Saturday, December 08, 2007

You'll grow up anyway, Wada


No, Wada is not in the picture.... (I snatched the pic from the net to grace my entry)



It is a wake up call when yesterday KC commented this place needs some dusting. Phewww... it piles up an inch. Thank you, neighbour!

My fingers seem heavy to start thumping on my keyboard. Is that the sign of me loosing steam in blogging? It is not so much of loosing interest to write, and KC knows it too well; I’ve been writing quite heavily in our community forum, even thousands after thousands of words were done.

Take a deep breath…and ahhhh!!! Feels better now!

Lately, something inside me is telling, that little girl of 4 years from the house adjacent to mine is not as happy as a child would. She would sometimes display temperamental and her peevishness. Being the only child in the family with a working mother, she’s under the care of an Indonesian maid most of the time in a day. On top of that, since the father is working on the big tanker at the sea, round the globe at the alternate 3-month intervals, I would feel that she is highly strung and missing a father figure in her growing up years.

That little Wada, anyhow, is always charming to me. It is music to my ears when she would greet me the time I came back from office in the evening and I just love to see her giggling while pedaling her cute little bike the time I shoo her up. I would lend my ears almost everyday to listen to what she has to tell me even though most of the times I could hardly connect to what she was trying to relate. All I know when she chuckles with her own story or titters to my respond, I would take it as a good bantering already.

My wife concurs with me, at one point she resembled very much of our now 15-year old Fara when she was little. But not anymore after Wada has grown a bit bigger. She seems to get bigger by the day. I look at it as a reflection of me witnessing Fara who was then growing up before my eyes until one day I was awakened by the fact that she was longer a baby.

Umairah in her 6th year of age, whose house is contiguous to Wada’s, would be there coaching her on many skills like how to sing a tune or two or even how to pile up sands nicely in the yard. Umairah would assume a mentor role in many child plays. But it crumbles and unjust for her role when in one evening I brought out our hamsters for the kids to look at. Despite of the hamsters were kept in the cage, Umairah started jumping and screaming. Wada had her share of scream too, reasonably shoddier than Umairah’s. But not Adam, Umairah’s big brother of 7. He showed his guts to get close and started playing with our lovely hamsters. Only then Umairah started to simmer down and tease. But Wada was obstinate that they were “mice”.

I have a constant worry that, if the maid would ever abscond from her employer again just like what she did last year. It created some kind of mayhem in the neighborhood when she teamed up with the maid who takes care of Adam and Umairah to run off. Absconded was one thing but when small kids were left to mend for themselves, it’s hard to tolerate, then. What both of them did, they put Wada in Adam & Umairah’s house, locked them up and threw the house key in after giving instruction to Adam who was then 6 years old to take care of the two little girls until such time their parents are back from work. So irresponsible of them and it’s absurd too.

Unlike in many similar incidents when the maids flee, this time around the maids’ networking labyrinth was busted and managed to be traced. They were spotted some 60 km away in Puchong before transported back. You could imagine the way they looked when their mission was foiled. It was the most pathetic looking maids begging for mercy that I have ever seen in my entire life. Anyway, due to their trifling fault and yet with the display of some degree of penitent and contrite on their part, the employers still keep them instead of sending back to their home country.

It immensely gave good reasons for the employers to take heed. And hopefully it will not happen again.

And Wada will one day grow up to understand all these.



_________________________________________________________________________

14 comments:

Lee said...

Hi Gab, not too sure your callsign belong to a lady or a man, so came sniffing around. I made that mistake once sometime back without first checking. Ha ha. Betul malu, muka say like boiled lobster. Fortunately she laughed, bless her. I had to practically kneel down to apologise, ha ha. Terima kaseh for visiting me.
I read your profile and Gab, you are not only an eloquent writer, a lover of classical music (not my cup of kopi ice though, ha ha) but a gentleman.
Anyone who say he loves his wife very much gets my salute. And after having kids too, ha ha.
Not many men will admit that in public let alone in an open channel like this.
Nice kids you have too.
Gabs, you keep well, and have a nice day. Best regards, Lee.
ps, how you found me? Yellow pages? Ha ha.

leeds said...

Hi Mr.Gab, thanks for reading my blog all these while. :)

i appreciate it.

saya budak baru belajar
kalau salah tolong tunjukkan :)

arZOoo said...

ermmm gab..welkem back...

