The first floor of the Tahana Merkazit is known as Mini Manila: Filipino food shops and travel agencies are open here on weekdays (from 8 am to 9 pm). On Saturdays, when most workers have their day off, a huge food market with homemade Filipino food is open up until 10.30 pm.

In Mini Manila, you can find rice sweets, a cake called puto, siomai dumplings, siopao steamed buns with pulled pork or beef, pork barbecue with sweet and sour sauce, halo halo — a cold cocktail made of ground frizzed milk and various kinds of jelly, and sometimes even such extreme delicacies as rotten eggs or balute — a developing bird embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. Some Filipinos who get married to Israeli citizens start to grow their traditional vegetables in moshavs. So fresh exotic greenery, like bitter gourd ampalaya, okra or kangkong are sold at the market. Whatever a Filipino misses from home can be found at the Tahana Merkazit!

The life of Filipino Tel-Avivians can also seem pretty exotic. They don’t have free time to shop for clothes — so they buy clothes and accessories online from numerous facebook groups. And as it’s too difficult to find time to meet, they just leave products and money for each other in one of the shops near the Tahana Merkazit.

Getting to Israel is a true quest. To receive a work visa most Filipinos pay $7000-8000 for a so-called "placement fee" to an agency. In order to do that, some sell their houses or borrow the money and come here with massive debts. However, it’s still a good deal as one month salary here is 3 to 4 times higher than in The Philippines. A caregiver earns approximately 4000 NIS plus extra payment for no day off, a 100 NIS weekly allowance, and some extra payment if they work holidays and weekends. Some generous employers give them an extra few hundred shekels a month. All in all, it takes the average Filipino worker about two years to pay off their debt.

Before coming to Israel, Filipinos undergo a three-week-long training — one week of medical caregiving training, one of cleaning and cooking and lastly one week of basic Hebrew. In total, the training costs around 1000 NIS.

Israeli Law permits foreign workers to remain in Israel for four years and three months. If after this, the employer is still alive and still wants to continue employing the caregiver, he/she can then renew his/her work visa yearly. When the contract is over, the foreign worker is required to leave. It's not permitted for a Filipino to come to Israel for work a second time. Some people stay here illegally. According to some sources there are currently 6,000 Filipinos living in Israel without documentation.

OFW — Overseas Filipino Workers. This abbreviation Filipino immigrants use to describe themselves.

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