094374

094374
AB Interdisciplinary Studies

Helping, Living and Teaching Simply


Times have definitely changed. Money is much more needed these days. Not only will money help oneself, but for many of us, also help our family back in the province. This is especially true for many househelps. One of their main purposes in coming to Manila is to help support parents and siblings in their province.
However, Myla Perez, our yaya and tutor for more than 10 years, has a slightly different story to tell.
As I interview her inside her room, Myla exudes contentment in telling her life story. She is now 39 years old, married for about 5 years now. She hails from Negros Occidental, Visayas, the fifth child from a family of fourteen. However, she is not your typical househelp. Myla is a college graduate, a graduate of Education. She is a teacher.
Despite her college education, she found it hard to get a job in the province. Wanting to contribute and pay back her parents, she set out for Manila. She stayed with her sister, who was our former yaya but was now married and living just near us. When we needed help for my brother’s christening party, our former yaya and Myla Perez, agreed to help. Myla never left us since then.
She found fulfillment in tutoring me throughout my grade school and high school years, helping with school activities and projects. She is now doing the same for my younger sister and brother. While she was not able to “formally” become the teacher she set out to be, she is our family’s teacher and so much more. For her, the fulfillment is the same - she got to teach, she made test questions, graded them helped in school activities, projects, etc. On top of it all, she found a second family, in addition to her real family. She belonged to a family and even if her real family is so far away, she never felt alone.
One day a couple of years ago, she found a cyst in her ovary that kept growing bigger. She was so afraid of the growing cyst and she worried that she does not have any money for the operation because she sends all her money to her parents in the province. Luckily, my parents offered to pay for all her expenses. She is now fine and so grateful to us.
She still keeps on sending financial support to her parents and siblings back in Negros. She helped send her younger sisters and brothers to school. While she receives much more than a typical househelp, she knows that it is not enough to support her parents and siblings and start a family of her own. Yet, she does not complain. She knows the financial situation of our family and understands.
Her only frustration at this point in her life is that she is not yet blessed with her own children. She nonetheless feels blessed to have me, my sister and especially my brother, who she helped raise from birth, as her adopted “children”. In a way, she has her own family that she is helping bring up.

She said that, from time to time, she still feels some disappointment that she did not become the kind of teacher she “studied” to be, she said she has no regrets because she became the teacher she always “wanted to be.” And much more. She helps, lives and teaches simply. We, in turn, learned a lot. We are her second family. She is also our family. Forever.