Immigration

Lastnight while I am searching for an English channel in the TV, I saw a program in Aljezeera, an episode entitled Witness. In this program they showed women from poor European countries telling their own stories about migration. These women have the same purpose and reason as mine. They also went outside their countries for a greener pasture but sad to say what they got were horrible experiences because they were trafficked to prostitutions.All of them were forced to prostitutions and were injected drugs when they refused to have sex and hardly beaten. I pitied them when they were telling their hardships and their ordeals.
Their stories broke my heart especially when they said that these are all because of their kids. Yes, these women have the same reason as mine, going abroad to earn money for the family who are depending on us. Their stories is also stories of some Filipino women who went to the Middle East to work as domestic helper. Some of them have horrible stories to tell. Some were sold to prostitution dens, some raped by their employers, some were maltreated and worst some were killed. And they went back to the country with nothing but sad memories. Some went home in a coffin. At the end they realized that immigration is not always bringing good fortune, nice life and happy ending stories.

I have also my own story to tell. I have a stable job in my country, I just received my promotion as Master teacher that time when the opportunity going to Spain came. I accepted the offer to work as domestic helper there. I thought this was the greatest opportunity that came to my life. So I left my job and the opportunity to get higher salary as teacher and grabbed the bigger Euro. When I got my visa I thought its the beginning of my good life, good future for my kids and my family but as I left my kids in the airport, mixed emotions of going away from them started. It´s so painful to see my kids waving their hands saying goodbye. Really hard to see that scene. I cried a lot during that time but I didnt show them. My tears fall down when the airplane soared up the sky. I am not sure what emotion conquered me most that time...sadness or happiness.I got the job as domestic helper and again its hard to adjust from teaching to cleaning. And added to that I had not so nice employers who didn´t see any good things I made. Working as household worker in Spain was so horrible. It´´s 12 hours non stop job. I almost starved to death because I don´t eat the right food at the right time. I worked hard for my employers clean house, delicious food, well ironed clothes but still I always received critism but its ok because at the end of the month I got Euro which is 6x bigger compared to my basic salary as teacher in my country. Now I am three years away from home, there are lot of things happened and changed. I changed employers and jobs. I changed location too. I gained some and lost some and still I don´t consider my life financially stable yet. I also experienced problems mingling to people around me but still I thank God because I have a better luck, better life, better situation now compared to these women in the TV. I remembered one of these women said...Immigration is not a guarantee that you have bread and salt..yes that´s true but in my case I found bread and salt and added to that a margarine....