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Hayati dan syukurilah kemerdekaan yang dikecapi...

The escape: Part 1 (updated)

After discussing things over with Anita on Wednesday, and after I offered to pay for her bus ticket, Anita had actually wanted to leave her sister's house on that very same day.

I told Anita not to rush things. I didn't want her to pack her things in a rush as she may end up forgetting the important things, like her birth cert and ARV medication. She had after all managed to endure her sister & her guy(the so-called hubby, or "jantan tu", that's what Anita called him) for so long, just bear it for one more night. Besides, we weren't even sure what time the bus to the intended town would be available. So we both went to the bus station to buy her a ticket.

After checking through each ticket counter, I finally approached one counter and asked for a morning bus. The guy at the counter at first suggested 9.30 am, but that would be too early.

You see, since Anita's sister and her guy would leave home by 9 am to go to work, and since Anita wanted to leave without their knowledge, I would have to fetch Anita after 9 am. I wouldn't be able to get Anita to the bus station on time if we were to buy the 9.30 bus. So we opted for the 10.30 am bus.

After buying the ticket and after finalising our plans, I sent Anita back to her sister's house. But Anita didn't want me to send her right to her house. When she went for her hospital appointment, she left her son under the care of the guy's mother, who stays just nearby. Anita didn't want the guy's mother to notice my car. Even though the lady is innocent and oblivious to whatever's happening in the house, she may just later in the day innocently ask in front of Anita's sister who I was.

Nope, that had to be avoided, so I dropped Anita off at a nearby petrol station.

I promised Anita I'd fetch her by 9.30 am. So this morning, about 9 am, I left my office to fetch Anita. I got there at about 9.20 am. Duh, there was some sort of a pasar pagi there, making me confused as to which way to take to get to Anita's sister's house. Suddenly I saw amongst the crowd - Anita and her baby coming my way. She figured I may not be able find my way and decided to come out to look for me.

She got in the car and showed me the way to get to the house, as her things were still there. It would be difficult for her to carry everything, with a baby in tow. I just stopped for a while outside the house, and while I held her cute, chubby and playful baby boy, Anita went in the gate to get her things. She had one bag of clothes and one paper bag of milk powder. No, she didn't intend to bring all the things with her on the bus. With her chubby boy, it would be difficult for her to carry so many things.

So the big bag and the milk powder were left in my car while Anita herself brought another small bag consisting of just enough things to last her and the baby boy for about 2 days at the other sister's house.

Coincidentally in the morning, before Anita's sister and her guy went off to work, Anita was tidying up the house (she's being treated like a maid in the house - no, a slave... a maid at least gets paid!) and accidentally knocked the guy's handphone to the floor. Apa lagi, mengamuklah both the sister and the guy! Again, the sister told her to berambus, and said, "Tengahari ni aku tak nak tengok muka engko kat rumah ni!" Hmmm...

Well, she got what she wished for. This morning's escape went rather smoothly. We got to the bus station on time and Anita and her baby managed to get on the bus without much trouble.

So much for part 1 of the escape. I wonder what her sister is thinking now. While she may have gotten what she wished for, frankly I think she still wanted Anita around - as her slave. All the while, Anita had been doing all the house work and even having to serve them their food. And believe it or not, Anita and her baby had been sleeping in their little store room in the kitchen! (There were other rooms upstairs.)

Now the sister will have to do the housework herself.

Part 2 of the escape? That will have to wait until Anita comes back to Ipoh from the other sister's house, if she comes back, that is. I don't think Anita herself will run off just like that - since most of her things are still in my car. I'm just concerned what will happen at the other sister's house. Will that sister be asking too many questions I wonder...

*Update: Just received a call from Anita this morning. She safely arrived last night, but since she needed to get on another bus to go to her sister's place in another small town, she slept at a makcik's (a distant relative) house. The makcik told her that Anita's sister (the one that Anita intended to seek help from) had passed away quite some time ago. And nobody told her about it?? Aduh, how much more cerita Melayu can this get?!

Escape from hell?

I finally met up with Anita today to listen to her problems. She called me at 1 pm just as I left my office. Perfect timing. I told her to wait at the hospital's main entrance and look out for my Kenari. I had only met her once before, that was some time last year, and wasn't really sure if I'd be able to recognise her this time.

