This time, I will be talking about our OFW brothers; these people who deprive themselves from the loving arms of their love ones and endure the hardships in the foreign lands, every passing day just to give them, decent lives. Not only this people helping their respective families but our country as well in terms of economic, through their remittances.
OFW Logo created by reynaelena.comThat is why, despite the world economic crisis, Philippines has slightly affected by the phenomenon as compare to our other Asian neighbors. And as a gesture of gratitude Philippine government likewise return the favor by calling them, the new heroes of our time.
And why suddenly I’m inspired to write about this topic? Well, as usual it’s about a friend. Most of the posts in this blog, by the way are either motivated by my friends stories or from my usual rants.
Now, let’s talk about this friend and let’s hide him by the name ‘Ian’, he is only 21 but immediately grabbed the opportunity when the time came that there’s an opening for Qatar. He has a year contract and started last January, 2009 this despite for the fact that his salary is only one thousand bucks higher than he was earning here.
Now that his contract is ending, he said he won’t renew it. Because according to him life there is hard and he is not talking about the unbearable climate and the homesickness. But he said to earn a decent amount of money you have to work really hard for it as commodities are quite expensive too, not to mention the cultural differences. Life there is a bore; from work he directly goes home, his daily routine by the way. Because unlike here in the Philippines that after work we can always go somewhere else to unwind ourselves especially on Friday or Saturday nights or in anytime we want it as long as we have the money in our purse. Qatar is a very strict country and most of our OFW who works there find its leisure time by going online.
Yes, that’s their habit. From work they go straight to home and open their PC. And not everyone has a PC or a laptop but the good news is you can rent a computer. And laptop is kind of popular for rental and at 7 Riyal (roughly Php 85) per hour you can enjoy chatting with your family and of course to level-up in your favorite Zynga games. So that explain, why every Yahoo chat rooms featuring Pinoy rooms almost 90% of the chatters are Filipinos working in the middle-east countries. Chatting has been part of their relaxation.
I have been invited every now and then to work for these middle-eastern countries but I never fancied myself working in any of these destinations and after hearing these stories, I don’t think I want to try – regardless calling me a HERO.
I rather want to be a SUPERHERO with a healing factor than call me HERO, with only chat is my life!
To all the OFWs of the world, I salute you; indeed you are true heroes!
