Sebentar di Bandung, Indonesia

Darso. He was our driver when we were in Bandung. He emphasized that he was only a driver and not a tour guide as he would only drive us to the place that we wish for, with no value added of accompanying us during each visit or contributing his local knowledge during each stop. That was what he was being paid for and that's all what he did.

No, he's not being inconsiderable as what you assumed. He was just using all that he had for survival; if you wanted more, you've just got to pay more. As simple as that. In fact the same style was adopted by other survivors in  Bandung.

***

You see. With a population of around 2.3 million, Bandung creates a very competitive neighborhood, especially among the low to the lowest income earners, despite the increasing number of visitors each year. Try to step a foot outside an outlet store and you, you alone, would be approached by at least 3 souvenir sellers, whom offer more or less the same item. And they'll follow you with the lowest price that they could offer, until you are out of their sight. In fact, we were approached by the same man, offering the same "fresh" blueberries, for about 4 times and he even followed us till we got in our car and drove away. No, you don't have to blame them, they were just fighting for their meal of the day.

Even if you were in a car, stopped at a traffic-lighted junction, someone (usually a kid) will approach you with an usang guitar, singing for you voluntarily, considering that if you didn't chase them away, that meant you were interested with their singing and you were obliged to pay. And if you didn't, you would receive a killer look, with maki-makian and a hard kick on the car door.

All I could say, any help offered by some stranger on the street might not come only with courtesy and smile but, with hope to get a little something for their stomach, for the day. You could choose to accept the offer and pay, but you might just want to do it wisely and sincerely.

***

Darso, as the age 25, married with a 6 months old baby was renting a room for his family, costed about RM180 per month. He earned about RM200 per trip of 3-days, 9am to 9pm, as a tourists driver while his wife was a full-time housewife. Darso was a good company of us. He shared a lot of interesting things in Bandung that sounded what-the-what?! to us. He's a jovial person and ambitious too. He had no interest in continuing his study, after his final class in secondary school (in Indonesia, it took only 3 years to complete primary school and another 3 years to complete secondary school).

Darso added, the cost of living in Bandung was quite high for his rate of earning. Despite the RM180 per month room rental for his whole family, he had to also pay for a quite high bill of his wife labor, reaching RM1000 for normal delivery in private clinic, for the whole delivery process until around 6 hours after the delivery (you'd be discharged after less than a day). It might cost several hundreds for the same case in government hospital but the service and treatment received was bad. Darso said "Mereka jaga juga, tapi tak sembuh dah suruh balik."

We continued talking about the culture, the people including the gossips of local artists. Talks and jokes about Peter Pan's vocalist and his life in prison, led us to a new, ironic information about Indonesia; the prison which placed those involved with corruption is the only prison with all the good facilities available. There, they have TV in each room, comfortable bed, food and restroom. Ironically, even the prison was "buyable".

Nonetheless, Darso who came from a village with it's main source of living is small scale agriculture, 9 hours ride away from Bandung, said that he thanked God everyday for what he and the family had; not much but enough. It saddened him to see the some young generations being dropped out from school, with no clue about their future, but rather enjoying their current lives with drugs and alcohols. Some of them even used the young kids to beg for money on the street, monitored them from afar, ensured those kids to bring back the money for them. All the young kids get was the meal for the day.

Darso would one day wish he could own his car, doing his own tourist driver job and received more than RM200 per trip that he received currently from the car owner (whom also the travel agent who dealt with us, but we never met).

"Saya tak mahu belajar lagi, Kak. Sudah tidak mungkin. Tapi saya bisa usaha untuk hidup senang, satu hari nanti dapat beli kereta, bikin bisnes sendiri dan ada rumah sendiri. Allah kata kun fayakun"

"Dah scan ke? Anak lelaki ke perempuan?"

Dah. Belum.

Maksud saya, belum tahu lagi jantina, walaupun dah scan beberapa kali. Saya perlu di-scan beberapa kali sebab nak pastikan kandungan sihat memandangkan 4 bulan pertama kesihatan saya teruk.

