By Rex Catubig

 

IT’S an oft repeated tale of OFW woe. The domestic helper being maltreated. One is already inured to these stories. Until it hits close to home.

Christina Aquino, a single mom at 32,  of Sitio Bagong Barrio, Bonuan Gueset is our poster girl of worker abuse. And her story strikes us to the core.

Her journey as an OFW, started out of her ever mounting frustration over her domestic relationship. She had been together with her partner for 11 years, 6 of which they lived under one roof. But after 3 children, the husband remained shackled to his vices, unable to support his family.

So one day, she decided that it’s over. She finished high school only and a year of caregiver course, but torn by the feeling that life was caving in on her, she sought to break free and rise from the rut. Desiring a better life for the family, she filed her documents, and promptly jumpstarted her mission to seek her fortune abroad.

As if luck was now on her side, she landed her first employment as a domestic helper in the populous city of Dammam. There, she worked for 2 years before taking a vacation. She was supposed to go back and work with the same employer, but certain technicality arose that prevented her from doing that. To work around the problem, she sought employment elsewhere. Kuwait was waiting for her. For 2 years again, she toiled day and night, her children and family always in her mind and heart.

But after spending a happy vacation, came an unexpected turn of events that would test her courage and strength under duress.

Having fulfilled the proper requirements, she applied for work again in Saudi Arabia. But as fate would have it, and unbeknownst to her, instead of being employed in Riyadh, her agency switched her location and employer to the far flung township of Bisha. She learned this belatedly from the local Saudi agency upon reaching Riyadh.

She was booked another flight to reach her destination, but she had to stay overnight at the airport as her connecting flight was yet the following morning. To console her, her agency gave her 100 riyals so she could buy food and necessities for the long wait.

This meager sum of money turned out to be both her deliverance and misfortune.  In fact, it led consequently to her harrowing experience.

In a cruel stroke of irony, Bisha roughly translates as “ordeal of fire”. And yet Bisha is also known for palm dates which in the Arabic world is the symbol of prosperity.

Christina’s 5 month stay in this township of paradox would prove to be her baptism of fire in her search for a prosperous life.

(To be continued next issue)

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