But as I got to the hospital, there she was, standing away from the others, making it easy for me to spot. So I told her to get into my car and we'd chat as I drove. We couldn't stop for lunch anyway, could we? :)

OK, so what are Anita's problems?

If you had followed Anita's story here, you'd know that Anita didn't have an IC due to some problems with her citizenship status. Just to recap for those too lazy to follow the link, Anita's mother was a Singaporean who married a Malaysian and eventually got a Malaysian citizenship. However, in Anita's birth cert, her mother's citizenship was indicated as Singaporean. Shouldn't be a problem if her father's a Malaysian, right? Well, Anita has a different father. An Indonesian. And so in Anita's BC, it was indicated that her father was Indonesian and mother Singaporean. That makes Anita a non-citizen. Her mother was in the process of doing all the necessary statutory declarations to correct Anita's BC, but before that was done, her mother died. Her father? Nobody seemed to know where he is. And the matter was left hanging just like that.

The last time we went to visit, we were told by the sister (with whom Anita is staying) that the sisters were willing to help - just tell them what to do. After finding out from JPN, my colleague informed Anita and her sister of the documents needed. We told them to inform us once they get all the documents ready.

Well, they never came back. So even to this date, Anita still doesn't have an IC, and her son, who is already 1 year old, still doesn't have a birth cert. It looked as though they weren't too concerned about getting the IC for Anita and the birth cert for her son.

My colleague went to visit her at home recently and found out there were other problems to it. Today, I found out what the problem was.

You see, the sister whom Anita is currently staying with, only pretended to be nice when we went to visit last year. She made it sound as though it was she and her hubby (or so I thought), a convert (or so I thought) who had been taking care of Anita all the while.

Hmmm... what's this with the "or so I thought"? Well, if what Anita told me is true, Anita's sister never married that guy and that guy never converted to Islam. They are just staying together, leading everyone (including the guy's mother) to believe they were married. They kept telling people that they had their akad nikah quietly without all the hassle of kenduri and what nots. And to date they don't have any children either, possibly planned that way.

That shouldn't be a problem to Anita anyway. Her problem is that she had been mentally tortured staying with them. Since she doesn't have an IC, it's difficult for her to get a job, so her sister arranged for her to do some work at home - assembling things for a factory and gets paid based on each finished product. She's paid about RM200 to RM250 a month for that.

BUT Anita doesn't have a single sen in hand. All the money for her work-at-home job is held by the sister who claims she's the one who has to take care of Anita and her baby. Oh, the sister's good at ungkit-mengungkit too. The only time when Anita gets to hold some money is when she needs to go to the hospital for her appointments - the sister would give her RM10.

There was also a time when the sister needed money and told Anita to borrow from any of us in Buddies under the pretext that it was for her baby. Anita refused.

Things get even worse...

The so-called sister's "hubby" at times would try to seduce Anita when the sister's not around (Oh he knows Anita has HIV! He couldn't care less). But when Anita's sister comes home, she accuses Anita of trying to seduce her "hubby".

And since this guy eats pork, sometimes he'd force some of the meat into the mouth of Anita's son.

Of late, the sister has also been finding faults with Anita; calling her b*bi, p***mak, pembawa penyakit and a whole load of sh*t. At times she'd even tell Anita and her baby to berambus. But despite telling Anita to berambus, the sister actually controls Anita's movements. If she finds out that Anita has been talking to anyone, Anita would get a scolding. That's why she makes sure Anita doesn't have a single sen in her hand.

And here's another reason (I think) why Anita's sisters don't seem to like Anita. Anita's mother never legally married Anita's father. Aiyo! All these kawin tapi tak nikah runs in the family or whaaat? To the sisters, since Anita is an "illegal" child, they are not legally adik-beradik.

I told Anita even under Islamic law, they are still siblings by virtue of sharing the same mother. It doesn't matter if Anita was born out of wedlock.

So, now Anita wants to run away from her sister's house. She's seeking help since she doesn't have a single sen. Before she called me today she even went to see the hospital's welfare officer. The officer told her about the possibility of trying to stay at the shelter home where Sharifah was sent to (Kak Ana's place). When Anita told the officer that she'd be seeing me after that, the officer told her to discuss things over with me first.

