Of birth certs and ICs

Last week both myself and Anita received a big "Urusan Seri Paduka Baginda" envelope containing the reply from JPN Putrajaya (to my letter enquiring on how to go about Anita's case) and a whole bunch of forms to be filled up.

Good that we got the reply with all the procedures and what not, telling us to go to JPN Ipoh, but our problems are far from over. Just looking through the forms makes me pening already. Who can sign the surat akuan? Who can be the penganjur?

Kak Ana and I decided to go to JPN Ipoh without filling in the forms first. We'd need to meet the officer to ensure we get the right people to fill in and sign the forms.

Last night Anita called to ask if I'd be free today to go to JPN. I had some urgent matters to settle at the office in the morning so I told them I should be free after 2 pm. And this morning we confirmed to meet up at JPN Ipoh at 2pm.

Just after I left my house nearing 2 pm, Anita called to tell me they had just left the home. Duh! That would mean they would only reach Ipoh after about 1 hour 15 minutes or so. I decided to stop by our NGO center, but after a while I figured I might as well go to JPN and ask around first. And so I did.

First to the IC department. Asked one lady at one of the counters where I should go just to get some clarifications. She told me to get a number first. Went to the counter to get a number, the lady told me to go direct to counter 9; no need to take number.

Since the customer at counter 9 was taking so long with the officer there, I decided to go up to the birth registration department first.

This time after enquiring at the information counter, I was asked to go direct to the next counter as the lady there was the officer in charge of late registration of birth. I still had to wait my turn, but the guy in front of me looked like he was almost done, so I thought I wouldn't have to wait that long.

But the guy had soooo many queries, from one thing to another. I couldn't help eavesdropping as his story was rather interesting. The guy, quite an elderly guy, had married a foreigner, but after giving birth, the lady cabut and left him - leaving the baby with him.

Now he wants to register for his baby's birth, but since it is considered late registration, there's another form he'd need to fill. The problem is, his marriage was not registered in Malaysia. Which would not be a problem to register the child if the mother was around... but she's not! And worse still, the birth of the child was not at the hospital, as a matter of fact, the officer at the counter couldn't help but chuckle when the guy wrote in the form "Tempat lahir: Tepi Jalan." She told the guy to at the very least just name the jalan. Ya lorr uncle, tepi jalan mana? :)

After listening to the guy's problem, I guess the late registration for Anita's baby shouldn't be much of a problem. I just wanted to make sure who could sign the form if the person is not a family member.

As I was heading back to the IC department, Kak Ana called to ask where I was. They had just reached JPN. I decided to wait for them, and was pleasantly surprised to see not only Anita and her baby boy, but also Kak Ana's daughter carrying none other than my little Cek Mek, and also another child staying at the home, 2 year old Nanda.

Goodness, Cek Mek has grown! But I was a bit concerned noticing some sort of rashes she seemed to be developing at her neck and her arms. I was even more concerned when Kak Ana mentioned that the problem started after they changed her medication. She's already 5 months + but still on medication? The doctor had not been affirmative about her HIV status but every time the little girl was brought to the hospital, they'd definitely poke her with those needles to get her blood tested.

Now even Kak Ana is worried that Cek Mek may be positive after all. (I had been worried since day one when she was delivered through normal delivery.) However, I am still hoping and praying that she's still being given medication just as precautionary measures and not because she's HIV positive.

Anyway, back to the problem of Anita's IC. I was told by the officer that since Anita's parents are not around (mother passed away and father nowhere to be found), we'd need to get 2 people who had known Anita for at least 10 years to sign the surat akuan. That would definitely leave me and Kak Ana out.

Somehow we'd still need to get the help of 2 of Anita's half sisters. The evil sister in Ipoh is out of the question. Anita has another sister in KL whom according to her, "boleh bawa berunding" while another sister back in her kampong, wouldn't mind signing the form but would be reluctant to come when called for an interview by the JPN.

Kak Ana and I decided that it would be best to submit the forms in KL to make it easier for the sisters to go for the interview. As for the sister back in her kampong, we told her to coax that sister, telling her that we'd pay for the bus fares when she is needed to go to KL.

So that was round 1. There shouldn't be too much problem with the little boy's birth cert (except for citizenship status which can only be confirmed after Anita settles her IC problem - but that can be rectified later), but looks like we still have a long way to go to get Anita's IC done.

