortune of her own doing suddenly borrows to send her family in mindanao.

there's imzin who seem to have lied by using his friend to borrow money for sri lanka.

funny how the 3 of the 4 seem to be very wary of each other warning me of the other.

makes me just smile, why wouldn't i lend her the money when i lent you?

seems like all of them are thinking only of themselves, seeming to look like they care for me?

but if i am goin to live by the words i live:

1. the very point of having anything is to give it away

2. at your last breath, you will ask for more time and not more money

3. lend only what you are willing to give away

then i know how i will handle all of them.

Random thoughts @3rd & 4th month

We are in this together (Jan 31, 2006)
Tutoo pala si Dan ng sabihin niyang alam mo pag nasa ibang bansa ka, parang laging out to prove ka that they are no better than you and you can/are even better than them. No harm in thinking and being this way because you always strive to be better than you are now. The sad part comes when they don’t believe nor trust you just because you are of a different color and race. My Syrian neighbor asked me why I was so angry at my patient, I told him because I have nothing but good workmanship and intentions for my patients since I came here and I don’t want to be shouted at w/ no valid reason, not paid because of the fault of others, and treated with no respect. Often times I feel if I were a local Saudi, would they even dare treat me this way?

Now that I have simmered down, I realize, I chose this path and this is one of the challenges I really have to live with coping and adapting to a race which I feel has never felt the hardship of life.; who I feel has been spoiled rotten by their country’s wealth. Sorry if I am generalizing on the race, but one thing I do also want them to realize is that we are all working here together needing each other. Without each other, nothing good will happen. Therefore each of us need to respect and trust the other that we are both working for the good.

Handling the Cold (Jan 31, 2006)
It’s now cold again. Back home, I never felt having your finger and toes almost numb from the cold. A day without a bath was dreadful. But because of the cold (wala pa tong snow ha….), you just don’t feel like moving at all. The best therapy though is to have other thoughts than the cold. My therapy is I cook. What better way than hitting 2 birds w/ one stone. You keep warm near the stove and you are able to prepare food you will eat for the next 3 days. My other therapy is to sleep the cold away. That’s the best.

I often wonder why buildings here and houses are so solid. Having small windows, little glass. Then I realize the extreme weather as the cause. One will never survive the cold without a good heater. Winter food of soup, soup and warm soup, hot tea and warm coffee. In the desert heat on the other hand, everything is so hot that if you want to take a bath, even the water is hot. What they do here is to have a tub of water and let it cool off overnight and use it to take a bath early morning while the sun isn’t shining much yet. Well, that’s desert life.

See my Garden Grow (Feb 8, 2006)
About 3 months ago seeing the kingdom with few plants and trees I was surprised that my lowly onion and garlic pieces started growing tiny buds out of them. I wondered if I put them in water, would they survive the extreme weathers of the Kingdom? Seeing that I did not have any pot or soil, I said I will try growing them in water.

Today Oh am so proud the gardener with no garden for I have harvested my very own spring onions in the Saudi winter. The garlic bulb has brought forth long sprigs of “spring garlic”. Both have been delicious garnishing to 2 dishes of pancit palabok and continue to do so when their long weeds start bending. Their bends is a call from my spring delights saying, “Go & cut my long hair’.

Today I have also taken them for a bath to change their water…I think so flies won’t bite them as well….hehehe.

And what’s amazing is they also have long “togue like” roots that smell of what they are. I have cut them also and put them in water to try in my next cooking session.

Oh you should see their cute pots…they’re made out of pepsi liter covers. That’s another discovery. You cut the half of the pepsi plastic container with its cover and invert it to look like a short sundae serving glass. What’s good about this is its easier to clean coz the cover can be removed at its end.

So even without much trying, my garlic and onion grows buds wherever & whenever they can just to be of use…to anybody. Lets learn from my spring delights.

Waste not! (February 9, 2006)
The kingdom has everything in abundance. And in the land of many, it is here that I learn of putting to use things people usually throw away.

I mentioned the pepsi liter container I now use as handy pots.

