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For most OFWs, we find it difficult to explain to our loved ones back at home how we manage things abroad.
In fact, whenever we take a month-long vacation in the country hoping to spend precious time with our family and friends, we hardly talk of work, or stir conversations about our struggles and nostalgic moments of living away from home.
This is because we feel that a month of break is such a short period to waste it with topics such as momentary depressions, seemingly endless coping mechanisms and struggles for survival.
Instead we try to create happy times by holding constant inuman sessions, attend gatherings, shop around with kids or malling. We opt for those happy moments thinking that we’d rather have something new to cherish when it’s time to go back to the country of work.
Hardly have we gone beyond that superficial kumustahan and tales of funny anecdotes of our encounters in the foreign land. We never really go deep into details of how living abroad is indeed a no joking matter.
I had this in mind when I was writing the book Kapeng Arabo. I was on a personal mission to tell my family and friends how we Filipinos cope in a place where restriction seems to be the rule rather than exception.
Even though I was not intending to make a tell-all type revelation, I was thinking somehow, I just had to let them take a peak. They need to have at least a glimpse of how hard we juggle budget in order to send enough money, what do we do when we’re homesick-stricken, how stressed we get by the smallest detail of a problem back home, and how sad we become by a slightest bad news about the country
Moreover, I had this creeping suspicion that OFWs (at least in this part of the world) are forming set of behaviours out of the ordinary routines that are slowly affecting their personality.
Oh yes, the seemingly mundane and customary practices are creating patterns and issues that inadvertedly affect our character, and eventually, our outlook towards the country.
In a country denied of means for self-expression, the desire to ease loneliness and the finding of ways to keep one’s sanity weigh more prominence that we tend to compromise our goals.
While I subscribe to the idea that Overseas Filipinos is a potent force in bringing about changes in our society, yet only until we become aware of our own follies, and be awakened from our cycle of self-created madness, then, that is the only time we may see that full potential of our capacity.
Kapeng Arabo is now available at National Bookstores.
For most OFWs, we find it difficult to explain to our loved ones back at home how we manage things abroad.
In fact, whenever we take a month-long vacation in the country hoping to spend precious time with our family and friends, we hardly talk of work, or stir conversations about our struggles and nostalgic moments of living away from home.
This is because we feel that a month of break is such a short period to waste it with topics such as momentary depressions, seemingly endless coping mechanisms and struggles for survival.
Instead we try to create happy times by holding constant inuman sessions, attend gatherings, shop around with kids or malling. We opt for those happy moments thinking that we’d rather have something new to cherish when it’s time to go back to the country of work.
Hardly have we gone beyond that superficial kumustahan and tales of funny anecdotes of our encounters in the foreign land. We never really go deep into details of how living abroad is indeed a no joking matter.
I had this in mind when I was writing the book Kapeng Arabo. I was on a personal mission to tell my family and friends how we Filipinos cope in a place where restriction seems to be the rule rather than exception.
Even though I was not intending to make a tell-all type revelation, I was thinking somehow, I just had to let them take a peak. They need to have at least a glimpse of how hard we juggle budget in order to send enough money, what do we do when we’re homesick-stricken, how stressed we get by the smallest detail of a problem back home, and how sad we become by a slightest bad news about the country
Moreover, I had this creeping suspicion that OFWs (at least in this part of the world) are forming set of behaviours out of the ordinary routines that are slowly affecting their personality.
Oh yes, the seemingly mundane and customary practices are creating patterns and issues that inadvertedly affect our character, and eventually, our outlook towards the country.
In a country denied of means for self-expression, the desire to ease loneliness and the finding of ways to keep one’s sanity weigh more prominence that we tend to compromise our goals.
While I subscribe to the idea that Overseas Filipinos is a potent force in bringing about changes in our society, yet only until we become aware of our own follies, and be awakened from our cycle of self-created madness, then, that is the only time we may see that full potential of our capacity.
Kapeng Arabo is now available at National Bookstores.
so true. Many ofws are in situations you just mentioned. And many of their families seem to have unmindful of their situations. I would definitely love to read your book. This one i got to see. Regards, Kevs
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