Kak Elle said...

I agreed welcome back bro:)
Wada sound like the story of Poor little Rich girl eh?

Norabella said...

Welcome back Gab.

NorAiniJ said...

Hello Sir Gab,

It's very sweet of you for spending a few minutes (maybe longer) lending your ears listening to Wada's stories...

It's nice to know you are making a combeback to the blogsphere Sir.

Welcome back!

abgbest said...

Dei gab dah lama ko pencen menulis ke, hehehh penulis mana ada pencen bro setiap hari menulis bermcm2 idea datang dan add to our minda mcm pisau ooo setiap hari asah makin tajam ooo....

IBU said...

Salam Gab

Haven't been here for a while.... hah! habuk dah hilang pun.. hehehh...

A close friend of mine once went through that nasty experience of her kids being left alone at home. Ikutin pacarnya mat kontraktor renovating back door neighbour! Hishhh.... Lucky thing she alerted the other surrounding maids to look after the kids - the cleverer one called her ma'am who then called my friend. Ayooo.... takut nya!

If my boys were ever to be left alone ( nauzubillah... ), hmm.... I wonder if they would ever realise! Perhaps they would think it's a bliss to be left unhaunted by the shrieks "tutup la PS2 tuh! nanti terbakar main lama sangat!!!".

Mazza Homemade Cookies said...

I feel pity for wada...but however she still have a parents..

m i n e r a l . . . said...

great to c u here eheheehe..
beberapa hari lalu sy asyik terfikirkan bro gab...ntah mengapa..
hari ini sy buka blog gab.. dan membaca sesuatu...
byk yg berlaku disekeliling...tak mampu hendak dicoretkan...tak mampu di ungkai...
everything got process bro :)

Theta said...

My husband's colleague faced the same nightmare when his maid fled and left a 6-year-old and some younger ones at home.

Luckily the boy knew how to dial his father!

I wonder if installing a webcam at home would counteract this running problem, amongst others?

I think hiring a maid is a matter of calculated risk and a whole dollop of luck. You can only pray that you're lucky.

Anonymous said...

hi gab, thank u singgah2 jenguk2 komen2 blog me yg itu.. jgn serik2 k

Makcik Runner said...

besides pontianak and zombie kg pisang m'sia seems to have another breed of horror in the form of bibik indon!

bibik oh bibik! engkau ada susah engkau takde lagi susah! haiyaaa...

~ GAB ~ said...

U. Lee --> Hahahaha You are full with sense of humour. Love it. Thanks for coming over. Thanks for the compliments too. Do check on me from time to time.



Leeds --> Thank you for coming. We won't stop here, there'llbe time for us to banter.



ARZOO --> Thank you Arzoo. Ampang is always a nice place for me to be at. But having lunch by myself at Ampang Point is never a good idea.




Kak Elle --> Poor Little Rich Girl. Somehow kids these days or it too from the past for that matter cannot help it to endure what's written in the course of life.




NORA --> Thank you NORA. Hope things are OK down in Singapore.




NJ --> Thank you. Nice to be back blogging. Even nicer to have you here.




ABANG BEST --> My favourite line for you is alway "Abg Best yang BEST"... Thank you for coming my man. I'll see you somewhere in the virtual world (to banter yet again)




IBU --> The threat from the maids are the ongoing thing. Toom bad, our lives today demand something more than the past that sometimes we have to take chance for our kids' upbringings.




MYFISOL --> Thank you for coming MyFISOL. I peeped on you and I found your place is cool. Keep on blogging. I'll be there from time to time.




TUN --> You make me happy with your words TUN. Feels so good when a gentleman is thinking of me, even better than from ladies' wakakakaka. Yeah... I wanna listen to what you have to comment on the subject.





THETA --> It is prevalent these days. Part of it, I do blame on the system we have. Are we too lenient with the outsiders in our country? Or are we overzealous with the idea of having the maids tackle the job down until educating our kids? Hmmm.... it is more complicated than these questions I supposed.




YANG INSAF --> Thank you for coming. Sure I will be there again.




KC --> You've ma de a good decision by quitting your job to take care your kids. An applause for the effort. To me, it's nothing greater a sacrifice than sacrificing for the betterment of our kids (in their formatove years)

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