Kindness versus Gratitude

Yesterday was an unusual weekend for me. I learned how people misjudges others' intentions and kindness over their own narrow-mindedness. 

It all started last year when me and my husband decided to bring someone from the Philippines to take care of our kids.  We had several applicants but we decided give the opportunity to our neighbor's wife who asked my parents for help.

We spent more than two hundred thousand pesos for the visa, processing, ticket and stuff. July 28, 2008, Marie arrived in the Riyadh airport and we picked her up with the Saudi Liason Officer.

The saudi sponsor asked too much money for the iqama. Two months ago, we paid another 50,000 pesos for transferring her sponsorship under my husband's name and company, but it also has been pending to date because the sponsor has been delaying the documents.

Last week, her husband got sick and was hospitalized. Yesterday, her mother in law sent her a text message asking her to go back to Philippines immediately.

I had mixed emotions when I talked to Marie.  She didn't want to go to Philippines, thinking that her family has not yet paid their debts and going home would mean no job or income for both her sick husband, herself and her two small kids.

Her mother in law talked to me over the phone. She asked me to send Marie immediately to Philippines. I told her that the decision is on her daughter in law but she blurted out that Marie is refusing to go home because she is thinking of her debts from me. 

That was it.  For them, I am the reason why Marie doesn't want to go home.

Marie and her husband knows how much we spent for her visa and everything she needed to leave the country.  If I count all that we spent for her, it has almost reached three hundred thousand pesos.  I knew she could not pay all of that, that's why we didn't ask her to.  When she arrived in Riyadh, I told her that I will help her and she will help my family too.  I just asked her to pay 60,000 pesos in a period of one year, considering that I wil be giving her almost 13,000 pesos monthly salary.

Marie is a smart girl. She thinks of her family, especially of her kids and her husband. But her in laws are pressuring her.  This is something I could not understand.

How could they ask her to leave her work and go home without nothing to her sick husband. How will she buy all his medicines and pay for the hospital bills?  When I asked the same question to her mother in law, she told me "bahala na, basta sama-sama sila dito".

It is so sad that people back in the Philippines think that life is so easy abroad.

Last year, when I brought her here, I was the "good" person in our place.   Yesterday, I suddenly became a monster in their eyes.

I wonder how long will they talk about me in their all-day tsismisan sessions.