“Is she kabayan?” the cashier at the dining hall whispers to her co-worker as I pay for my meal. I am no stranger to this pondering. I know that my U.S. American accent disguises me, that the contrast between my features and the way I speak creates an ambiguous identity. So when the cashier’s face lights up with a mix of disbelief and amazement after I speak in Tagalog, I am not surprised — I know my accent carries connotations that ultimately create a barrier between them and me.

I have always known that the UAE is a haven for Overseas Filipino Workers. Engineers, architects, nurses, custodians and security guards flock here to receive twice or even thrice the salary they would make in the Philippines. They are praised as the unsung heroes of our country, sending remittances that alleviate their families’ lives, aiding the country’s economy. Before I came here, I had lived their lives only vicariously, through stories of relatives, documentaries and news reports.

Then all of a sudden, the realities of their lives started to exist a few kilometers from me. While my day at NYU Abu Dhabi begins at 9 a.m. and my weekend begins on a Thursday night, the Filipino workers on campus wake up at the crack of dawn for a six-day work week. While the events of my day vary from thought-stimulating classes to touch rugby practices and theater workshops, their days are a systematic cycle of swiping NYU IDs, grilling meat or making coffee. While I can look forward to a plane ride back to Manila at the end of every semester, they settle for New Year’s countdowns with their families through phone screens on a video call. It is as if we live in parallel worlds that intersect only for a few minutes in the dining hall, the Marketplace or the library. During these intersections, it amazes me how in the middle of their exhausting work hours, their laughter still echoes through the dining hall — evidence of their ability to find joy and happiness in the midst of their labor.

Suddenly, all my problems almost feel trivial, and their contagious laughter makes me smile. However, I cannot help but feel bad, uncomfortable and almost guilty, even if I know that my hard work got me where I am. I flew to the UAE out of personal choice and they are here out of familial duty. At first, I was apprehensive of piercing through the socioeconomic barrier that intangibly existed between us because of the aforementioned guilt. I was afraid of feeling like an outsider, of feeling like I was not Filipino enough for them. But the moment I uttered a Filipino word, they welcomed me with open arms, enthralled that a Filipino lived among all these foreign students. What used to be a silent exchange of a receipt for a coffee at Starbucks became an encounter filled with laughter and chatter enjoyed in our common language. They would ask me about my classes, my friends and my love life; I would tell them, and they would listen intently. I became their window into the otherwise strange world of NYUAD because what they knew of this place ended at the doors of their workplaces — the library, the Marketplace, the dining hall.

It will always be an uncomfortable thought knowing that I fall asleep in a bedroom that is as big as the space occupied by an average of four Filipino women in labor camps not too far from campus. It will always feel a little disconcerting that while I get to enjoy class trips to different countries, some Filipino migrant workers have not left this country in years. These are facts I cannot change — at least, not yet. But it is comforting to know that these people treat me as much of a kabayan as anyone else, that they look to Filipinos on campus for a hopeful future, that it makes them happy to hear us place our orders in Tagalog. It makes me feel special, too, when they smile at me in the dining hall and call me by my name. These people treat me like family. They’ve shared with me pieces of themselves — stories that I keep well-tucked in my heart. Being a witness to the lives they live so candidly has been a one-of-a-kind experience that beats watching any Filipino documentary. These people have become a piece of home away from home, a daily reminder of my cultural identity — that however different my life is from theirs, I am as much a Filipino as they are.