At least we are together

New Neighbours: Filipina nurse Maria Analiza Belmonte: Monday to Friday, I wake up at about 6am to get my daughter ready for school and to prepare breakfast, before starting work as a theatre nurse in St Vincent's Hospital, Donnybrook, at 8am.

To earn extra money, I often work weekends as an agency nurse, but my daughter asks, "Why are you always working? Why can't we go to the park?" I get very stressed and exhausted, so I am trying to be home more.

We live in a two-room apartment in Donnybrook: my husband, Rustum, a draughtsman, my daughter, Keziah Ann (seven), born in Saudi Arabia, and my little monkey, Jahziel Angelo (two), a son born in Dublin. Rustum has been unemployed and caring for the children because good childcare is too expensive, but we want to be able to afford a bigger place to live, so he is starting a new job as a draughtsman this week and we are still trying to organise childcare and after-school care.

I send half my salary home to my mother in the Philippines. I have put three of my eight brothers and sisters through college. This is what most Filipinas do. We are fortunate to be living in Ireland and we must share this blessing with our families back home.

My childhood was unusual and explains why I have very low self-esteem. My father was a very wealthy man, involved in politics, and everyone in our province knew him. He was nearing 50 years old, with a first wife and eight children, when my mother began working in his house as a maid. My father fell in love with her and they had eight children - the "second batch" everyone called us. All of us lived together in one house: the two batches of children, my mother, who was the housekeeper, and the first wife who acted like a mother towards us and held 24-hour majong [a gambling game] parties. The house was always full of people. We called both women mother.

The first batch went to university and did very well, but my father's farm became less profitable as he sold off land. The first batch did not develop his wealth, and my mother, who thought she was nothing, did not try to ensure our future financial security. At 15, I begged to go to college but my father could not afford the tuition. I had hatred in my heart for a long time due to that insecure situation.

My mother sent me to live with a sister from the first batch, who had married a wealthy, Chinese businessman with a scrap-metal business, but life was a struggle for her because he gambled away the profits at majong. She agreed to pay my tuition at nursing college in exchange for me caring for her children, cleaning her house and cooking every weekend, which was very difficult and frustrating because she was a perfectionist.

My first nursing job was in Saudi Arabia, where I worked six days a week for three years without a holiday and without going home, sending every penny to my mother. We were allowed out of the clinic and dormitory only once a week, to shop for a few hours. The Mutawa (religious enforcers) were everywhere, making sure that we were wearing our abaya correctly and that we did not speak to men. A Filipina on her own could be raped.

I met a Filipino salesman in a shop and fell in love. We communicated by secretly swapping voice tapes, as phone calls and meetings were banned. Listening to those tapes at night, over and over, eased my homesickness. We planned to marry, then he grew cold. I discovered he had met someone else.

I was raised Catholic, but in Saudi Arabia I was baptised as a Born Again Christian in the Pentecostal church. In Dublin we praise in a two-bedroom apartment in Tallaght. In Riyadh, it was so dangerous that we had to be secretive, holding our services in various apartments, which we soundproofed. We kept the vacuum cleaner running to mask the sound of our Praise. I met Rustum through worship and he found a way to send me flowers to my hospital every day. Then, a married couple with an apartment helped us to meet.

After 10 years in Saudi, a consultant at the hospital who was married to an Irishman told me about the great life in Ireland: better pay, lower taxes, great people. My mother and Rustum looked after Keziah in the Philippines, while I came to Ireland with an agency. I signed a contract to be a theatre nurse, but when I arrived the hospital insisted on putting me on an overcrowded medical/surgical ward.

The Irish Nurses Organisation said that the hospital had broken my contract and I could take a job in another hospital, but I feared the consequences so I completed my two-year contract. It was very stressful and during it, Jhaziel was born prematurely at 32 weeks. In January 2004, I joined St Vincent's, where the people are very nice and I love my job as a theatre nurse and transplant nurse.

I would like to be able to settle in Ireland, have a mortgage and educate my children here but living is so expensive.

Life is very difficult and sometimes I am so tired that I hate this world, but at least in Ireland, we are all together.

In conversation with Kate Holmquist