Updates

During my clinic duty last Wednesday, I met 2 clients whom I have not been in touch with for quite some time.

Nuri, a very reserved lady, looked skinnier than before. We did help her out initially in getting welfare aid and some other financial help for her children, but after that she preferred to be independent in earning some income for her family. She now runs a food stall near a school at her hometown. Good for her!

Guess who else I met at the clinic? Ahh, someone who used to be the main cast in my blog postings once upon a time… for all the wrong reasons! Yep, Yah Ah Ngau (for those new to this blog, I initially just named her Yah, but after the episode of getting bitten by the angau bug, when she fell heads over heels over Mr Darling, I named her Yah Ah Ngau…). Mr Darling ended up marrying someone else, and after that Yah began flirting around, with the intention of taking revenge on men. From a tough, independent & responsible kampong girl, she turned into a wild, problematic woman.

I’ve sort of stopped calling Yah ever since she started flirting around. No, not because I didn’t want to have anything to do with her anymore, but because she kept changing her phone number – so I’d have to wait for her to call me. Why does she change her number so often? Because when people start harassing her with phone calls, she’d just get herself a new number.

So when I met her last week, I asked for her phone number, and as expected, she had changed to a new number yet again. Her 2 elder daughters, Along & Angah are still at an orphanage and only come home during weekends and school holidays. It has been a while since I last met them, they must have grown! But I’m glad to note they are doing quite well in school, and they still do remember me (they still kirim salam to me from time to time).

As for her son, Achik, who had always been a problematic child (he had always been hyperactive & never listens to his school teachers or anyone else for that matter), according to Yah, he is now at “sekolah budak-budak kurang upaya”. I’m not really sure what sort of “kurang upaya” Achik is, but I had always suspected him to be suffering from ADHD (after a tip from a blog reader) and had been asking Yah to bring him for proper check-up, but she never did. I’m not sure if that’s the reason for him to be placed at the special school now (not easy getting accurate info from Yah especially when it comes to the proper medical terms), but I sure hope he is getting the proper and necessary help.

Two days ago, Halimah called me up. Initially I thought she needed another favour, until she said, “Saja je telefon akak, dah lama tak dengar cerita. Nanti akak kata bila sesak aje cari akak…”

Oh well, yayy! At least someone remembers me without having any udang di sebalik batu & cicak sebalik frame…