Various updates... #2

Last week I received another text message from Zana. She was asking if I had called her earlier. (Remember my earlier call which didn’t get through?) I was busy in my office then and did not reply immediately. After a while another text message came from Zana, this time asking if I was busy. I had to reply that message, telling her I was indeed busy, and that I would call her later.

Later when I was at my NGO centre, I decided to give her a call. This time the call went through. When I heard children’s voices in the background, I suspected that the nursery where she was working in was indeed a children’s nursery.

I asked Zana direct if her child was left at the shelter home for good, or if it was just a temporary measure.

“Itulah kak, saya dah terlepas cakap hari tu. Saya kata saya ambil balik budak tu lepas saya kawin. Tapi macam mana saya nak kawin? Sekarang saya kena cari jalan nak ambil balik anak saya.”

Actually after Kak Hawa, the lady in charge at the shelter home, told me last year that Zana had started working as a security guard, I never received any more news about Zana. At that time, Zana was still taking care of her baby. I did try to call Zana earlier, but my calls never got through. It was only recently when I got a text message from Zana’s new number that I finally managed to get hold of her again.

Before I could ask Zana what took place, Zana said, “Sebenarnya hari tu saya kena buang kerja, jadi Mak Hawa datang ambil budak tu. Saya pun cakaplah kat Mak Hawa nanti lepas saya kawin saya ambil balik budak tu.”

Hmmm… she was fired? Oh dear, this problematic young woman always seem to be in all kinds of trouble! I wonder what happened. I didn’t want to ask why. I know usually she’d come up with different stories for different people, so I thought I might as well just call Kak Hawa direct to get the other side of the story. But when I tried to call Kak Hawa immediately after that, she didn’t pick up the phone. Kak Hawa is probably busy. I will try again later.

Anyway, Zana did call her family in Ipoh although she didn’t speak to her father who had disowned her. She managed to speak to her mother and also to her 6 year old daughter to wish her happy birthday. According to Zana, she may come to Ipoh for a while to see her daughter. I’m not sure how she’s going to do that. I know she still doesn’t dare go home for fear of her father. Chances are she’s thinking of asking her younger sister to bring her daughter out to meet her somewhere.

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Remember my earlier posting about my house visits for sponsorship assessment? We managed to visit 4 families that day. However, although we did find the area where Pushpa was staying, we couldn’t find the house. We tried to call but there was no answer.

So I decided to visit her last Friday, this time with another colleague of mine. I wanted to get things over and done with. We made arrangements to meet up with Pushpa’s buddy somewhere and then together we’d visit Pushpa. On the way to her house, we had to slow down somewhere as a herd of cows was crossing the road. Too bad I was driving. Otherwise I would gladly take out the camera in my handbag and get the cows to pose for a photo to be put in this blog… :)

Pushpa is a sweet 12 year old girl who became orphaned since she was small. The difference between Pushpa and the other children considered for sponsorship is that the others are affected children from infected families, while poor Pushpa is herself HIV infected and is on medication.

Earlier on Pushpa stayed with her grandmother and her aunt who’s still single. However, due to their feeling of sympathy for her (she’s an orphan, remember? amma ilek… appa ilek…), they ended up spoiling her rotten. What she wants, she gets. When she didn’t want to take her medication, they just let her be.

Finally Pushpa’s uncle who stays not far from the grandmother’s house, decided to get Pushpa to stay with him instead so he could supervise her. So our visit that day was to her uncle’s house, not to her grandma’s house.

Pushpa will be sitting for UPSR this year but so far she has not been doing too well in school. Her family hopes to arrange for some tuition for her. Frankly, I feel the school should be arranging that… there are only 8 students in her class (it’s a Tamil school near an estate) so the class teacher could actually give individual attention to each student. Whatever it is, we will try to arrange something for her.

While we were at Pushpa’s house, her buddy Pat received a call from Valli. Valli needed help to get her supply of medication for this month as she’s unable to get leave from work to go all the way to Ipoh. She left the medicine slip at Pat’s place. So my colleague and I decided to go over to Pat’s place which was about 15 to 20 minutes drive.

Since Pat said she would be visiting Hana that night, I left some money with Pat to be handed over to Hana. Sponsorship money for Hana’s children is already in and the money I left with Pat was for their pocket money for this month. I also left the same amount of money to be given to Valli’s 2 boys who are also sponsored.

While we were chatting about Hana, Pat highlighted to me the problems faced by Hana’s younger daughter. You see, although she performed quite well in her studies, of late she has been reluctant to go to school. Both Pat and I had been wondering why earlier… when I asked the girl she just said her friends like to tease her but she didn’t say what about. Now that Pat has got copies of the children’s birth cert, she suspects the teasing was about the girl’s status. You see, in her birth cert, the father’s info was stated as “Maklumat Tidak Diketahui.”

Oh dear, not another one…

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After the above visit, when I sent my colleague back to my NGO centre, I told him I hoped none of my clients would call me over the weekend. I needed a break.

But guess who called? Our mollywood heroine… Yah Ah Ngau!!

My colleague had earlier told her to call me and inform me about her new job so she finally did. She was back at her hometown over the weekend when she called.

I pretended I didn’t know anything and asked her about her job. Well, at least there is a difference between her job and Lin’s job. The place where Lin works is just a restaurant while the place where Yah works offers catering services as well. While Lin's job involve washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, Yah helps out with the cooking as well. Yah stays at a room provided by her employer.

Anyway, what amused me most was when Yah told me about Mr. Darling.

“xxx (Mr. D’s real name) dah balik kat saya. Tak taulah kenapa tiba-tiba dia mau baik balik dengan saya. Tapi saya kena berjaga-jaga sikitlah. Dah tau perangai dia macam mana.”

I almost choked. While I acted calm, deep down inside me I was thinking… “PTTUIII!! As though I didn’t know YOU were the one who went nuts chasing him!”

Yes, I was tempted to tell her what Mr. D said to my colleague earlier… but no way was I going to get myself directly involved in their drama. Our voluntary work does not include that. I just told Yah that whatever it is, she must focus more on her future and her children’s future, and that she shouldn’t let her involvement with Mr. D make her lose focus.

Let’s just see how it goes from here…