Next step - coax her non-evil sisters...

Updates

Baby K, the hole-in-the-heart toddler, underwent her heart op on Wednesday afternoon. When I sent Mrs K a text message around 2.30 pm to ask on the little girl's update, I was told Baby K was just wheeled into the operation theatre. They were told the op would take between 2 to 3 hours, after which they'd be allowed to see the girl, from outside the ICU.

By Thursday afternoon, Baby K was sent to the ward to enable her parents to see and touch her. By Friday, she was already crying asking for more milk but Mrs K was advised not to give too much for fear of the girl ending up vomiting.

Well, so far so good... alhamdulillah. More updates later.

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Our Fellowship Committee met up on Wednesday night to discuss on our upcoming Fellowship Night, scheduled to be held on 1st December. The last DeepaRaya gathering we had back in 2007, the theme was "Sarong Night" where everybody had to come with a sarong - didn't matter how they wear them. Most wore their sarongs outside their normal clothes.

This time too we opted for something that wouldn't require the volunteers to take too much time to get ready especially since some of them would be coming right after work. So the theme this year is "Fancy Headgears". Any kind of headgear with the exception of sports caps are allowed.

Hmmm... so what kind of headgear should I be wearing huh?

Cowboy?

Red Indian?

Boxing?

Witch?

Or if I'm too lazy to find a suitable headgear, just put a wastebasket on my head and call it a headgear?

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Our awareness campaign for the Orang Asli community is on. Today our vice-chair and myself met up with 3 ladies who stay at Orang Asli settlements although they themselves are not OA's. Through them, we are arranging for the awareness campaign to be held on Sunday 6th December, in conjunction with World Aids Day. The kampong is easily accessible by car, which was what we were looking for since this the first of such programme for us. Depending on the outcome of this one, hopefully next time we will be able to conduct a similar programme at other OA settlements.

Finally we get to do our own programme for World Aids Day instead of the usually "tumpang sekaki" of whatever events organised by other organisations!

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The Ipoh International Friendship Night will be held at a Golf & Country Club next Sunday. With the aim of bringing together foreigners working or staying in or around Ipoh, and familiarising them with the various community associations and programmes in Ipoh, some NGOs were invited to showcase their services or programmes. Buddies were invited as well.

I have managed to get 4 volunteers other than myself to join me at our booth. It will be a good opportunity for Buddies to make ourselves known to more people around Ipoh.

*All pictures taken from photobucket.com

The hospital visit

The maknyah who called earlier had called our hotline number again. My colleague who's currently holding the phone then informed me about it. Again the caller, S, sought help, saying that the friend, D, who was by then hospitalised, probably needed counselling help. S asked if any of us would be visiting.

Problem was, S only mentioned D's "nama glamour" and not the real name. When I asked my colleague for details like which ward etc, she didn't know. She had to wait for S to contact her again. I told her to get S to call me direct.

On Wednesday about 6 pm S called me. It was difficult to get the true picture on D's situation by just talking to S on the phone, so I promised to visit. It would be much easier to visit while D was at the hospital. But it was too late to visit on Wednesday so I said I'd try to visit yesterday. S told me the visiting hours for the district hospital was from 3.30 to 6.30 pm. So we promised to meet up at the hospital about 3.30 pm. I then contacted one of our trainee volunteers who's also a PLHIV to ask him to come along with me if he's free. He agreed. At least if the HIV+ maknyah insisted that I wouldn't understand because I'm not HIV positive, I could use the trainee volunteer as an example of an HIV positive person with positive thinking.

So yes, yesterday, at about 3.15 pm we made a move from Ipoh. We got to the hospital about 3.50 pm only to find out that visiting hours were actually from 5 to 6 pm. Duh! S was nowhere to be seen either. The doors to the wards were locked and only authorised personnel would be able to open the door from outside with their card.

However we managed to get in after explaining to the nurses that we were from a support group.

D was in a 1st class room - a single room. Thank goodness. It would be difficult to talk P&C stuff in a general ward. D was sleeping when we got into the room, but his mother was there to take care of him, so we talked to the mother to get more info.

