Of The Less Privileged...

For the first time, yesterday I personally chaperoned a child I adopted under the company's annual buka puasa event... Previously a few of us would band together to adopt 1 kid, and sponsor his/her gifts, but none of us would attend the buka puasa event itself, not to mention the activities preceeding it. Nominate anak buah je pegi gantikan kitorang hehehe... Although we never attended the event, we loved participating in it from behind the scenes, simply cos it allows us the opportunity to share with those less privileged...

This year, I managed to adopt 1 child again, but since this time I did it individually (tak sempat nak ajak kengkawan join), I couldn't sub-con the attendance to someone else... I was looking forward to it though, especially since the organizing committee changed the format to resemble a mini 'Explorace', including a shopping portion! So this year, instead of us staff buying gifts for the children beforehand, we actually get to buy the things for them together! I thought that was a nice idea...

Needless to say, the little girl & I had a lot of fun... she was such a sweetie, smiling broadly all the time, and was not the least bit demanding. She was the third in a family of 7, and her eldest brother was living in another 'Rumah Amal' and went to school in Kedah. She was so surprised to see her brother in the same event! It was so touching to see the siblings' reunion... I get the feeling that they don't meet very often, unless it's the school holidays and they get to go home to their mom and family in Ampang.

We went to all the checkpoints (I didn't help her much during the mug-decorating part, she did a great job on her own! If I had, it probablywould have turned out worse heheh), and when we got to the shopping part, we got lots of books, some toys and tons of new clothes for her. Since she had no particular items in mind even after being asked repeated, I treated her as though I was taking my own daughter on a shopping trip... anything that caught my fancy that she liked, went into the basket! As you may guess, Iexceeded the spending limit hehehe... that's what you get with a shopaholic mummy :)

I was flat out by the time I went home (I'm still wiped out today!), but something lingered in my mind... I was more than happy to spend more than the allocated budget for her, simply because she wasn't pushy and demanding, and her requests were so humbly simple... When I spoke to some of my colleagues who were also participating, they experienced the same thing. This was in stark contrast to the same event from the past few years. You see, previously, when they put up the pics of the children from the various homes for the 1-day adoption, they also put up their wish list for us to fulfill. We're asked to buy the items on the wish list (on our own ye, not using the company money :p) within a certain spending limit set by the company (I guess to make sure everyone got the same value of items, no less), and the items will be handed to the children during the event. What began to irk me was seeing the items on the list. Very often you'd see very modest requests - black pants, white shirt, school bag, etc etc.... basic necessities for schoolgoing kids - very humbling requests for people like us who are used to buying more for our own kids and families. But we began noticing that starting some years back, some kids from certain homes were asking for things like Nike shoes, Adidas shoes, G-Shock watches... heck, these kids even knew which particular model they wanted!

It wasn't just me... my friends and colleagues felt the same way. When we saw the modest requests, we'd try our best to give even more than what the kid wanted and really make their day... but the kids with the branded wish list? We avoided them, full stop! I honestly didn't want to take any of them. I wanted to share our good fortune with someone, and I wanted to share it with someone who would appreciate what came their way... not someone who already had set high expectations beforehand and made a demand for things.

I try to see it from their point of view... Suddenly it's as if it's their birthday, or Christmas, and they have a chance to list down their dearest wishes, so they do it... but somehow it strikes a jarring note with me. So rather than b1tch about the things my/our adopted child wants, we'd rather go with someone who really touches us with his/her simple requests, and try our very best to make it even better. Is that terrible? I think not... someone else with a different outlook than mine would be able to fulfill those wishes, so let them go ahead...

All in all, we had a great day yesterday... I stayed behind till the kids got on their buses (tak sampai hati nak balik terus... my little girl and the girl our dept adopted had so many heavy bags to carry! Same goes for many of the other kids too, thanks to their generous patrons/chaperones...) My children are blessed to have two loving parents take care of them, fulfill their basic needs, love them with all our hearts... I was glad that for a few short hours, I could share what my children have with someone else...

Insya-Allah, I look forward to participating again next year... but perhaps I could start outsourcing the attendance again? Hehehe...