December 16, 2007
i left my mom on the street when she wanted to go to the g-mart store across the street from the pierre cardin, guy laroche and ted something store. and i wanted to go to spinney's because that's where she initaially wanted to go. and that's the reason why she dragged my fat ass out of the house. yes, i'm calling our one-bedroom condominuim unit a house because it's a regular house here in dubai and villas are very expensive. villas are the house-looking houses that costs thousands of Dhs. but it was good, i got to buy Dhs25- sweaters at giordano and got to eat at this coffee something restaurant where i smelled beef mami.
i treated my mom beef mami which costs Dhs5 which is very cheap, if you don't convert it to peso. and the manager/waitress is pinay, ate weng. she told us about the filipinos here in dubai, how hard it is to work here that sometimes pinays are "kumakapit sa patalim" and "kumakabit" to filipino engineers or locals or indians because of the high cost of housing and the low wages. Well, it is high if you convert it but there's just little left to be sent home or little left for their selves. Usually they get paid Dhs1200 monthly and rent costs around 600 and their families in the Philippines demand for a lot. They live a hard life here. Unless you are an engineer or an interior designer which ate weng said is an in demand job here because of all the construction going on. Or that a really big company wants to hire you. but if you are just going to be a minimum wage worker, it's going to be hard. And not all gets lucky.
Speaking of lucky, there's this woman I met who must've pleased the gods because she's so lucky. She's going to Paris! She works here for a foreigner, I think, and the person she's working for is moving to Paris and she's stuck at the corner of our building's street trying to get to Forex. This was how we got to talking:
I crossed the street and then she asked: Kabayan?
I removed an ear phone from my ear and said: Huh?
She reapeated: Kabayan ka?
I stupidly gave her my confused look (because I kinda didn’t know what she meant by that which translates to: Filipino ka?) and replied: Opo.
So she started asking about where Forex was, and I passed it so I told her which area it is. We talked more about me, if I was working, where I live, where she's working, where she lives and where she's going. She's waiting for a taxi but when a taxi passed and didn't stop, I just helped her go to Forex. And she gave me this really warm smile, and it made my day.:)
I'm super happy I helped her. No joke. She's a small lady around 50 something I guess, and she looks fragile. She lives in Marikina. I have this thing for asking where Filipinos are originally from. I dunno, I guess it's just decent to ask where they are from. I don't know, I guess to start a conversation. But helping her, made me happy enough not to miss home that much.
Yes, I am missing home and it's just my second day. Somehow, there's a feeling of this not being a vacation, maybe because we are not staying at a hotel, or maybe because there's "RESIDENCE" written on my visa. Never the less, the only things distracting me are CSI and shopping.
eighteen more days before the plane leaves again.