Ever since I started handling the Education Sponsorship for Children programme, some of the recipient families contact me direct for their children’s schooling needs although other volunteers have been assigned as their buddies.
Such was the case with Wani. Wani is one of our earlier clients who had been under Buddies before I joined. When I was under probation, the first client I was brought to visit was Wani, so yes, I knew her since my early days in Buddies.
Last Friday I received a text message from Wani. Since her children are under Sponsorship, she asked if the amount she needed to pay for her son’s one week Kem UPSR organised by the school could be covered. She then conveyed to me that she’s beginning to worry about taking care of her kids on her own, now that she’s separated from her husband.
Frankly, if it’s the financial aspects that she’s worried about, I don’t think she needs to worry too much. When I first knew her, her hubby was in a Pusat Serenti. Wani had to take care of her kids alone. Then when her hubby got out, they got back together, but from my observation, it was Wani all along who had to work hard to earn a living for the family. She’d be helping out at food stalls, she’d be helping to bake cookies for Raya to earn extra income. Sometimes when I visit, the husband would be at home, while Wani was out working. So really, financially, I think it wouldn’t really make much difference for Wani now that they are separated.
Her problem I think would be that there’d be nobody at home to take care of the children when Wani needs to go out to work. She probably needs to adjust her time so that she can go to work while the children are at school and be home when the kids come home.
In addition to that, her boys will now have to adjust to not having their father at home. Then again, they didn’t have their father around when he was in Pusat Serenti earlier…
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Just as I was about to fall asleep on Friday night, a text message came in from an unfamiliar number. Remember Anita? The unwed mother I “saved” from her “evil” sister and brother-in-law, then sent her to a shelter home together with her son, and after she found that life at the shelter home was not to her liking due to all the rules and the naggings from Kak Ana, the mother-figure at the home, she decided to leave. We wouldn’t have minded had she just left, what we couldn’t accept was the fact that she went to the homes of her other sisters, and created all sorts of stories about how evil Kak Ana was, to the extent that the sisters called up Kak Ana and said all sorts of hurtful stuff.
Anita then went off our radar… until last Friday night when I got her text message. Guess what she wanted?
She asked for my “bantuan ikhlas” to lend her RM150 as she needed to pay her rental on Saturday and she’d pay me back on Wednesday when she gets her salary. Without even getting any answer from me, she gave me her bank account number straight away.
It had been my policy not to entertain any requests from clients wanting to borrow money, so I didn’t even bother to reply the message. After all that she had done to Kak Ana, she now wants to use me for money? No way!
Saturday came, and I guess she must have checked her bank account to see if I had banked in the money. Seeing that no money has been banked in, she sent me another text message, asking if I could lend her the money and that she had already given me the bank account number. Wow! She must have been really confident that I would just easily part with my money for her. Who does she think she is, and who does she think I am? Sheesh!
I didn’t bother to reply that second message either…
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