Life is beautiful, but it can also be very tough. Get to know more about me, the challenges I've faced, and how I dealt with them.

Hello my name is Josephine B Mamalias or just call me Jojo @Jojo2591. I am very friendly, cheerful and easy going person. I love cooking in most of my free time, and of course I love traveling to explore and experience new things. I am very happy and grateful to @antonete for sharing to me her knowledge about this very incredible platform full of amazing individual to share with my stories, experiences and interests in life.

So here is a short story about myself:

I came from a very simple, big and happy family. We lived in the province of Tubalan Malita Davao Occidental.

I am the second child,from the ten siblings. And the breadwinner of the family. When I was eleven years old, I was already considered myself as a working student. I left home and lived with the two elderly couple which one of our relatives also. At the very young age I discovered how difficult our life was, maybe it was because my parents doesn’t have a stable job way back then. And they have 10 kids to feed. There are times that it was so hard for us to eat rice 3 times a day. But I was still grateful because we still have something to eat, even if, we don’t have rice, we can eat boiled banana, or sweet potatoes. But it was so sick to always eat the same food almost everyday but no choice. Our rice before was yellow corn rice, that was the cheapest rice at my younger time,( year 1990’s). We can only eat the normal rice, (humay) during December because my father boss gave us 10kg of rice as a Christmas bonus and a small grocery items, that was the happiest moment of our lives during that time.

Below is the photo with me and my 8 siblings together with our mother. My one sister and father was not present at that time.

So I grabbed it, with my parents permission, when the two elderly couple offered me to lived with them and they will take care of my studies, and everything . And Why I thought, this way I could help my parents? It wasn’t because I can support them financially, but because at least my parents can now less one mouth to feed and there’s no need for them to think about my studies anymore, so that’s the reason why I thought it was a big help for them . But during the first few weeks without being with my parents and siblings was not easy. I missed them so bad, I wanted to go back home but I tried hard not to mind my emotion until I used to it.There are times that while I’m having my meal,I always thought about my family specially my younger siblings,I'm thinking if,are they having food to eat too? I can now eat 3 times a day how about them? If only I can easily give my food to them, I will. If anyone there having the same experienced with me? I'm sure you know how I felt those times.

So the tasks that I told to do so during those times was , woke up at 5 in the morning, sweep and broom the surrounding, water the plants and fetched water from the water pump everyday before I go to school. And during Saturday I washed our clothes.

At eleven years old I started to become very independent until I got to college . I worked hard to support my own studies, but sad to say, I didn’t ended up finishing my degree because I choose to just worked to support my family .

Years 2015-2016, I worked as a cashier at HB1 Pharmacy in Digos City. That was my first highest paying job during those times. I planned to save money for me to pay my next whole semester but I was failed to do so until I never want to go back to study anymore and decided to just continue working to support my family and siblings.

And later on, I noticed that no matter what, how hard I worked,my salary still not enough to support my family and my personal needs. So I tried to find another job. And that was the time that I decided to work abroad. I applied to work as Domestic Helper in Singapore and gladly I was hired and I was very fortunate because I found a very good employer. So I worked in Singapore for 6 years with the same employer.

Below are the photos together with my boss family.

Working as domestic helper in Singapore was a very big achievements in my life. I was given a chance to travel and explore new things in life at the same time I'm earning more than what I've earned in the Philippines. I'm able to help my family in so many ways that I could, plus I get the chance to go to the places that I never dreamed before. Singapore was really an amazing country with very good people around. Their foods was great and I missed it so much. I wish to visit Singapore again someday.

By the way my main duties there was cooking and marketing as well. I enjoyed my job so much, exploring and trying out different kinds of recipes to cook was really an amazing experienced. I have a lot of videos and photos of my cooking in my other social media accounts and I can't wait to share it with you guys in the future but for now I'm sharing some photos of my cooking below.

After so many years of working overseas. I decided to go home for good. And also because I want to have a baby as I am not getting younger anymore. So I went home year December 2022. I’m so thankful that God answered my prayer immediately. Because after one month, I got pregnant with my 19 moths old son now. Me and my partner is not legally married yet but we plan to when the right times comes .

This is my family now.

After almost 3 years of staying home and no work because I’m taking care of my son. I talked to my partner that I wanted to work overseas again just for two years so we can have savings at least. After a long story of trying to convince him he agreed. He look after of our son when he’s not at work but most of the time it’s his mother who take care of our son when we are both not around.

And last April 04,2025 , I just came here to work in Hongkong and this will be my new journey to share with you guys soon.

I'm already 2 months here in HongKong and I'm still in the process of adjustment. Being away from my son is not that easy. I felt so much guilt inside because I'm here taking care of other people's child while I asked someone to look after of my own child. I don't know until when I can bear the sadness in my heart . To all Ofw mother out there I salute to you guys.

The reason why I joined hive it’s because I need something to release my stress. Discovering this platform by the help of @antonette is a big help to me because I can now have someone to share my stories and sharing my daily activities with you guys. I think this platform is more better to release my emotions as it’s not easy to live away from my family .

And I fully understood that I must only share my original content and not to use or take other site photos to upload here and I promise that I can give you 100% assurance that I will follow the rules and regulations of this platform . And to all of you guys who were able to spend time reading my intro post from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much, nice meeting you all. Have a nice day and see you around.

All photos are mine and edited using Canva.