Sr Leticia Bartolome ICM

Are you going 'door-to-door?’ A question Filipino migrant worker often asks one another. A positive reply gets a second question: ‘Jumbo, regular, half or bulilit?’ What funny and strange names, I thought. One night, coming home from a meeting with the board and staff of the Asian Migrant Centre here in Hong Kong, I felt exhausted and fell into a deep sleep. It was then that I met Jumbo, Regular, Half and Bulilit in a dream. We talked for a long time.

Meeting the boxes

In my dream I saw them very clearly and their names fitted their personalities. Jumbo was big and fat, Regular just the right size, tall and pleasantly plump; Half was thin and short while Bulilit was an anemic-looking dwarf. There weren’t only four, but hundreds of cartons covering the floor, still waiting for costumers. I looked around and found that I was in the office-cum-warehouse of a company that transported goods. It was so quiet. I was alone with these boxes. Some of them, almost bursting from over-capacity, were ready for transporting, with the names and addresses of their destinations pasted on. Others were partly open, ready to be filled with more goods.

Over packed

‘Ouch! Aray!’ I heard someone moan. ‘Ouch! Aray!’ I followed the source and found a jumbo box tied and almost covered in strong tapes to keep it intact. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘I feel so heavy and so full,’ answered Jumbo. ‘We too,’ complained Regular and Half. Bulilit, sighed almost in a whisper, ‘I think I’ll die.’

How could I help them? Perhaps I could divert their attention from their misery and allow them to talk?

You name it

‘What are you carrying inside?’ I asked. All four replied in unison, ‘Everything!’ ‘Everything???’ I asked unbelievingly. ‘Yes, we have school supplies, canned goods, daily supplies for the kitchen, even pots and pans, bars of chocolates and boxes of candies, clothes, shoes, towels, soap, blankets … you name it, we have it. That’s why we’re bigger than we’re supposed to be.’ ‘But why? We have all those things at home in the Philippines!’

Story behind

One by one they explained. One had heard a woman say that she had to make sure that her children would have their school supplies. If she sent money it would be spent on other things. Other families don’t have what they need and so depend on the door-to-door boxes. Another woman had said that her husband spent the money she sent on drinking with his barkada or on dates with another woman. What emotional misery these migrants suffer living away from their families!

Listening to them made me cry. I tried to wipe my tears with a handkerchief but couldn’t find it in my handbag. I woke up and found my pillowcase wet.

‘Door-to-door.’ ‘From Hong Kong with love.’ When a box arrives at its destination, do the recipients realize the big sacrifices that go with it? Do they reciprocate the love that is symbolized by the things sent home? One story going around lately is that of a woman who stopped working because her contract was terminated. When she went home to her family she felt she wasn’t welcome and that she had become a stranger to them. She had no more money. She left and returned to work in Hong Kong but now she knows better. She has started to save money for her own future. No more ‘door-to-door’ for her.