I Am Buraot

I don’t want to be in an airport terminal. Except when I’m the one who’s flying, I never really liked the airport scene. The atmosphere is usually… well… frantic.

You could tell the Filipino travelers apart from the rest of the pack of thousands. They always have their balikbayan boxes for a luggage.

Inside their “luggage” you can find not just goodies but hopes and dreams that will eventually be shared to love ones anxiously waiting on the other side of the world. Continue Reading…

It was a desolate wasteland, a mix of hot sand and ragged dirt. There was no air except for the few occasional breezes that blow like hotter than summer.

From the broken cracks on the ground, you can see the scorching air rising up above it like debris trying to flee a burning magma. Even the smallest of flora have died from years of neglect from the heavens.

A lone camel came idling by. He is a dromedary, all the way from some mystic Arab lands. It had traveled the Great Plains, climbed past the edges of the everglades, and crossed the empty deserts. Continue Reading…

February 28, 2001. That was eight years ago. The 16 hour flight from Manila was uneventful. I was traveling with my brother, my sister and her son.

They were all excited, eager to see what the land of milk and honey could bring. Hopeful and quite optimistic for a new and better life in America.

They all were ecstatic. I wasn’t.

Ever since we had the news that our immigration papers were approved, contrary to what everybody felt, I was shattered. It was as if my life ended. Suspended was the more appropriate term. Yes I was waiting for this to come, but that was when I still don’t have kids.

Life in the Philippines was getting harder everyday. So an opportunity like this one is definitely hard to resist. And it was even harder for me. My kids are growing up, they needed more, I needed to provide more, and I needed to secure their future. A better opportunity is now at hand, at least for my kids, so I needed to go. That was the simple economic truth. Continue Reading…