Where and when to draw the line...

When many of the comments to my previous posting on Yah and her Mr. Darling, suggested that I should just let them be, my first thought was… aiyah, easy for you people to say lah! You’re not the ones Yah will call every time she lands into trouble! But yeah, I would have probably suggested the same if I didn’t know Yah and more importantly, if I was not Yah’s buddy. When you’re the one she’d end up calling every time, you too would hope she’d think twice before she does anything.

While previously whenever Yah called it’s probably just to tell me about her children’s well-being or any other problems which I could help resolve, of late her calls were more to talk about her own personal feelings. For these ones, I’d probably just listen without offering any solutions. She’d have to decide on her own.

When Fuzi needed a Malaysian citizen’s name to claim the ownership of the land her late husband left behind, she wanted to use my name. She could use her step-daughter’s name, but she trusted me more. But oh, no way was I going to get involved that deep! I don’t mind helping her out with the documentation and all, but to use my name? Sorry!

So, where and when do we draw the line?

Well, my NGO’s main activity is to provide moral and emotional support to people living with HIV/AIDS – not berkorban apa saja for them. We support them so they can become independent. If we help them in every single thing, they will become dependent on us instead, will they not?

When we join the Buddies, one of the guidelines given to us was that we must never bring our PLWHA clients to our homes. Imagine if my clients knew where I live, they may just come to my house every time they have a problem. Maria once sent me a text message at 3 am asking if I knew of a place she could go to as she just had a big fight with her husband. What if she knew where I lived and decided to simply come to my house? And then there was Zana who sent me a text message asking me if I knew of any shelter homes she could live in as she had been chased out of her house because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. What if she knew where I lived and just appeared in front of my house expecting me to provide her temporary shelter?

Oh no, bahaya ohh…

This is, after all, voluntary work. We have our lives to live, and we have our own priorities. Whatever it is, our own families come first. Our cari makan work comes next. I cannot simply leave my office to meet my PLWHA clients whenever any of them call to say they are in Ipoh and need to meet up with me. The least they can do is to inform me before hand so I can make the necessary arrangements.

Then there are those who tend to think we are paid to take care of the PLWHAs. Ifa’s mother, for example, used to tell Ifa to call me every time Ifa needed to go anywhere. Ifa’s mother didn’t really understand when she was told I was just a volunteer. Only when I told her bluntly that I’m not paid for this job did she stop pestering Ifa to call me every time. Oh yes, Ifa would still call me from time to time to seek help, but only when she really needs to.

A fellow volunteer once received a call from her client telling the volunteer to fetch the client at the bus-station. Like it was the volunteer’s job to do so! And worse, the volunteer was at work. She simply told off her client, “Sorry, I’m not your driver!” At least if the client had the courtesy to ask for help instead of simply telling the volunteer to go and fetch her, the volunteer could have been less blunt.

Oh don’t get me wrong, not all PLWHAs are like that. Most of them are okay. But because of the one or two irritating ones, we volunteers have to take the necessary precautions to make sure our clients don’t take advantage of us. We provide our support services to them for free, but we are not their servants!

I guess we just need to know where and when to draw the line. Oh, we’ll learn how to do that somehow…