Ramadhan House Visit #2

After my usual pasar tani routine last Saturday, I went over to my NGO centre to load my car with the stuffs which I needed to send to Fuzi’s family. I was sweating by the time I finished loading the things – this time I had more stuff than usual because they include a box and a big plastic bag of goodies contributed by a blog reader, and there were also more groceries than usual due to more cash contributions received.

So off I went to Fuzi’s house. As always, the kids were smiling when they saw my car coming. I called them to help get the things out of the car. Surprised there were so many things, the eldest girl asked, “Semua ni?!”

By the time I got in and sat down, the children were already excited, curious to know what was in the box. They saw there were a few paper bags inside and they were wondering what were inside the bags. I told them the things were all theirs so they could take the things out to see for themselves. And boy, were they excited to find out that each one of them got a bag of goodies each!

I asked about the status of Fuzi’s marriage certificate… whether she managed to get it ‘legalised’ yet. According to Fuzi, the guy who promised to help her had called her and told her to see him this week to settle the marriage cert issue. Once she gets that settled she will need to go to Putrajaya to settle her children’s citizenship status. I asked if Fuzi needs to pay any more money. I was shocked when I was told that the guy asked Fuzi to pay RM1,000 to settle the whole thing!! Earlier on Fuzi had already paid RM300 to get things started. No receipts issued. Now another RM1,000? Even for me that’s a big sum of money… how on earth did he expect Fuzi to fork out the money?!

I told Fuzi that if no receipts are issued then most likely the bulk of the money may just go into the guy’s own pocket! To which Fuzi replied in her Indonesian accent, “Tapi dia nampaknya seperti orang baik-baik, kak!” Aduuuh… but of course my dear… they always act like nice people. The money is the initiative for them to help you…

Okay, so it’s not good to “buruk sangka”. Maybe there is some kind of fine Fuzi need to pay because for many years her late husband never officially registered their Narathiwat marriage. But come on… RM1,000… and no receipts whatsoever?

Or maybe the guy sincerely wants to help, but he needs the money to give “duit kopi” to whoever he needed to seek help from to get things done. Oh I don’t know!! I would love to see this guy and ask him for a breakdown of what the RM1,000 was for. But Fuzi doesn’t want me to make a hoo hah of it for fear I may jeopardize her chances of getting the whole thing settled as soon as possible. So no, she’s not keen on having me accompany her to see this guy.

Alright, but where on earth is she going to fork out the money from? I told her to be frank with the guy and tell him that she’s a non-working single mom and live solely on welfare. When I told her that her PAF application has been approved and that she’ll be getting an additional RM160 per month beginning this month, she was so happy saying she can save that money for this purpose. All she wants to do now is to make sure there are no more hiccups in her children’s citizenship status. She’s willing to “ikat perut” for it.

Up to you, Fuzi… but I’m still suspicious. I have never done all this stuff before so I don’t really know how much money is really involved to get this done. Whatever it is, I sure hope all the citizenship problem will be settled soon so that her children’s citizenship status will not be questioned in the future.

Anyway, besides Fuzi’s marriage cert and her children’s citizenship problem, the family seems to be coping well. The children looked happy and to me that’s what matters most. In fact they are already talking about going to this year’s Raya-do… like the one I organised last year. I haven’t even planned anything yet for this year…