The small egyptian orange plastic crate box (which held about 24 pcs of oranges) is now a small trash bin handy beside my bed.

Funny but everytime I go to put something in the trash bin, I take so long thinking, “talaga bang wala nang use ito o meron pa”.

I have to thank my parents as well for rearing me to “waste not”. Even my food, Yaya always told us to finish everything on our plate “at maraming nagugutom”.

But that’s a different story. Yaya’s line now is over-abused.

Now I put too much food on my plate and eat a whole lot than I actually should. Sabi ni yaya kelangan daw ubusin at daming nagugutom e. Tama ba yon?!

Smelling the flowers (feb 9, 2006)
Do you know that it is only here that I am able to use up a ball pen without losing it first?

Even the grip cushion of my used up pilot ballpen is now re-used as a grip cushion for my reynold’s pen. Also part of my “waste not, reuse more” principle.

Do you know that it actually takes 2 months for a whole pen to be used up?

You would wonder why a 37-year old wonders so much and even care writing about a ballpen? Indulge me, I have learned to be more observant of even the smallest things around me I used to take foregranted

Is this what they mean when I hear that phrase, “smelling the flowers?” Ironic but it took a land barren of any blooms to awaken my sensibilities.

Add-ons to life (feb 9, 2006)
I saw Ricky Martin giving out rebuilt houses to Thais hit by the tsunamis on TV the other day and he asked one grateful mother what she learned the most being homeless since? She realized that when she lost everything to the tsunami, and have survived since then, “that we don’t actually need much”.

I started looking at my life right now and realize it is true. You only have to have the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter for yourself. Of course your means of livelihood is a given to sustain all this, plus your health. All the rest are “add-ons” to life.

Even back home I would always ask myself before I buy anything, “do I need or want this”. The first opens my wallet, the seconds shuts it tightly.

But now I ask, can wanting (terribly) - a Nokia N80, worth about p30,000, to be able to take pictures of my world now & share with my loved ones, and to take pictures of my patients’ progress - be a need as well? Serving a dual purpose, communication and picture-taking, is it a created need? Hahaha.

It’s definitely an add-on that would definitely make me happier. HAPPINESS breaks open my tightened wallet.

Unfortunately, N80 is still yet to be released…maybe around March or April of 2006.

Wanting something so badly that I’ve created needs to have it isn’t wrong. Having something doesn’t actually need any justification as long as I’m not doing anything bad nor hurting anyone along the way…and if it does need any reason, HAPPINESS would be it. Agree?

So to each his own happiness … need, want, whatever…..

My first Desert Storm (Feb 9 2006)
This is a first!

I come out of our clinic and see fog with a smell. The smell of very dry soil whiffed with a mist of water...I cannot take off my mask. I cannot breathe it in because I cough.

Imagine everything covered with a layer of dust! Oh my gosh, I left my windows open!!!!!!

My fellow doctors postpone their bbq session today, our reception sadly tells us she just cleaned her house today…huhuhu….more cleaning tonight, driving is not going to be easy, shopping is postponed for another day. Everyone says why does it have to happen on a weekend?!!! (weekends here fall on Thursdays & Fridays)

Do you know the solution to a dust/sand storm? Rain.


Here’s praying for that miracle in the desert.

Kissing Men (Feb 14, 2006)
I still feel very uncomfortable seeing Saudi men kissing each other 2-3 times alternately on each cheek as a social greeting to each other. We would flip seeing men kiss each other much less hold hands.

How can this gesture be accepted but with women in public, be a crime? Even shaking hands with men…oh …even looking at the opposite sex is not allowed.

Sometimes I think this very strict tradition has to be re-evaluated for its good and bad. If having the woman covered from head to toe is to inhibit carnal thoughts of the woman, these thoughts can be still be instilled in the minds of the men some other…imaginative or…for lackof a better word…creative way.

I guess if I had the chance to talk to the King, this would be the first question I would ask in my quest to understand the unique ways of his kingdom. Why?

The Queen arrives!

