yeah....Things will only get better

I spent $5 on my lunch this afternoon. I sure did enjoy my lunch. Not too sure if it’s God’s means of ticking me off for being such a big spender, but I happen to chance upon this article that was published in yesterday’s TODAY.

I remember Chavez relating similar incidents but this really hit me hard, especially during Christmas , a time for sharing.

Today Thursday, December 23, 2004

The weight of the world on a girls’s tiny shoulders
13-year-old hopes life for brother and sister will be brighter
Wong Fei Wan
feiwan@newstoday.com.sg

LINA, 13, and her brother Awang (not their real names), a year behind her, can't wait to turn 14 so they can work part-time at McDonald's.

They badly want the money. Just so that their six-year-old sister, Sofia, can go to school with a full stomach and, unlike them, will not have to skip lessons because there is no money for bus fare.

While other children dream of the latest X-box and have maids to tidy up after them, these three siblings spent their school holidays helping their father and mother clean two HDB blocks in central Singapore.

Each block cleaned earns their family $10 a day, and every cent is precious.

Seeing how her illiterate parents struggle to put food on the table with their $600 income ? in a good month ? Lina says defiantly in a mixture of Malay and English: "Sometimes, I don't go to school because I want to help my mother earn money.

"If she is not feeling well, I can't let her work, but if we don't work, the clerk will cut our salary. How? Where are we going to get the money to pay for our food?"

At 13, this soft-spoken and reserved girl has taken on her own shoulders a role far beyond her age.

On the morning when this interview takes place, we are seated around a stone table with their mother, at the void deck where the siblings normally do their homework.

Lina hovers protectively, stroking her sister's waist-length hair as Sofia practises writing her ABCs in an exercise book.

When the baby-faced Sofia smiles, you can't help but notice that her milk teeth are jagged, with a slight yellow tinge. She still drinks her Milo out of a baby bottle, which Awang keeps in his knapsack.

"Mak, what's this?" asks Sofia in a piping voice, pointing at the letter "M".

Embarrassed and uncertain, the 44-year-old housewife turns to her eldest daughter: "This is "M" right?" ? to which the older girl nods.

Nothing but a mattress and radio

The mother's sense of helplessness is almost palpable.

It comes out in her initial reluctance to do the interview and her request for the family not to be identified for fear relatives might turn on them for "washing dirty linen in public".

She had shyly declined the request to hold the interview at their home, averring: "There's nothing at home. We have a single mattress on the floor for the children. Our 10-year-old television set broke down a few months ago and we only have a battery-operated radio."

Wheezing softly throughout the interview, the mother, who suffers from asthma attacks and high blood pressure, says she cannot find a job.

"I help my husband at his work because I don't want to stay at home and grow fat," she says matter-of-factly in Malay.

The day before, she adds, "we didn't work because he had to take me to the hospital. I hurt my leg".

For the couple, a trip to hospital not only means additional expenses (she cannot use her Medisave as her CPF account has been dormant since she stopped working six years ago) ? it also means $20 less in this month's pay packet.

The family has chalked up arrears in their utility bills of about $3,000 and face another cut to their water and electricity supply if they don't settle their bills soon.

"Abang (my husband) showed the PUB letter to his supervisor and asked whether he could lend us some money to pay off the bills," the mother says between sighs, while Lina and Awang shift in their seats uncomfortably.

Learning to do without

But the children have long since learnt to do without the amenities.

"The last time we didn't have electricity, we studied by using candles or I studied at the void deck," says Awang.

The siblings have also learned not to expect three square meals every day.

Says Lina: "Sometimes, we don't eat breakfast before we start working. When we go home, we will eat rice but if there are no dishes, we will eat rice with kicap (black sauce). When my mother has money, we will have fish, sardines and vegetables."

Just now, perhaps more so than most other Singaporeans, the family is glad the price of eggs has gone down.

"Yesterday, I gave money to Awang to buy two carton of eggs," says the mother with satisfaction.

And while other children take going to school for granted, the siblings cannot.

Awang, who will be in Secondary 1 next year, says: "I ponteng (skip school) when my mother doesn't have money to top up my fare card."

He passed his PSLE but is worried he might perform badly in Science and Mathematics.

Going for tuition, he knows, is out of the question.

Lina, who goes to a neighbourhood school in Serangoon, says earnestly: "When I don't have pocket money, I will sit at the study area to read. Do you know, $2 can last me four days. I don't eat, I just buy water."
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The family has twice received vouchers from their MP to settle their outstanding utilities bills.

A family service centre worker recently also approached the family to help with the children's pocket money and Awang had received free tuition from the service centre, while Muis has given help in the past.

But these temporary band aids cannot solve the father's lack of education or the mother's ill health ? which is why they do not have a steadier stream of income.

The point is not lost on Lina and Awang.

"I will study hard so that I can find a good job ? an office job," says Awang.

"My father and my mother are not educated. That's why it is hard for them to find jobs. They just work as sweepers, but it is an honest job."

Dreams of being a teacher

Lina, too, is determined to be a kindergarten teacher because she enjoys teaching "small kids like my younger sister".

She reveals that she owes the National Library about $19 in fines ? and, being unable to borrow books using her own card, "I bring my mother to the library so that she can borrow books for me," she says.

To make sure her siblings do not fall behind in their studies, Lina takes home storybooks that are discarded at the void decks and teaches them to read.

Of the three, only Sofia so far has received free textbooks from her school.

The fierce bond between the siblings and their parents is not lost to observers.

Little Sofia likes to snuggle in her mother's embrace while her older siblings look out for each other ? if one of them is out of sight even for a short while, they call out to each other.

At any one time, one of them is always with their mother ? just in case she gets out of breath while walking up the stairs to sweep the common walkway.

Lina and her brother say they sometimes feel sad that their baby sister can't have toys.

"I don't think she knows we are poor. She's still very young and carefree. She wants my mother to buy her toys and we feel guilty about it because we can't afford them," says Lina.

"When I was little, I also didn't know my parents have to work so hard but now I know. I hope by the time Sofia is older, I would have started working. I pray to my God that she doesn't be like me and my brother. I hope when she grows up, her life will be bright."

Is she shouldering too much, too soon, for a child just barely a teen?

Without even pausing to think, Lina says proudly: "I feel I'm fortunate because my parents love me. I don't care what other people say that we don't have money. It only makes me a stronger person.

"When I grow up, I will know how a poor person feels because I've been through it."