After the Buddies Family Day on 1st July, I was rather busy with my preparations for my Kinabalu attempt. Other than emailing photos of the Family Day to clients whose children has email accounts, all other activities had to be put on hold temporarily.
Then during the first phase of the climb from Mesilau to Laban Rata, I accidentally sat on my handphone, causing a small crack on its screen. As a result, I wasn’t able to read anything on the screen. While I could still receive and make calls (provided I remember the recipient’s phone number), I could not retrieve the phone numbers stored in that phone.
One of the first few things I did after I got home was to get myself a new phone. That wasn’t much of a problem. I could easily get the numbers of family members. I could get the phone numbers of friends either via email or facebook. That wasn’t much of a problem either. The hardest part was to get the phone numbers of my clients! I had to go to the center and retrieve their numbers from the first contact reports. But not all the numbers could be retrieved from there. Some of them change phone numbers as often as they change their clothes (ah ok, so I exaggerate), and their latest number had been saved in that old phone that I sat on.
I guess for those whose numbers I still can’t retrieve from anywhere, I will just have to wait for the clients to call/text me. They’d usually contact me when they need my help.
Anyway, donations from friends to be distributed to the poor families for Ramadhan have started coming in. I have started shopping for groceries and today I started with my visits/deliveries.
My first destination was Fuzi’s house. I called first to make sure she was home (Fuzi is one of the few who never changed her phone number, and so I could easily retrieve her number from our files). Fuzi and her youngest boy Iwan came out to greet me when I arrived at their house. I told Fuzi to help me get the stuff out of my car… Iwan wanted to help but all the stuff were rather heavy.
Good thing Fuzi’s eldest daughter was home. I knew she had a netbook computer that she got from her school last year, and so I asked her for the netbook so I could copy photos of the Family Day from my thumb drive to the hard disk of her netbook. Saves me the headache of having to choose which photos to print for them.
After Fuzi’s house, I headed over to Aini’s house. I could not retrieve Aini’s phone number from anywhere and so I just took my chances. Most of the time Aini would be home anyway. And if she was home, it would be a good chance for me to get hold of her phone number to be stored in my new phone.
I was relieved to see the front door open when I arrived at Aini’s house. Aini was having a nap in front of the TV. Her eldest daughter, who just got back from school (she’s in form 6), was getting ready to go for work. She used to work every day while waiting for her SPM results, and now that she’s continuing her studies in form 6, she works 3 days a week. She needed the money to pay for her broadband, which she needs to use to do her school work.
Aini herself still limps when she walks, but her health has improved a lot. And one good thing she’s happy about is that for her HAART, the doctor has given her the once-a-day ARV drug instead of the ones which had to be taken every 12 hours. And why is she so happy about it? Because now that she only needs to take her ARV once a day, she takes hers at 11 pm and that means this year she can fast!
I’ve got a few more families, including new clients, to visit either before or during Ramadhan. Based on the donations that have been coming in, there should be enough to go around…
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