On my arrival, midnight of October 10, 2006. I was directed to a line at the immigration. 6 very loooong lines of almost all women...mostly Pinays. Since ours was a direct PAL flight, we had endured 9 hours on the plane already... seeing new faces was most welcome.

Saudi men. That's the first thing we saw.

The first time to see men in dresses & cloaks, kissing one another was strange. Ay mga bakla (Gays), you'll never see that in my part of the world.

They were laughing happy, all men, among themselves but once they faced us, women, all turned formal, cold, not even a "welcome to the kingdom", barely looking at us....you'll never see that in my part of the world.

Surprised that I was told to surrender my passport and wait for my sponsor to come. I found that strange but as all the women were giving up their passport, I followed. I got my luggage from the conveyor belt, as everyone did and made sure my phone was open for any calls. Slowly saw all the women forming the longest line ever ...but the feeling I got was that of a herd of animals being rounded up...not good. They left for where? I don't know but I was told to wait so I waited.

I waited...and waited...until I was all alone by the baggage counter...all lonesome by myself. You know that feeling of being the last person in the world, in an airport, at 1 am in the morning? Only the echo of my voice could be heard. I finally called Dr. B (my boss) and he said a Mr. B would pick me up, the hospital administrator.

30 minutes later, sitting by my lonesome, an airport security guard who did not speak a word of english started ordering me to go to the REAL immigration line. My baggage was opened and searched & for the first time in the kingdom I saw a smile. But the smile had a "naughty-look" to it. Yikes! What is it with people here, haven't they heard of "hospitality"???!!!!

I was led to a woman's waiting reception hall, more of like a "glamorized but huge" prison cell than a hall, walls with designs, carpeted but musty. Full of Filipinos, Indonesians, Asians...all women. My first taste of women segregation. I hated the place. A hall with double decker beds, but most of us were sitting on the floor...idle. About 50 or more of us...seated.....waiting. It was humiliating.

Strict airport women not allowing you to even go out of the reception once you're inside. A feeling of being looked down upon creeps into you. Especially when a lady hollers and shouts for a specific group to line up...reminiscent of slaves being rounded up to meet their masters. Worst was I lost my telephone signal and was beginning to worry. How in the world would Mr. B find me among all these halls (about 4-5 halls), amidst hundreds of women!

Finally I figured out thatthese women were all domestic helpers waiting to be brought to their final Saudi province. Then I saw another hall for health professionals with sofas and a bit an upgrade of where I was staying. So....this was where I belonged. I decided to stay there for awhile, met a fellow pinay, a nurse who made me understand.

The way of the kingdom for newly arrived women was to wait for their male sponsors are their representatives to pick them up from these halls and be brought to their final work place. There were only 2 kinds of women who entered the kingdom....domestics or nurses.

Peering through a small window, I saw the men swarming over a counter fighting over getting the women who had come. What is this? I felt like a commodity being sold over the counter and hand picked. They were the sponsors bringing the goods home.

Alas Mr. b came. Relieved at last of all my worries and fears! It took them 3 hours to fix my documents for release since it was the first time that their clinic was hiring a doctor from the Philippines.

It was 3 in the morning and the whole kingdom was still asleep.

The queen arrived feeling more like a slave, a prisoner.

My queendom come

It's been half a year since I landed in a country ruled by a king.

Revered by his people, he rules with religion by his side. A monarch so powerful, with oil as his queen....they rule forever. His kingdom is ruled by men with women clothed to the toes, their beauty hidden from the world.

It is not to say it is not a happy kingdom. To each his own, it is.

I am now a part of those hidden beauties..hehehe...and we have our own "queendom", revered by all with truth by our side. Empowered by words, with technology as our king...we rock forever! The beauty hidden shall be unravelled...shall bloom to the hilt.

7 months ago, I was living in a place where all wanted to rule and be king, the people becoming restless, fearful of the future.

Today, I live in the world "exactly" opposite of my world then.

It is not to say I am not happy. On my own, I am.

Now I share with you why.