Tapi mak saya dah buat keputusan yang dia berkehendakkan anak perempuan juga untuk saya kali ini.

"Mak rasa kau dapat perempuan kali ni pun bagus. Boleh dak Eirsa tu ada kawan main. Tiap-tiap pagi mak doakan kau dapat anak perempuan."

"....................................."

Hmm.. Rata-rata yang kata lagi bagus dapat anak lelaki, sebab sekarang dah ada anak perempuan. Ada sepasang kan seronok! (Er.. Apa yang seronok?) Ada yang kata dapat seorang lagi perempuan pun ok gak, baju-baju Eirsa adik dia boleh pakai semula, jimat. Tapi saya rasa justifikasi tersirat mak saya pula dia nak menambah cucu perempuan, sebab sekarang ini hanya ada 1 cucu perempuan antara kesemua 6 orang cucunya.

Saya? Saya tak kisah, mana-mana yang Allah nak beri, ada baiknya. Semua yang dijadikan Allah ada hikmahNya. Ok la ok la. Jawapan artis macam ni pon kadang-kadang meloyakan juga. Bunyi positif yang dibuat-buat, padahal dalam hati berbunga-bunga nak anak lelaki. Saya harap dapat lelaki, betul, supaya dapat sepasang, supaya dapat rasa karenah yang lain-lain, supaya anak lelaki boleh geng dengan mommy dan Eirsa boleh geng dengan papa (whatever...).

Oh! Macam mana pula dengan gerak hati? Jawab saya, saya ni baruuuuww je baik dari morning sickenss, baruuuuuww nak memikmati pagi-pagi yang damai. Lalu, masih belum ada gerak hati. Kadang-kadang gerak hati pun tak boleh pakai, gerak hati pun boleh jadi lalang, cenderung mengikut keinginan.

Eh. Tapi ada juga beberapa perkara yang boleh dijadikan klu bagi teka-teki kita (saya?) ini. 

1) Saya kurang gemar berdandan.

2) Saya kurang rajin membaca, walaupun ada masa. Tapi bukan lah gila membaca sangat pun waktu tidak mengandung, tetapi kali ini baca dua tiga muka surat pun dah malas. Saya lebih suka main game di iPhone 3GS (RIP Mr. Steve Paul Jobs), to be exact Sudoku. I could go crazy playing this draining 50% of the battery in couple of hours. But not reading.

3) Peratusan sikap ber-shopping online saya menurun sebanyak 60%. Saya lebih berkira hendak membeli sekiranya tidak melihat sendiri barang itu. Tapi kalau dah belek sampai jurujual rasa meluat pun belum tentu saya beli. Mood beli belah saya terjelepuk jatuh longkang.
4) Mulut saya lebih laser, yakni kurang bertapis kalau bercakap.
5) Bayi saya sudah aktif dan saya sudah boleh rasa pergerakan bayi seawal 16 minggu. Lalu, malam-malam saya kini sudah biasa dengan tumbuk sepak terajang dari dalam perut. 

Jawapan saya untuk teka-teki ini adalah bayi lelaki, memandangkan beberapa perkara yang sama berlaku pada kawan baik saya. Bagaimana dengan jawapan anda?

Fun Information : Baby's gender is determined immediately upon fertilization; depends on either XX chromosome (girl) or XY chromosome (boy) carried by the successful sperm. Oh ye. Kakak saya juga mengandung, bayi batch 2011. Selepas 3 orang lelaki, inshaAllah kali ini beliau bakal menimang cahaya mata perempuan! Yippereeee!

Wordless Wednesday : Baby Bump

Virus Apa Entah

So, this was what happened. We discovered some chicken pox look-alike lump or bubble at the under right armpit area. We thought it was another round of chicken pox and we waited for the next bubbles.

Biji-biji air yang disebabkan oleh virus

But no. There wasn't any. It was just some other much smaller bubbles around the same area; not more than 5 of them at that time. Thinking that they would eventually go away and Eirsa didn't show any sign of discomfort, we just ignored the symptoms.