Apparently D never told his mother about his HIV+ result earlier. He had already got the referral letter to see the ID specialist in Ipoh but he never went. Since his mother never knew about it, she was in no position to coax him to go. Looking at his condition, relatives believed it was 'buatan orang' and decided to bring D see a bomoh up north. His mother didn't go.

After coming back from the bomoh, D began to say nonsensical stuff. At times he'd try to run away from home, to the extent that his mother would sleep at the front door to make sure he doesn't escape. Once he did manage to escape early morning around 4 am. But after subuh, his mother saw him outside the house, shivering. When his mother asked, he just said, "Setan hantar balik, tu hah, tak nampak setan kat situ?", pointing his finger to a direction. Nobody was there.

When I asked D's mother if D had been feeling depressed before this, the mother said it was difficult to say because D never seem to share his problems with family members. It would probably be better to ask his fellow maknyah friends.

I was hoping I'd be able to meet S but he never turned up. Maybe he did turn up later but I couldn't wait. I was about to leave when D finally woke up from his sleep. His mother told him, "Ni hah, ustazah datang..."

I looked at D, D looked at me, and then D said, "Ni bukan ustazah!" (He could tell I wasn't one, compared to some people who seem to think I'm one just by my looks!)

I asked him how he was feeling. He didn't say anything. After a while he began to make faces. Upon seeing that, his mother said to me, "Tu nak mula merepek lah tu. Puan cubalah cakap dengan dia." But D still didn't say anything, he just looked at his mother. It was only after his mother hid behind the curtains that D began to talk to me.

However he was imagining things and talking all sorts of nonsense. "Doktor tu dah silap potong kaki saya... tapi lepas tu dia dah ganti dengan kaki lain. Yang heran tu mana pergi kaki asli saya?" (No such thing happened, he never had any surgery before this.)

"Ni kaki betul lah ni... kalau kaki palsu takkan ada luka-luka ni", I responded. "Ye ke?" he said.

I then asked if he felt any pain.

D: "Sakit lain takde lah, sakit hati ada!"

Me: "Sakit hati dengan siapa pulak?"

D: "Dengan mak saya."

Me: "Apasal pulak sakit hati dengan mak?"

D: "Dia saja nak buat saya sakit."

Me: "Mana D tau? Takkanlah mak nak buat macam tu!"

D: "Ye betul. Dia suka dengar cakap Fatimah. Fatimahlah yang hasut dia. Tiap-tiap hari dia datang. Tadi pun dia ada datang."

Me: "Fatimah tu siapa pulak?"

D: "Setan."

DUH!

Fatimah is a character in D's imagination. And nobody came to visit earlier in the day as claimed by D.

D kept on talking about some other stuff as well. Some made sense, some didn't. But even the ones that did make sense were not necessarily true.

Personally I think D's problem is not just HIV. He has some other personal problems as well which he had not been sharing with anybody. He had been thinking about his problems too much, he is beginning to imagine things which aren't happening.

D's mother then sought my opinion. I told her to continue with hospital treatment, but that maybe she should also seek the help of a proper ustaz, to help D spiritually. Whatever she decided I told her if possible to avoid the services of bomohs. After seeing the results of the recent visit to a bomoh, D's mother didn't argue with me on this point.

Based on my observations, I believe this is the same maknyah Sofie had been telling me about as mentioned in my previous posting. Of course I didn't tell either D or his mother that there were talks about him spreading around.

Before we left, I took down the phone number of D's mother. I also left her my name card and told her to call me if need be.

I then told D to hang in there and not to give up hope. D just nodded. I didn't get to see S, but I do hope he will call me soon. I think it is important to talk to D's close friends to find out more.

Update on Sofie's family

The last time I went to visit Sofie, I didn't bring along any groceries for the family. I went to fetch her kids to bring them along with me during my trip to Kedah.

With money from donors rather consistently coming in, I'd better make sure I use the money to help the poor families consistently too. So after lunch on Sunday, off I went, first to buy some groceries, then after calling Sofie to make sure they were home, I also bought some ready to eat foodstuff for the kids.

Sofie was outside her house when I arrived. I was happy to note that her condition seemed to have improved a whole lot especially if compared to the first few times I visited her. Now she can at least pay more attention to the children instead of the children having to pay more attention to her.

