Visiting & shopping season!

With school holidays beginning this Friday, I anticipate lots of house visits and/or phone calls to many of my PLHIV clients. It's that time of the year when I'd have to get all the updates of the exam results of the children under our sponsorship programme, and it's also time to re-assess the families needing financial help.

While some of the families can afford to utilise whatever money they have first to buy their children's needs and then get reimbursed later, some other families like Sofie's can't afford to do that. So, like I used to do for Yah's, Fuzi's, Mrs K's and the late Lily's families, I may have to bring Sofie's children shop for schooling needs this time.

Yesterday I went to visit Hana. The last time I went to her house during my Raya rounds, nobody was home despite me telling her before hand that I was coming (and she said she'd be home, but she ended up elsewhere without informing me).

It has been quite some time since I last met Hana. It was high time I assessed her situation again. Good thing I went yesterday. Her youngest son will already be in standard one next year so there's an additional child to be considered for our Children Education Fund.

Another reason I visited Hana was to discuss with her about her house. Those who may have been following my blog earlier may remember about her family house perched on a hilly area. And since that house was no longer safe for occupancy (one of the wooden planks made way causing Hana to fall and break her arm) and she couldn't afford to repair the house, the whole family moved to a nearby house, paying rental of RM150 per month.

The initial agreement was that she'd be paying RM50, her mother (who's also still working) RM50 and her father RM50. BUT, her father who is staying with his second wife never met his end of the bargain. So Hana and her mother had to come up with RM75 each, which, to them, is a lot of money.

Since the title of the land of the earlier house is under the mother's name, an option would be to repair the old house. But based on the condition of the house, the better option would probably be to demolish the old house and build a totally new one. But since Hana and her mother definitely can't afford it, we've been looking around if any organisations would sponsor such a thing.

There may be one organisation willing, but a representative will need to visit the place first before a decision can be made. Hopefully we can get a positive response.

As I left Hana's house, I called up Rosnah to ask if she was home. Her house is just on the way, not far off from the main road. She's on night shift at work this week, meaning she's home during the day. So yes, I did drop by her house.

Along the road from Hana's to Rosnah's place, you'd see quite a number of durian sellers on both sides of the road. Yep, it's durian season. But nope, I didn't bother to buy.

When I got to Rosnah's house, her 11 year old daughter was watching TV. Rosnah's mother was folding a whole load of clothes. It had been raining almost every day, the unwashed clothes kept piling up. From what I saw yesterday, I think they had to wash at least 3 laundry baskets full of clothes! (Or, if my mother was to describe it, she'd probably say "penuh satu kereta lembu"!)

Rosnah then served me drinks, and... DURIANS! And as I was leaving she also gave me a small container of tempoyak, a plastic bag of ulam raja, and 3 durians - fresh from the tree behind their house. Thank goodness I didn't buy any of the durians sold by the roadside!

Yep, once in a while, like this instance, I'd be the one getting the goodies instead of me bringing them the goodies. It doesn't happen often though... I think the last time I got something to bring home were the lidi brooms courtesy of Yah's late mom!

So, durians anyone?