But no. Those group of bubbles were still there after 2 months, but the total number of bubbles only increase by around 20%. The size remained the same too. And it started bothering us.

We brought Eirsa to our regular clinic, even the doctor could not identify the root cause. She gave us a cream to be applied for a week, and if there was no sign of curing, then Eirsa should be referred to a dermatologist. And no, there was no sign of curing.

So as per my previous entry, we brought Eirsa to Dr. Ranjit. I mean, Samurai and Opah brought Eirsa there. After a 10-seconds-examination under his famous magnifying glass, he came up with one word, "Virus". Since Eirsa went to a daycare, it was high likely she got infected from her playmates (and this was true as weeks after that, we found out that one of her playmates had the same bubbles around her neck, except, er.. triple more than Eirsa's!). Samurai however, could not capture the name of virus as Eirsa, as usual, would go hysterical during every doctor visit. He prescribed her with something that should be penetrated inside each bubble once (THANK GOD!) and follow up with nightly cream. We have to "cucuk" all the bubbles when she was fast asleep, as she would not let anyone touch her body after our several attempts of "cucuk"-ing her when she was ralit playing Opah's iPad. I did not think it hurts, but may be a little discomfort.

Ubat yang perlu dicucuk ke dalam biji-biji berair, Belnatur Bio Acnil

Setelah dicucuk, kesannya adalah begini. Ingatkan air yang keluar, tetapi darah yang keluar dari biji-biji berair

After 3 weeks, even though the progress was slow, we could see that the bubbles were shrinking and no new bubbles appeared. The old ones are still there now, but they look like disappearing in a month or so. 

(Sorry, no picture of the latest development, since after the "cucuk" incidents, Eirsa became more "protective" of the bubbles area.)

Notes : Melalui pembacaan saya, ubat cucuk yang sama (Belnatur Bio Acnil) juga boleh digunakan untuk tujuan kosmetik.

Wordless Wednesday

God's Miracle : In Its Simple Form

Every single second there are millions of God's miracles happened, without us realizing. We seldomly realized them on normal occassions but will really appreciate them when our situation needs God's miracle the most.

This was what happened to me just now. It might sound simple but yes, it eased the our whole plan for everybody, for the day.

==

We had no choice but to have Eirsa's dermatologist appointment at 2.30 today. Appointment was made last week, but the schedule was too packed and we could not wait until the weekend. So 21 September, 2.30pm it was.

This specialist's service required no cash from us, since it was covered under the company's medical insurance, as long as we could produce the Guarantee Letter (GL). The GL could be faxed to you in less than 30 minutes by the insurance company, provided you had filled up the GL request form properly, together with the recommendation letter from panel clinic. It's a normal and easy prosess except that I was on medical leave until yesterday and the recommendation letter was in my office, so I could only request for the GL today.

The plan basically : I had to process the GL application, received and signed the GL this morning, Samurai would pick up the signed GL, fetch Eirsa and Opah and go to the specialist clinic. Not a big deal, we'd been to the clinic many times, Eirsa was home with Opah, Opah could help Eirsa's getting ready on time and Samurai's office is just 10 minutes away from Opah's house.

Except that Samurai had an unexpected, unscheduled, unplanned meeting with his boss and the meeting only ended at 12.50pm. To recap, he had to come to my office for the GL, which is 20 minutes away (one-way), fetch Eirsa in Damansara, travel from Damansara to Subang Jaya and had no choice but to make it before 2.30pm. For those who knew, Klinik Pakar Kulit Ranjit in Subang Jaya is always crowded every single second. You could get stuck there around 1-2 hours, even an appointment. And, it was raining. KL, raining, traffic : they are not good friends. Grrrreat.

And suddenly, God's miracle came to us, in the form of heroic figure of a friend of mine, Mr. H. He needed to go to Damansara during lunch hour and invited us to join him for lunch. If everything was in place, Samurai did not have to drive all the way to my office but rather pick the GL in Damansara. Talking about the save of total of around 45 minutes.

But.