Anyway, only Saiful and Ika were home when I visited on Sunday. The two older boys were out. Saiful and Ika got excited when I passed to them an envelope containing their pictures taken during the trip to Kedah. They were excitedly telling their mother... "Ha, ni masa Acik panjat rumah atas pokok tu".... "Hahaha! Ada gambar masa Angah kejar itik".... "Ni ha ada gambar adik berenang!"

I bet when their brothers came home, there was a repeat of all the excitement... :)

Both Saiful's and Ika's year-end school exams were over, although their results were not all out yet. But Ika had already gotten back a few of her exam papers and she willingly showed me the papers - even her Mandarin paper (yes, she's taking Mandarin as one of the lessons in school) which she got wrong for most of the questions! Her other papers were not too bad, although she had problems for English and Maths. In fact, for her Maths paper, the only reason she couldn't score better was her poor English.

You see, since she has to take up Maths in English, due to her poor command of the language, she couldn't understand some of the questions in her Maths paper. I saw her exam papers. It was quite obvious that while she could answer the questions which came in the form of numbers alone; the ones where the questions came in the form of English sentences, she couldn't answer correctly as she didn't even understand the question.

She complained that the teacher spoke fully in English when teaching, making it difficult for her to understand. The interesting thing was according to her, at the end of each lesson, the teacher would ask, "Are you understand?" and all the kids would say, "YES!"

I then asked Ika, "Cikgu kata are you understand ke cikgu kata do you understand?"

"Kalau cikgu dulu tanya do you understand, cikgu sekarang ni tanya are you understand," she said.

Duh! Cikgu pun tak betul rupanya...

"Makcik tau ke cakap Bahasa Inggeris?" Ika then asked me. Eh, see the leg lah...

On another note, Sofie plans to get Saiful circumcised during the school holidays. When her sister heard about it, she too wanted her 12 year old son to get circumcised together and even wanted to hold a kenduri for that purpose. Sofie was reluctant, saying that she couldn't afford to hold a kenduri, but her sister said not to worry, just join her kenduri. The sister went to the extent of taking a RM1K loan from the kampong cooperative just to have the kenduri!! Although Sofie was still rather reluctant, she didn't bother to object either.

That was until Ika came home from her aunt's house one day and told her what she heard. Apparently, upon hearing that the mother (Sofie's sister) would hold the kenduri for both her son and Saiful, the eldest son (Sofie's nephew, the same mulut laser one who had prompted Sofie to move out of her sister's house in the first place), said out loud, "Sibuk je si *Saiful nak tumpang kenduri kita!"

The moment Sofie heard about it, she decided to just quietly arrange for Saiful's circumcision to be done at he hospital without informing her sister. No need kenduri-kenduri! Even families who can afford to hold kenduris without borrowing money are no longer doing kenduri bersunat.

Saiful has yet to go to Ipoh GH to set an appointment with the eye specialist. Sofie intends to bring him during the first week of the coming school holidays. Coincidentally she too needs to come and get her supply of medication then, so might as well come in one trip.

I told Sofie I'd probably come again some time in early December to bring her children shopping for next year's schooling needs. If I were to leave it to Sofie to buy first and claim later, she'd end up buying cheap poor quality uniforms/shoes as she wouldn't dare buy the average priced ones (which are already too expensive for her). Within less than a month, you'd hear the children complaining about koyak here, koyak there... lubang here, lubang there... but they'd still wear the uniforms/shoes anyway.

Just as I was about to leave, Sofie asked about an HIV positive person I had been enquiring about earlier. You see, I had asked her on the whereabouts of a particular kampong in the same town. Sofie asked if the person I was talking about was a maknyah. There were news being passed around about an HIV+ maknyah who was already in very critical condition.

Nope, the person I had enquired about earlier was a married lady, not a maknyah.

But speaking of maknyah, remember the call from the maknyah in my earlier posting here? This must be the person Sofie was talking about - the earlier caller came from the same kampong. Early yesterday morning, a text message came in from the earlier caller to inform us that the friend had already been hospitalised. I just hope it's not too late to help.

All the best & get well soon Baby K!

Saturday, 7th November 2009 -

I had initially planned to fetch one of our new volunteers to get him to come along with me to visit the K's. He stays not that far from where the K's are staying and as such I figured it would be good to introduce him to them.

