Bermuda is Another World

Building Relationship Starts By Trusting Yourself

“I isolated myself because I felt different. I was not aware of and didn’t acknowledge my uniqueness.”

Excerpt from Pawn to Queen: Life’s Chess and Quest

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I’ve been working for four years in the Philippines, but our life hasn’t changed yet. My mom was still in massive debt with her co-teachers.

The thought of my colleagues applying for work in Dubai and the endless reminders of Ate Emily about Bermuda Island’s opportunities got me thinking.

Since then, there were no days that I wouldn’t check www.royalgazette.com/jobs. I prepared myself for whatever might happen to me. My mindset at that time was to get my mother out of that seemingly bottomless debt hole. Every day, I would apply for jobs abroad. I will elaborate on this in the later chapter.

BERMUDA IS ANOTHER WORLD

In September 2007, I moved to Bermuda as a Fund Accountant in one of the leading financial services firms. There were about 25 employees in our office in Hamilton, Bermuda, and at least ten different nationalities, including American, Canadian, Irish, South African, Bermudian, Australian, English, Indian, Vietnamese, and of course, Filipino.

I missed my time as an employee in the Philippines as it’s different abroad.

In Bermuda, they don’t eat together. Of course, they usually eat salad and bread, unlike us, Filipinos, who eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Also, they seldom talked to each other while working, which was favorable to me because I didn’t want to speak in English! I miss the JZ type employees, who would tell funny stories even in the middle of working on something.

Thankfully, I met Van, a fellow Filipino who was working for another company. Their office is near ours. Almost every day, we would meet for lunch. She would always bring cooked food from home, while I get mine from the Market Place-usually fried chicken and steamed rice for USD 7. We usually go to the park where chirping birds are waiting for our crumbs or on the benches facing the Hamilton beach. Unlike other temporary friendships that instantly ended, my connection with Van was different. Eventually, I became the godmother of her first child.

As I’m writing this, I remembered Robin Campbell on how she patiently trained me and made me feel that I’m part of a diverse group. She was my first mentor abroad. She would talk to me and ask me questions about the TV shows and movies I have watched to engage me, but I would always shut her down out of my lack of confidence in speaking English.

I almost rejected happy hour invitations. How dare they call an event with too much communication in the English language a happy hour? I dreaded it! It’s not good to escape company events, though, so even if I wanted to say no, I couldn’t. Needless to say, my experiences talking in groups were always awful. I would still be composing in my mind what to say, but they were already discussing another topic. So much for happy hour.

Thankfully, Kerrie-Ann, Garth, and my other officemates became my angels as they would initiate small talks with me.

I could do the things I needed to do; it’s just that I couldn’t handle small talks. Not to mention, I couldn’t handle calls from clients, too!! I was so scared whenever my telephone would ring. It’s always a piece of cake explaining technical things or any questions about work, but I start to lose my train of thought when they start asking me about my weekend.

2008 ECONOMIC CRISIS

That’s why when an economic crisis hit in 2008, many of my officemates who have international accounting qualifications and can speak English well got job offers from our other offices (e.g., Boston, Massachusetts, Cincinnati, Ohio, Dublin, South Africa). As for me, what would you expect other than a separation letter? I was only waiting for my last day in the office in Bermuda. I was sending my CVs to different companies but to no avail. The reasons were the same. I was missing an international accounting title, and they couldn’t understand my English.