From Zamboanga to Qatar - Part 1
Here I was, living a normal life, working a normal job, which paid just enough to keep me afloat and my bills paid and even enough to save up for a trip or two. Well, that's if I plan on being single for the rest of my life or if I plan on not having more than what I had.
I don't plan on being single for the rest of my life, but I can't really control that. Moving on, I do plan on having more than what I have and staying stuck in a room working won't really get me that. I found myself just rotting away in my bedroom, not having any social life and occasionally took a break on Mondays to pay some bills, do some groceries, clean up at home, do some laundry and even chauffeur for my mom.
Last November, my visa to enter Qatar was approved. I didn't really know how to feel like when it happened. My mom was happy, as if I finally got something going for me. Moms are like that. They always want something for you even if you never really asked for it. I wanted to work in Cebu because that's the closest place to home where I can easily find employment. But my parents didn't want that. They wanted me somewhere else. Farther than Cebu or anywhere in the Philippines. They wanted me to live the Filipino Dream.
Stereotypically, the Filipino Dream was to get a degree, get a license and then be an Overseas Filipino Worker. Being an OFW in the 80s and the 90s or for as long as a lot of Filipinos can remember was like the rave. Even in the present, when people find out that you have an OFW relative, even if it's a distant cousin, people assume that you have immediate access to his/her monies.
I've met actual people who thought that we were rich as f*ck when they found out that my brother was working overseas. Like what? With today's economy? Moving on, so I flew back to Cebu to get new copies of my diplomas and transcript of records. That took about three weeks to process, but turned into a month because of the typhoons that were passing by. I took my documents back home to Zamboanga City, to get them red-ribboned, but apparently, Zamboanga's branch operated quite differently than Cebu's branch. I had to ship my documents back to Cebu City, to the registrar-in-charge of my records and had her process them instead.
Unfortunately, that takes like half a month to process.
I don't plan on being single for the rest of my life, but I can't really control that. Moving on, I do plan on having more than what I have and staying stuck in a room working won't really get me that. I found myself just rotting away in my bedroom, not having any social life and occasionally took a break on Mondays to pay some bills, do some groceries, clean up at home, do some laundry and even chauffeur for my mom.
Last November, my visa to enter Qatar was approved. I didn't really know how to feel like when it happened. My mom was happy, as if I finally got something going for me. Moms are like that. They always want something for you even if you never really asked for it. I wanted to work in Cebu because that's the closest place to home where I can easily find employment. But my parents didn't want that. They wanted me somewhere else. Farther than Cebu or anywhere in the Philippines. They wanted me to live the Filipino Dream.
Stereotypically, the Filipino Dream was to get a degree, get a license and then be an Overseas Filipino Worker. Being an OFW in the 80s and the 90s or for as long as a lot of Filipinos can remember was like the rave. Even in the present, when people find out that you have an OFW relative, even if it's a distant cousin, people assume that you have immediate access to his/her monies.
I've met actual people who thought that we were rich as f*ck when they found out that my brother was working overseas. Like what? With today's economy? Moving on, so I flew back to Cebu to get new copies of my diplomas and transcript of records. That took about three weeks to process, but turned into a month because of the typhoons that were passing by. I took my documents back home to Zamboanga City, to get them red-ribboned, but apparently, Zamboanga's branch operated quite differently than Cebu's branch. I had to ship my documents back to Cebu City, to the registrar-in-charge of my records and had her process them instead.
Unfortunately, that takes like half a month to process.
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