Just as I was leaving my house, I called him to ask for some easily identifiable landmarks near his house. His kampong is not listed in the GPS map that I have and although I knew roughly where the area was, I'd still need some info to know where to stop.

Apparently something else cropped up for him but since he had just lost his phone, he was unable to contact me as my number too got lost together with the phone. The volunteer had to bring his father to the hospital and somehow as at the time that I called, his father had yet to see the doctor. So no go for him.

Ah well, so the lone ranger that I am, I went alone...

As I parked my car in front of the K's residence, I saw Shah, the eldest son, at the door, cleaning something. The moment he saw me, he hurriedly went inside to grab a t-shirt (segan I guess, as he was shirtless... tapi yang tak pakai baju dok depan pintu for all and sundry to see tu tak lak segan...)

It had been quite some time since I last saw Baby K, probably a year or so, as such I wasn't really sure if the little girl still remembered me or would want to come anywhere near me. But as I got out of my car, I heard Mrs K telling Baby K, "Ha tu, makcik dah sampai dah!", and the little girl's immediate reaction was "Yay, yay!!" The girl, who will be 3 in January, ran outside in her already heavy diapers which looked like it was falling off anytime.

Mrs K's 14 year old daughter (the one who had been SMS-ing me earlier this year to tell me how stressed she was with her family's problems) also came out to help carry the stuff I brought along in my car - rice, milk, cooking oil, sugar, noodles, canned food and some other ready to eat foodstuff.

Baby K was excitedly jumping up and down (causing her diapers to go lower and lower!), pointing to whatever was in my car, and telling me things in her own language. Mrs K did tell me earlier that the little girl would be real grumpy when she's in pain. But since she was in a jolly good mood when I visited, I guess she was not in pain then.

The little girl then mumbled something and then showed me her teeth. Ahh... she just had a minor dental surgery (required by IJN before she goes for her heart surgery) and that was the story she was trying to tell me. Waaa... very talkative lah this girl!

"Sakit tak?" I asked.

"Atit", came the reply. (Sakit lah tu...)

Anyway, according to Mrs K, the girl's heart surgery was originally scheduled on the 16th of November, but IJN called recently to inform them that since the particular doctor would not be around on that date, they managed to get an earlier date for the girl. Postponing it to a later date may mean the surgery will take place in another 6 months time or more, and since the letter offering financial assistance for the girl's surgery is valid for only 6 months, if the surgery is postponed too long, they may need to re-apply all over again for the financial assistance.

So might as well grab the earlier date. Get it over and done with.

Mr & Mrs K, together with Shah, would be going to KL on Sunday to accompany the little girl. Yep, Shah, the eldest son was going too as Mr K would be coming back after a day or two, as he needed to work. Mrs K is taking 2 months unpaid leave to take care of the girl. If Mr K too takes too many days off, what would they be earning for the month? So Shah will take turns with his mother to take care of the baby while at the hospital.

The 2 younger sisters are staying with their grandfather temporarily, until Mrs K and Shah comes back. They themselves aren't too sure how long the girl would need to be hospitalised.

They were initially planning to go to KL by bus but when told that train fares were cheaper, decided to take the train instead. I explained to Mrs K what to do and where to go to if they were asked to pay for this and that. I remember the first time they went to IJN, they ended up calling me for help when they were asked to pay a few hundred Ringgit.

I called the little girl to come get a duit raya packet from me. I told the girl to give the packet to her mother. (Which she did, thank goodness!) I then informed Mrs K about the financial assistance from Buddies Welfare Fund which was issued in the form of a cheque and which had been banked into her account but would only clear on Tuesday or Wednesday. I didn't tell her the amount though. I just left the printed bank slip in the duit raya packet together with some cash, in case she needed some cash, especially for bus/train fares, before the cheque cleared.

After chatting with them for about 40 minutes or so, I got up to leave. The girl, upon seeing me getting up, came running... "Nak amin! Nak amin!" (nak salam lah tu...) And when I didn't bend down, she pointed her finger to her cheeks, implying that I should kiss her! I lifted the girl up to give her a peck on her cheek.

The girl looked fit enough for the surgery. I do hope the surgery will proceed as scheduled and that everything will run smoothly for the little girl. I plan to visit them again after they come back from KL.