Whatever it is, no matter where we end up sending Anita, we'd need to settle her IC and her son's birth cert problem. Without an IC, it's hard for Anita to get a job, and without a job, how was she to feed her child? Anita would need to get at least one of her sister's birth cert which indicates that their mother was a Malaysian citizen.

According to Anita, there is one sister who is more of the "boleh bawa berunding" type who would give a copy of her birth cert to be used as supporting document. But this sister stays in another state down south, and she doesn't know about Anita's HIV status. She had promised many times she'd send over the copy of her birth cert, but never got around to doing it. I asked Anita if she'd be able to get it if she went personally to that sister's house.

"Boleh tu memanglah boleh, tapi macam mana saya nak pergi rumah dia? Saya mana ada duit nak bayar tambang bas."

So I offered to buy her the bus ticket. We'd need to settle this IC and birth cert problem ASAP before things get even more berbelit-belit!

To avoid interrogation, Anita is not telling her sister here that she's going to the other sister's house to get the copy of birth cert.

And her plan is, she will leave when the sister and her so-called hubby are at work. And when she leaves the house to go to the other sister's house, she's leaving for good. When she comes back with the copy of the other sister's birth cert and IC, she intends to go straight to any shelter homes that would accept her.

I called up Kak Ana and she's willing to accept Anita and her baby.

So now to plan for Anita's "escape from hell".

This and that...

It's the 4th day of Ramadhan.

There is supposed to be a Buddies Board Meeting tonight and our meetings usually start latest by 8 pm, but taking into account my buka puasa and prayers including tarawikh, I won't be attending tonight's meeting and have asked the vice-chairman to chair the meeting. Ever since I joined Buddies, I have never attended meetings held during the month of Ramadhan as our meetings are held at night and I'd usually reserve my Ramadhan nights for my own religious needs. I hope the other members understand. If they don't, then they definitely need to choose someone else to be the chairperson in the next board elections. I oh so look forward to that... :-)

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Remember in one of my earlier posts, I mentioned about Anita wanting to meet up with me after I come back from Bali? I had asked Anita to call me one day before her appointment, just to confirm. Well, Anita called me up this morning. She has an appointment at the GH tomorrow and asked if I was free to see her. Since we both can't be too sure what time she'd be done with her appointment, I told her to call me once she's done. I was rather curious at first as to why she wanted to see me when I'm not her assigned buddy, but since my colleague had given me a "sneak preview", I do know a bit about the "plot". Sounds serious, but I can only get a clearer picture tomorrow when I meet her.

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Sharifah is finally working back at her home state. It's a part-time job at a shopping complex. Puan Nur had wanted her to come home and get a job so they can at least have some extra income for Raya.

As for little Cek Mek, I called Kak Ana at the shelter home today but she wasn't in. But since it was Kak Ana's daughter who answered the call, I asked about Cek Mek's status. According to her, the doctor said the results of the blood tests are not known yet. Which is rather weird I must say - it has been more than a month since the blood test was done. When I asked about the baby's medication, I was told the little girl is still being given medication but it has been changed to another kind of syrup. I am concerned really, because most of the other babies born to HIV positive mothers would stop taking the medication after 1 or 2 months, and they never had to change to the other syrup usually given to positive babies. I just hope it is just a precautionary measure because Cek Mek is considered a high risk baby since hers was a normal delivery and her mother started taking ARV medication rather late in her pregnancy.

Please, please, please... let it just be a precautionary measure...

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More money is coming in for the poor families I'm dealing with. I'd better make sure they reach the intended recipients before Raya.

That means more shopping and more house visits to come... SOON!

Ramadhan house visits

It's the first day of Ramadhan.

As planned, after my pasar tani routine, off I went to deliver the many things already loaded into my car since Thursday. For the past 2 days, if anyone needed to hitch a ride in my car, I would have had to turn them down. Luckily I didn't come across anyone needing a lift from me.

Other than the groceries bought on Thursday, I also brought along some clothes. I had earlier received a package from a blog reader and regular commenter (guess who?) - a big box of new and used clothes to be distributed amongst the poor families I'm dealing with. There were new clothes for Sofie's family, and there were used (but still looking new) clothes which were left up to me to decide whom to send to. I decided to take a look first to decide who the clothes were more suitable for.

