I Don't Appreciate Getting Scolded Through A Blog, But Hey, I Won't Kill The Messenger

You've heard me before : my husband 's company is being painfully slow in disbursing the funds necessary for the whole family to move to Jakarta. At the moment, my stubborn-and trying-to-prove-a-point husband lives in what Indonesians call a "paviliun", a ground level flatlet, in a borrough that makes Kerinchi Dalam look positively like Park Avenue. Among his neighbours are two goats and a cow, the first things he sees in the morning when he goes out for his daily walk. In his route he will pass by ramshackle houses no bigger than my bedroom, wooden sundry shops and a kilang tempe that still uses chopped branches as fuel.

(Before anyone thinks the company he works for is being unnecessarily cruel, let me say that my husband could move in to Hilton if he wanted to; and is in fact doing so next week, presumably after having made the point)

Saiffuddin came back to KL during the Labour Day weekend, and for the first time, we see some positive steps being taken. Before this all enquiries had been met with the stock answer : "Err, tak tahu lah". My husband's immediate superior and usual saviour is in Sudan and hasn't seen his own wife for months; and noting that he is in an obviously worse boat, we thought it unfair to go running to him. We had sent some HR guy in the company invoices, like months ago, and apparently he never opened them. Thankfully, the guy's boss is way more responsible, and we're grateful that he has pushed things along.

The kids and I are anxious to join Saiffuddin in Jakarta, that goes without saying. I'm sick of being a single mother, and my children, particularly the youngest, miss him acutely. But worse than having to deal with our emotional well-being, is having to work within the ambit of uncertainty. We have a calling visa that we haven't picked up from the Indonesian Embassy because we're not sure of our departure date. Aiysha's classmates and teachers had to rescind their farewell cards -- I had planned for the children to stop their schooling in Malaysia after the first term exams, but now it looks like they'll have to sit for the second as well. My friends at work are tentative about including me in their plans because no one knows how long I can stick around. And now it would seem I have inconvenienced two sisters, and annoyed my mum.

My mother has been travelling halfway across the world, and then some, since mid-March. She spent more than a month attending to my youngest sister who had her first child in Seattle, came home for about five days, and then took two flights and a road-trip to Al-Khobar, where another sister just gave birth for the fourth time. In the meantime, the only sister left, the one still living in my mother's house, has just completed renovating her own home, and is in the middle of decorating madness. In a stroke of brilliant timing, my sister and her husband decided not to continue their maid's permit, although with good reason, since the girl has been dating a slightly off-kilter divorced neighbour, and lying through her teeth all the while.

My sister is a lovely girl, I love her to bits; she is one of those people who truly has a big heart, but she was never meant to do domestic work. That's why I made sure she married a surgeon. In an earlier life, she is used to waking up no earlier than eleven, and now maid-less, she has to launder her own clothes, keep the house clean and pick after her own baby. It doesn't help that she holds a job that is panic personified -- that of a an assignment editor hyphenate producer for a prime time news bulletin. (Why this TV station should put those two posts in one person is beyond me; and should be a rant reserved for another entry).

The problem, though, is this : before my mother left for Al-Khobar, I asked her if the kids and I could stay in her house for two weeks in May because we had promised to rent out our own home to my two staff, Shazwan and Ian, whose apartment lease ended in April. We had thought that by early May my husband would have sorted the children's schooling in Jakarta, and that we'd be able to move to our Menteng abode by the middle of the month. I had thought by then I would have sent a notice to Cikgu Latifah that the children will no longer be at school here. But I was wrong, there is no such certainty. And as it so happens, Shazwan had the foresight to have their lease extended. So there was no longer a need for me to tumpang at my mother's.

I had not realised my mother and sister had relied so much on me moving, a request which somehow had morphed into a promise according to my mom, and now I'm a bad Muslim for not keeping my word. My mother worries about this sister incessantly, and to be honest I'm a little miffed because now I feel that my mother had only agreed to me moving in more out of concern for my sister than charity for my family.

I am truly sorry she's having a bad time, but the upshot is this : if I move to my mom's house, my children will have a harder time going to school, and Saiffuddin is absolutely adamant that they still go until we're sure about the transfer to Jakarta. It will mean Adam might not be able to attend co-curricular activities, or he might have to stay back if he insists on attending. Admittedly, my not having a driving licence is part of the problem, but that could be worked out by other means. The move will be an upheaval for my children -- no more friends, no more football matches in the evening, no more noisy bus rides. Worse, there's no telling how long we'll have to menumpang -- it could be two weeks or two months. I'd rather do the waiting in my own living room, but if my mother insists and Elisa once again nags me about getting nagged, I might have to bundle the kids over, despite any protest from Saiffuddin. And I'll do it before Mother's Day.

But in the meantime, I've thought of a fair compromise; and to sesiapa berkenaan I hope my mom will feel relieved to hear it : I'll tell my sister she can drop her baby and laundry at my house on her way to work, and that she can borrow Kak Ti every Saturday to clean the house. Oh, we'll do the ironing too, if she wants. But beyond that I am sure she is capable of holding her own.

I'm so sorry to be so selfish, and I'm really selfish for my kids -- strangely they like living in their own house. Is it bad that I'm more concerned about an eleven year old, an eight year old and a six year old, rather than worry about a thirty year old, who has said herself she can take care of everything?

mokciknab muttered at 11:51 pm ~ ~