on being away from your loved ones....

we all say that we work for our family... to give them a better life, to be able to send our children to a better school.... and give them a bit of comfort in life....



sometimes we have to make sacrifices to be able to attain our goals, at times we have to be separated from our loved ones especially if we have out of town assignments or work overseas...



living alone, and away from my family has taught me many things in life... many of them are very valuable, knowledge that you wouldn't learn in any university.....



moreover, living away from my loved ones has shown me the value of every little things that i failed to appreciate back then.....

looking back....

it's March once again... i can't imagine it's been nine (9) long years since i decided to go on my second deployment overseas....time relly flies so fast.... i still remember that it was barely a week following the 1st birthday celebration of my only son when they send me off in the airport.....

looking back i am very thankful that i managed to convince my employer and the agency to delay my flight for a week, otherwise i wouldn't be able to celebrate the occasion with them and to compound it i would have to fly on the exact date of the celebration....

counting back the years that i have stayed away from my family i can't help but think the many other occasions that we have to celebrate separately.... the only consolation we have right now is that communication is much easier right now....

language barrier....

one of the major problem that is usually encountered when you work overseas is the language barrier.... especially when you work in in a multi disciplined environment, where not everybody finishes college let alone went to school....

sometimes it gets frustrating when you give specific instructions to your subordinate and later in the day when you check what they have accomplished, find out that they have done nothing relevant to what you have expected....

through the years we have come to realize that straight forward English doesn't work well with some nationalities (not that i am trying to discriminate or being racist) is to speak in combination of "broken English" local dialect and some of their own dialect that you picked up along the way.....

but one thing that never fails to work.... find one of his compatriot who understand and speak good English .....

communicating with love one.....

i remember when i first started working overseas.... back in 1994, overseas call cost a fortune and there are not to many phone lines available in my province, there was no mobile phone yet that time and land line phone is not easy to acquire. so most of the time we have to rely on snail mail. mails that time usually takes 5-14 days to arrive.

sometimes there are friends who goes on annual vacation that happens to live within the town, so you have a chance to send mail and voice tapes... and when he comes back you expect to receive the same gesture from your family...

now a days communications is much easier; with the advent of mobile phone, Internet and SMS... your love one is just a phone call away, or an SMS away... and better still with the video and voice chat, you can talk and see them, short of touching them....

on meeting new friends

working overseas has afforded me a lot of opportunity..... one of them is meeting new friends and learn a lot of things from them.... their customs, traditions, beliefs and even their day to day way of life....

having gathered a few friends from, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Australia Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, England, Canada, united States of America, Nepal, Bangladesh and Egypt is really wonderful....

working in a multi cultural environment is really astonishing and worthwhile.... the key/recipe to harmony is simple...."respect" regardless of their race, religion and position in the work environment....

this is what makes life overseas challenging.... and a lot worthwhile....

of needs and wants....

working overseas gives you a lot of opportunity to see a lot of electronics and household electronics at cheaper price... some of these items are not readily available back home.... looking at them makes you envious and wanting to have them....

here is where good thinking matter most, for me i always categorize things before jumping to a decision to buy or not to buy any item that fancy my eyes... the question that i always ask myself is, "Do i need it or i just want it?"

it makes a big difference especially when you are on a tight budget... and you know that our family are looking up to you.....

why work overseas????

I have been asked this question too many times to remember how many.... but i seem to have the same answer.... for various reasons.... answer that other seems to find it difficult to comprehend... especially if you don't have your family with you....

i have been working overseas for quite some times.... and i would say that it has not been easy being away from all your loved ones.... but then again it is just a matter of prioritizing..... economy dictates most of our decision making.... i for one has to admit that....

OFW.....

OFW..... Overseas Filipino Worker.... that is what we are called now... not a long time ago we were called OCW, Overseas Contract workers..... they say we are the modern day heroes.... that's what the government say so......

working overseas is very challenging... with the change in environment, cultural diversity and not to mention the language barrier.... it has it's ups and down... but overall it is a matter of weighing the benefits over all other factors.....

Working overseas.....

Working overseas is a very challenging feat.... with the cultural diversity and the overall environment indifference from where you grew up with is really quite a challenge.... not to mention the language barrier...


but having work in different provinces in the Philippines and having to learn and understand a different dialect makes life a lot easier....