Well, it was quite tough really. Most of the baju kurungs are rather big if compared to most of my clients, but I finally managed to sort them out. There were also 2 pieces of cloth not sewn yet - which I decided to give to Lin because she can sew.

5 minutes past 9 am, I made a move. First destination - Sofie's house. I had sent a text message to Sofie yesterday to inform her I'd be coming today. When I got to her house, her 2 youngest were already waiting for me on their buaian hijau outside their house. Yep, the buaian hijau Sofie mentioned as the landmark when I first asked how to get find her house. The broad smiles on the children's faces were enough to make me feel welcomed.

I saw even broader smiles when they saw their baju raya. This time around, even Along and Angah, the 2 older boys, sat and chatted with me instead of shying away like they used to do. Yayy, the ice is finally broken! Ahh, moment of satisfaction!

I couldn't stay long at Sofie's house as I needed to unload more things from my car to the homes of other families.

Next stop - Fuzi's house. It had been a while since my last visit to her house. I didn't tell her I was coming since Fuzi is the type who seldom goes out. Besides, I didn't really have to detour that much to get to her house. It was just on the way as I headed back to Ipoh from Sofie's house. Just a little detour from the main road to get to her kampong.

Fuzi's children were already asking about the family day photos. Alamak... I hadn't had the time to send the photos for printing. After the family day I was busy preparing for the Bali trip and when I got back from Bali I totally forgot about it. I myself keep my own copy of those photos on my pen-drive, making it easier for me to forget sending the photos for printing - to be given to the families who joined us at the National Stud Farm. The kids (and their mothers) must be excited to see how they look like on a horse... :)  I must make it a point to print the photos soon and hopefully give them to the various families before Raya.

I took the opportunity to ask Fuzi about her children's performance in school. Since they are all under the sponsorship programme, I will need to send reports to the various sponsors. Well, it seems the girls are doing much better than the boys. The eldest daughter was 2nd in her class, while the 2nd daughter was 9th in her class. And the two younger boys were also 2nd their respective classes... but from the bottom.

After Fuzi's house, I headed off to my next destination - a totally different direction from Sofie's and Fuzi's. Another house which I had not been visiting for quite a while - that of Mr and Mrs K. Yep, the family which always seem to find themselves short of cash and always wanting to borrow money (which they don't get yet they still try their luck every time). Only Mr K was home when I got there, so I didn't go in. I just sent the things to the door. I was told that Mrs K was at the hospital waiting for Baby K who had to be warded again at Ipoh GH. Shah, their eldest son, too had to be warded at the hospital near their town.

I asked Mr K what was wrong with Shah. According to him, Shah came back from his usual football game and suddenly just felt weak and vomited at home. So they brought him to the hospital and he had to be warded since. It has been 3 days now. Mr K did mention something but I couldn't quite understand what Shah's illness was.

Sigh... macam-macam problem lah this family. And worst, it is very difficult to help them financially because they don't seem to spend the money on the right things! I did have with me some money meant to be given to these families during Ramadhan, but since Mrs K and her daughter had mentioned earlier that they suspect Mr K is back on drugs, I didn't dare leave the money with him. It is probably better to put the money in Mrs K's bank account.

My last stop was Lin's house. By then it was already 11.40 am. Lin and her daughters were busy making some jelly to be sold during Pasar Ramadhan later in the day.

And I made the right decision to give the 2 pieces of cloth to Lin. Outside her house was a sign saying, "Menerima tempahan baju kurung. RM25." At least I don't have to worry about her having to find a tailor...

I was happy to see how helpful her daughters were. The eldest who is now studying at a nursing college, came home for the weekend while her 2nd daughter, who studies medicine overseas, is back for holidays until after raya. Her 3rd daughter, who is also in a college for further studies, is having her exams now and cannot come home this week. And thank God they were around when Lin fainted at her goreng pisang stall 2 weeks ago (when I was in Bali).

As for her boys... oh well, they were still sleeping when I visited them today, and when I left around noon, they were still not up yet.

By the time I got home, it was about 12.45 pm.

Families visited - 4.

Time taken - 3 hours 40 minutes.

Total mileage - 125 kms.

Hey, not bad! It is after all only the first day of Ramadhan...