Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 15:02:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: OFW spotlight
Nickname: The Queen
Age: 37
Gender: female
Civil Status: single
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Occupation: Orthodontist
Years Spent Abroad: 5 months
I write to share the unique way of how I surprisingly left our country. Submitting resumes in the net for my fiance, I myself tried my luck by a LONE submission of my own to Yahoojobs. The opportunity came for me and I simply grabbed it.
Barely 5 months in the kingdom and I have happily embraced their ways and culture, so very different from our ways back home. This says much of Pinoys, we adapt very well wherever we are.
More than the promise of a higher paying job, the joy of growing among people so different from you in language, in attitude, in religion, is the greatest challenge we Pinoys have to deal with. In such a short time, I realize these differences are only skin deep. We both share serving the same God (Allah, the Lord Almighty, God the Father), living in the same world and working for it to be a better place to live in (saving the resources, learning to keep up with technology, running a profitable business where everyone gains), and most especially, we may speak differently but we all say the same thing....we all need each other in love and work.
I would like to feel that we left home to continue giving hope to our countrymen back home. We have not jumped ship. Rather, we fight for our country in a different way...in a different place.... In the global arena, proving the FILIPINOS ARE WORLD CLASS.Whatever is happening in our country, we will overcome because we are all survivors.
We who are out of the Philippines, wish we could only do more for our land. In time, I know we will by the skill & resources we have gained elsewhere.
Though uprooted, the philippine mango will only taste ever sweetest in its own soil...don't you think so? I miss this terribly, hinog man o hilaw with bagoong. Lechon with crispy balat. Sisig. CHICHARON! Puto bumbong, kutsinta, ube, macapuno, SAPIN SAPIN! Tiangge, the christmas rush, simbang gabi, paputok, torotot. Baguio, Tagaytay, Boracay, Palawan. MOVIEHOUSE!!!!
I am a Filipino orthodontist working in Riyadh and proud as I will ever be.
In the kingdom, the medal I wear is of patients saying ," Kuayes Filipinni tabib asnan" (The good filipino dentist).
P.S.
By the way, if you're wondering whatever happened to my fiance? Well, we're still together.... Hamdillah (Godwilling)...planning our wedding next year and hoping he will join me in making our country proud...once again.
Monday, March 24, 2008
jan 31 - feb 8, 2006 thoughts
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)