30/4/97

The old and the dutiful

“Yes, ma’am.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Thank you.”

Filipino civility may never catch on with the rest of us in this brusque society; their good-humored servility even less likely. Humility with dignity, forget it.
They come here to wait on us because earnings can be as high as 25 times what they make in the Philippines. After three years of earning what by our standards are paltry wages, a domestic worker can go back and build a home sturdy enough to withstand earthquakes and typhoons.
    Six days a week they work for us, cleaning, cooking, shopping, nursing. Then finally -- Saturday night.
    Yeeeee-haaa!
    Every Saturday night, the country's many thousands of Filipinos break loose, let their hair down and shed their demure subservience. But they are Filipino to the last drop: you won't see unruly gangs of them roaming around drunk. Going wild means taking refuge in one of the secret sanctuaries they have set up for themselves, where they can go on their day off and -- egads! -- put their feet up if they want to.
    They become a tethered people temporarily set free -- but you'd hardly know it. Sure, they lose themselves: napping on a couch, dressing casually, chatting in Tagalog, debating politics. Even here they cook and clean and nurse -- but for each other.
    “I'll tell you the truth,” said one Filipino with a laugh that seems to be a national trait. “You think we all come here to sleep on our day off. You understand, we are tired. We work very hard” -- a young woman mimics washing a floor, to gales of mirth -- “but we are too excited to sleep. Instead, we talk, yack-yack, all night long.
“Sometimes we go back to our employers just to get some sleep.” More giggles.
    At this particular haven on Mazeh Street in Tel Aviv, 18 Filipinos (who are all here legally), share the cost of a rundown apartment, at $750 a month, even though they use it but once a week. The place is furnished like a college dorm, and the 18 renters -- plus perhaps as many Filipino friends and guests -- flow in and out all evening. Sometimes they bop off to a disco, but mostly, they plop down on a couch and shmooze.
    They reveal “discretions” of their employment: where they get diapers cheap, a recipe, how the old man's rash is doing.
    “We care about each other, and about each other's employers. Sometimes we have helpful advice.” Spouses who both found work in Israel meet here once a week, as do some parents and their adult children. But for most, who leave their families behind for years at a time, these communal confabs are an outlet for moral support.   
One woman, who had to abandon her children aged 16, 14 and 10 to make money, was about to go home for the first time in two years. “We ache for our children,” she said, “but what can we do? This is our only chance to send them to a good school, to give them a home.”
    Filipino domestics earn $500 a month here. A well-paid teacher in the Philippines can pull in $250 a month; shop clerks $130. That's in the cities: in outlying areas, far less: one woman earned $20 a month as a cashier. And sometimes, they might have to spend four hours a day in transit to and from work.
    “We have it good here. We are very happy in Israel,” said one middle-aged man. (No one wanted their identities revealed, out of consideration for their employers.)
    “I've worked in Saudi Arabia, in Singapore, as a merchant marine, and after three years here I can say it is one of the best countries in the world for Filipino workers.” Elsewhere they may be treated harshly, raped or cheated of their wages; pay is often poorer, and conditions slave-like. “In some places, you might only get a five-hour break once a month.”
    Someone comes by with a mischievous look on her face. “Look at this poor woman's hands. Feel them. They used to be soft. You know why they feel so rough now?”
   “Work?”
    “No. It's from counting all the money she makes.” Everyone cracks up.
    The apartment's busiest room is the kitchen. They don't order out for pizza: Everybody's walking in and out with bowls of Filipino-style soup and chicken and rice.
    “We eat, we sleep, we talk. We talk about life. Children. The Philippines. Our work. Our dreams. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we cry a lot. But we're happy here.” There is no jealousy, no tension, no grappling for hierarchical