Shopping for schooling needs – Round 3

Done with Sofie’s and Yati’s family, today I brought Zainab and her daughters to shop for their schooling needs. Since it was Zainab’s off day at work, I promised to fetch Zainab and her girls at 2.30 pm today.

The moment they knew I was going to bring them shopping, the 2 girls got excited. I promised them 2.30 pm, and I got there on time (in fact I think I was a few minutes early) but apparently the girls were ready by 2 pm and by 2.15, kakak was already asking, “Mana makcik tak sampai-sampai lagi ni?!” When I got to their house, the 2 girls were already waiting outside the house, all set to go.

Oh well, I guess I can understand their excitement. Usually they’d only go to kedai runcit or at the most, minimarkets. Although I didn’t tell them where I was taking them, the thought of going “shopping” was enough to excite them. Imagine the looks on their faces when they saw the hypermarket I took them to – priceless!

Zainab’s kids were just about the same age as Yati’s but much easier to control. I guess because they were both girls? They didn’t go around touching this and that saying nak ini or nak itu. I never had to step in to say NO to unnecessary requests. In fact, for school bags for example, I chose the bags and let them choose the colour they wanted. They never complained.

Anyway, the girls were so excited knowing I was coming to take them shopping, they refused to have lunch at home earlier. Probably they figured I’d take them makan-makan somewhere too. Well yes, I did bring them to a fast food outlet at the shopping complex. After all, they were such good girls during shopping time, I guess they deserved some sort of reward.

Done with 3 families, a few other families to cover – most of the rest would probably buy first and we’d reimburse them later. This morning Murni was at the hospital for her daughter’s appointment and she passed to my colleague some receipts of purchases she made for her children’s schooling needs. Once I get the receipts, I will reimburse her from our Children Education Fund (CEF).

Hana too had bought one pair of uniforms each for her children (they are entitled to 2 pairs each but Hana didn’t have enough cash to buy 2 pairs) and so I will reimburse her with whatever she had spent, after which she will buy another pair each for her children.

I’d better call and check on Lin and Mrs K to find out if they’re done with their children’s schooling needs.

Asiah would usually buy first and claim later, but she’s due to deliver her baby soon, and so I’m not sure if she has settled her children’s school needs yet.

Yah? Well, the 2 older daughters are at an orphanage, and as for the 3rd child, I recall Yah did mention about wanting to send him to an orphanage too, so she’s no longer entitled to be reimbursed for any school necessities. But I’d better still check on her, if she hasn’t changed her phone number again lah…

Fuzi called while I was out with Zainab and the children today. Last year she bought her children’s schooling needs first before we reimbursed her, but this year she’s running out of cash after having to spend on some other things. So I told her I’d probably bring her family out next week to settle their schooling needs.

As for our other PLHIV clients not assigned to me, I shall leave it to their respective Buddies to check their needs, and submit whatever claims, if any. We do have enough funds in our CEF this time, part of which were allocated from the grant we received earlier from Yayasan Sultan Azlan Shah. And today we received another cheque of substantial amount meant for CEF. So we didn’t really have to resort to our in-house “professional beggars” for the funds this time. The latest cheque especially, came rather unexpectedly. Alhamdulillah.

Besides, some of these children are covered by our Education Sponsorship programme. Which reminds me, I’d better start doing up the reports to be sent to the individual sponsors under this programme so I can ask them for next year’s sponsorship amount.

Tomorrow, to bring the representative of a particular organisation to Hana’s old house to assess if they are willing to help with the house repairs.

This weekend, I shall be heading to KL to attend my alumni dinner and hopefully to meet up with a few other friends the next day.

So, no more shopping for this week. To be continued next week.