Ilulissat, Greenland \u2013 Marinel Garciano dislikes winter, and that\u2019s tough when it lasts nine months in Ilulissat, Greenland. But she has no regrets about leaving the Philippines to give her children opportunities.<\/p>\n
Her family is among the roughly 1,200 Filipinos living on the vast Arctic island of 57,000 inhabitants, the largest foreign diaspora in the Danish autonomous territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just looking for a greener pasture,\u201d smiled the 38-year-old, her eyes stealing a glance outside the window.<\/p>\n
But behind the glass there was no greenery \u2014 just the pristine white of a blizzard enveloping the streets of Ilulissat, north of the Arctic Circle, in the icy month of April.<\/p>\n
Marinel was taking a break at the Nuka cafe where her husband works, flashing a contagious smile despite being tired from work, her long dark hair falling down her back.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Owie Garciano left the lush landscapes of the Visayas and headed to Greenland for a job as a cook.<\/p>\n
Marinel and their three children joined him in 2021, amid a tourism boom in the town known for its icebergs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like I had teleported,\u201d Marinel recalled. \u201cFrom the tropical forest to here.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first she worked in a warehouse, eventually landing a job as a receptionist.<\/p>\n
Her 15-year-old daughter sometimes helps her, while her eldest son, 18, works as a kitchen hand in a restaurant.<\/p>\n
The Garcianos are often tired from working so much, but it\u2019s for their future: Marinel invests \u201cevery penny\u201d in real estate back home to give her children a better life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want my kids to not grow up like me. You want to offer them what you didn\u2019t have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In between orders, Owie bounced out of the kitchen, gave her a quick kiss, then disappeared again, leaving behind an odor of fried food.<\/p>\n
Since they never know how long their visas will be renewed for, they don\u2019t want to waste any time in Greenland.<\/p>\n
Marinel keeps meticulous accounts, watching the children\u2019s spending closely, even going so far as to confiscate their money \u201cfor their future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any case, it\u2019s too cold to go out and have fun,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if you drink, you just end up hungover and broke.\u201d<\/p>\n
She squirmed on the red vinyl seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know … maybe I\u2019m crazy,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n
The next morning, she helped some Filipino friends clean the town\u2019s new airport, which is set to open in October.<\/p>\n
At dawn, life at the Best Western hotel begins to stir.<\/p>\n
A Thai chambermaid disappears behind a flurry of sheets, a Filipino cook behind a burst of flame.<\/p>\n
Here, a quarter of the staff is foreign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to hire locals, but it\u2019s hard,\u201d admitted manager…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilulissat, Greenland \u2013 Marinel Garciano dislikes winter, and that\u2019s tough when it lasts nine months in Ilulissat, Greenland.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[217,215,6110,6108,1578,214,216,23,4639],"class_list":["post-41540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-business-of-japan","tag-denmark","tag-greenland","tag-immigration","tag-japans-business","tag-japanese-business","tag-philippines","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}