THEY WILL ASK thee as to what they should spend on others. Say: "Whatever of your wealth you spend shall [first] be for your parents, and for the near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer; and whatever good you do, verily, God has full knowledge thereof." - Al-Baqarah (2:215)
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Tuesday 17 June 2008

A busy weekend...

I had wanted to visit baby K again over the weekend but there were oh so many things to do. Other than sending my car for servicing on Saturday morning, later at 3 pm we had our gotong-royong to tidy up our NGO center. Yes, we do have our cleaner coming in every Saturday to clean up the place but all she does is to clean the place… not tidy up the mess we created in our store room.

So we figured it was time to clear up the place – tidy up the things we need and throw away the things that we don’t. Otherwise even the useful things we won’t be able to use because by the time we need to use them, we won’t be able to find them!

7 volunteers turned up and one of the volunteers brought along his wife to help out (very clever, when it came to hard work, he brought his wife!!).

Before - everything simply chucked one thing on top of another...

The main thing causing the piling up of things in the store room was actually our Buddy Bears – its production has been greater than demand. With the bears in plastic bags and chucked into the store room, all the things that were placed in the store room earlier were simply lost from our sight! So we took things out from the room, placed the bears in boxes and marked the number of bears on each box.

During - an even bigger mess created...

Then we had to rearrange everything back into the room. Buddy Bears at one corner… Family Day things at one corner… groceries for our poor clients at one corner… at least we won’t get “drowned” in the mess when we try to look for things next time.

After - the bears already in boxes and stacked up at one corner


I couldn’t visit baby K on Sunday either as I had to go to KL for some personal matters. But Mrs. K did call me on Sunday evening, telling me that her little girl would probably be discharged on Monday and that the doctors had arranged for her IJN appointment in August. I know she’s worried about the traveling costs. I will have to think of something to help her out. Even if they still have their EPF money, they still need help.

Fuzi too called me. I had told her earlier to inform me if any of her children need to pay anything extra for their schooling needs as they are under sponsorship. So yes, her eldest daughter Wina was chosen as a prefect and needed to pay for her prefect’s uniform. In addition she also had to pay an additional fee of RM20 asked by her class teacher. Whatever the fee was for I don’t know, I will have to see the receipt first. Talk about free education….

And oh, Fuzi also mentioned that the children’s bus fares have increased from RM30 to RM40 a month. Which reminds me, with the price of petrol/diesel up; surely the other children too may have to pay extra for their bus fares. I’d better ask around, sometimes they are too shy to tell us if we don’t ask. I just came back from KL myself (my first trip to KL since petrol price shot up) and somehow my petrol tank seemed to have expanded….

And I’ve got quite a number of trips to KL in the next few weeks and maybe months... alamaaak…

10 comments:

Rita Ho said...

Pi ... The fact that Baby K's doctors are willing to wait until August for her appointment at IJN could be a sign that her condition is not critical. That's good to know. :)

I hope David reads this post of yours. His woodworking shop (aka garage, good for 2 cars!) is one gigantic mess. Like you said, he keeps buying new stuff because he can't find his supplies! I have limited say in it as part of our nuptial agreement. :(

Kerp (Ph.D) said...

yo kak Pi,

eh, can the public purchase the buddy bear? if its for sale, how much harga seketul bear tu?

before you have this silly idea the bear's meant for me, the answer is no obviously. saje tanya, mana la tau if i could help out ke now that you'll be making your trips to kl regularly..hehehe...

Anonymous said...

Kawan sy kata kalu isi petrol d awal pagi ( b4 8:00AM) kita akan dapat lebih milage.

Katanya ini d sebabkan minyak waktu pagi lebih 'kecil' dan mengembang bila hari lebih 'panas'.

Sy dah cuba 2 kali dan terbukti. Tak tahu lah kalau lain kereta/petrol lain pula kesannya.

Just to share

Nani Cheras

Pi Bani said...

Rita,
Yes, from what I understand, baby K's condition is not too serious. Hopefully checks in IJN will also prove so.

Gigantic mess in David's woodworking shop eh? You'd better stay out of there... :)

Pi Bani said...

Kerp,
The Buddy Bears are given free to HIV kids - it's not for sale. So I guess we should be thankful the supply is exceeding demand... if the demand is great it only means there are so many kids with HIV and that's not good, is it?

Pi Bani said...

Nani,
Saya pun pernah terima email mengenai perkara ni. Tapi ada orang explain kat saya memanglah dapat lebih mileage per tank sebab kita dapat isi lebih banyak minyak dalam tangki waktu pagi. However, dari segi RM sama aje. Lebih banyak petrol kita boleh isi dalam tangki, lebih banyak jugalah RM kita kena bayar...

Daphne Ling said...

Hi Kak Pi,

Aiya...I was trying to figure out what the plastic bag in the left-hand corner (of the first pic) was! Macam carrot aje...Rupanya is Buddy Bear!

Hehe...By the way, your store room is huge lar...

Pi Bani said...

Daphne,
Actually our Buddy Bears are made from materials of different colours and patterns - and those particular ones that you thought looked like carrots, well, if you see them for real, actually the bears look rather... emmm... naked!

Our centre is a 2 bedroom terrace house. So one room becomes our office and one room becomes our store. That's why lah the store room is big. Nasib baik big, otherwise donno lah where to sumbat all the things!

J.T. said...

Hi Pi

Isn't it nice when everything is organised? After reading this, there is a dire need for me to sort out my home office. But to get it organised, I need to buy portable plastic drawer/cabinets. To buy those things, I need money. But that money just went to filling up my tank last week. I guess I will have to put off reorganising. hahaha (poor excuse, isn't it?)

As for the ever rising cost of living, I do wonder how are the poor going to survive now. The below average income people are already suffering. We need to review the poverty line!

Pi Bani said...

JT dear,
You might as well not talk at all about reorganising your home office... :) But yeah, our cars seem really hungry nowadays don't they? Makan bukan sikit-sikit...

As for the cost of living, not only those with below average income, even those with average income are feeling the heat!