As said, Samurai was having a meeting (that I didn't know till then) and Mr. H needed to make a move at 12.45pm. I tried to reach Samurai's phone until 12.44pm and prayed hard that he could at least pick up the phone so that I could inform him on the new plan. But I didn't want to delay Mr. H's plan either, so I reluctantly asked them to proceed and I could probably still catch up if I could reach my husband in 5 minutes.

6 minutes and 15 missed calls later, Samurai returned my call. Put him on hold, I called Mr. H and he was STILL at the office car park. Praising Allah for his help and mercy, I managed to join Mr. H to Damansara, informed Samurai to meet me somewhere there, save their trip to the clinic by 45 minutes and they managed to reach there at 2.10pm, 20 minutes before the appointment time. They then completed the examination and all before 3.00pm. GOD IS GREAT. GOD IS GREAT. GOD IS GREAT.

If Mr. H did not have to go to Damansara, Samurai did not pick up the phone or return my call on time and I missed Mr. H's 'rombongan' to Damansara, there was high possibility that the appointment needed to be rescheduled or Eirsa would be treated as walk-in patient (if the missed the appointment time) which would only be attended only after 2-3 hours after the registration. It was even relieving since the traffic from Damansara to my office was later found unexpectedly congested, perhaps due to the rain.

So yes. Miracle happens to you everytime. You just need to realize it.

Note : On Eirsa's development, we'll take a photo on the strange things on her skin and inshaAllah will let you know the result a week after the treatment as recommended by Dr Ranjit.

Things I Love About Pregnancy

It has been 16 weeks now, calculated from the first day of my last menses.

I don't really reach 4 months though, it's going to be in 1-2 weeks. Calculating in weeks made me forget how many months had passed by.

Alhamdulillah, getting better gradually I still sometimes find myself struggling with bloated stomach, fatigue (like most of the time after walking or even eating), the appetite is still so-so, and still menumpang at PIL's house. I've been back in the office since after long raya holiday but could make it the most of 3 of 5 working days. But all in all, this is much better than the past 2 months. *sujud*

And yes, second trimester is the most enjoyable time by expecting mothers, provided the morning sickness is gone or at least 50% gone. The stamina is gradually back in action, the belly is just nice to fit in some loose casual outfits and even maternity wear if some wished to, the feet are yet to swell, the weight is still bearable to be dragged to the shopping malls! But I don't know,  this time my shopping enthusiasm seems to 'jatuh longkang' and I had done no shopping for myself for the past 3 months, except for a pair of Raya wedges and a pair of Raya Diva bulky rings. And browsing through the online shopping websites made me tired.

As I had been going out more than the early pregnancy, I've also started to experience the blessings, the joys of being a pregnant lady. Some of them :

1) There's always an empty spot of car park. And most of them is near to the entrance. *grin*
2) Waiting made shorter for us, as out of sudden there's additional counter will be opened to cater for our needs! *grin*
3) Orang belanja makan. Er.. Ikut nasib la. ;)
4) Mengidam, berdoa dan inshaAllah lambat laun akan dapat. What happened was I had been salivating in my mind about mee kari during puasa. May be I had mentioned it to husband once but just kept it quiet after that since it is not easy to find mee kari during the day. Besides, our usual tapau spots were mostly closed and only opened with juadah berbuka which mostly offered nasi berlauk. And during hari raya, it was indeed a sweet coincidence where most of the close relatives' houses that I visited has mee kari as one of their menus! Hambik kau, kembung mee kari.
5) Generous MCs. I know, this should be number 1. *grin wider*

And I'm sure many of you would've experienced a lot of other unexpectedly lucky event and why don't you share with us? :)

For those expecting mothers, I would like to humbly share, anything that you are wishing for being it edible or inedible things, just have those wishes clearly kept in your mind, pray to God, (could may be ask it from your husband once or twice but doesn't really have to be pursued) be patience and redha. Kalau ada rezeki untuk kamu, inshaAllah akan sampai juga kepada kamu.

Note : I plan to read more about jaundice; the cause and the prevention and may be will share with you.