A PAPER bill of 5 Lira (Lebanese legal tender equivalent to P150) found by a young Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) inside a washing machine in her employer’s home in Bromana, Lebanon spelled luck for her eventual escape from that war-torn country.

Jennilyn Caacbay, 23, from barangay Concordia, Bolinao, Pangasinan, decided to take the money and thought she could use the amount for her fare to Beirut, some two kilometers away, where she can locate the Philippine embassy to ask for help.

Arriving in Lebanon only last May, she was barely two months working there when the war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas based in the southern part of that country.

She said that while at her employer’s home, she only realized there was a war going on seeing thick black smoke billowing from a few distance away caused by bombs fired by Israeli jets. She dreaded the possibility their building could also be directly hit.

Caacbay said their employers did not allow them to watch television news where they could see the war reported blow-by-blow, apparently to keep them from being discouraged and ultimately seek their release and their repatriation.

At the height of the fighting, Caacbay’s employers decided to evacuate to their summer home in Pariya in the north, tagging along their two children and another Filipina maid, Michelle Peña. They left her alone to watch their home with little food in the fridge and no money at all.

After finding the money in the washing machine, Caacbay’s next big problem was how to get out from her employer’s home whose doors were locked from the outside.

From the balcony of the house she saw a long cable wire that could reach the ground. She tied it to a concrete post and with pure grit, used it to scale down the building with only her travel papers and 5 Lira with her.

Once out, she hailed a taxi for Beirut but was told by the driver her money could get her only half of the way. It was good that a kind Lebanese man interceded and talked to the driver to give her a free ride for the rest of the way.

When Caacbay finally reached Beirut, she immediately found the Philippine embassy that was at the time already crowded with OFWs who were all seeking repatriation back home to escape from the war.

Caacbay, a graduate in B.S. Industrial Technology from the Pangasinan State University, came home last August 13 with the 37th batch of OFWs from Lebanon.

Interviewed by reporters at the one-day reintegration fair for Lebanon OFWs in Dagupan City Thursday, Caacbay said she no longer wants to work abroad after her traumatic experience on her first stint overseas.

Reunited with her family in Bolinao, she did not bring anything to them because since arriving in Lebanon, all her salary went to the recruiting agency that paid for her fare ticket to Lebanon.

She said she was promised compensation of U.S. 200 dollars per month but upon reaching Lebanon, she was told that she will get only U.S. 150 dollars as the other U.S. 50 dollars will be kept by the agency. She did not taste a single dollar from her salary during her barely two months working there.

Caacbay said her work as a domestic helper of the Lebanese family began at dawn and ended at midnight with only a few hours of sleep.

She cleaned the house, scrubbed the tiled floor and made the comfort room spic and span. Then she took care of her employer’s two children, one of them being a special child.

The girl said she committed the mistake of going to Lebanon to serve as domestic as perhaps she could earn P17,000 by working at home, using her academic qualification.

DOLE Undersecretary Danilo Cruz said Caacbay was among the 147 OFWs from the Ilocos region who have so far returned from Lebanon.

At the reintegration fair, local employment agencies were also on hand to recruit those who prefer to work at home.