A carton of eggs, a kitchen full of supplies

 

Yesterday, my neighbour Kak Ros came up to my parents’ backyard with a carton of eggs in her hands.

“Nak buat apa dengan telur ni, Kak Ros (What are you doing with the eggs, Kak Ros)?” I asked.

“Nak bagi kat kamu lah (I am bringing it for you),” she replied.

I quickly unlocked my rusty gate to the backyard while my mom clumsily put on her headscarf and joined us.

“Banyak telur ni, Kak Ros (That’s a lot of eggs, Kak Ros),” I commented as my eyes wildly attempted to count them.

“Tiga puluh biji untuk keluarga kamu (30 eggs for your family),” Kak Ros explained as she passed the carton to my mom.

Looking at my mom’s hesitation, I asked Kak Ros why she was giving us the eggs. I just wanted to make sure she did not mistake the white T-shirts and the blue underwear hanging at our clothesline to be a call for help. After all, although we are not rich, we lived a comfortable life for a middle-class family.

“Surau bagi. Satu papan telur untuk satu keluarga (It’s from the mosque. One carton of eggs for one family).”

As Kak Ros began to walk away, my mom asked her if the eggs should have been given to those in need instead, to which Kak Ros replied, “Orang dah bagi, ambik saja. Rezeki ni, tak baik tolak. (Just accept it. Don’t refuse your good fortune)!”

Mom dragged her feet into our house and placed the eggs on our kitchen counter, next to the plastic containers filled with sugar, milk powder, instant coffee, tea leaves and oats. Below the counter are our supplies of essential groceries which we purchase every month - rice, flour, spices, dry and canned items. And next to the counter is our freezer box containing all our frozen proteins.

Yes, our kitchen is full of supplies and we are in no need of a carton of eggs.

Empty kitchens

Unlike us, there are many other families with empty kitchens in our country that are in desperate need of supplies. Some of them queue up for hours for basic supplies but end up with none. Some of them bring home a one-off food basket only to end up with an empty kitchen in a matter of days.

While there are so many people with empty cartons in their empty kitchen, it is so unfortunate that help often gets delivered to the wrong people - like a few acquaintances of mine who received Bantuan Prihatin despite living a very comfortable life. Now how did that happen? Do we have a dysfunctional system?

If a mosque in a small village like mine fail to make a fair assessment on who are most deserving of aid, so much so that they end up getting non-relevant parties to do a flawed aid distribution on their behalf, I don’t even want to imagine what’s going on with other aid distributions around the country.

Seriously, it makes me sick to the stomach to know that people entrusted to manage the aid meant for those in need are so reckless and irresponsible in ensuring help is given to the right people. I mean how difficult is it to identify people in need of help?

I suppose when the prime minister urged everyone not to raise white flags to ask for aid because help will eventually come, he was referring to people like me - I did not raise any flags yet I magically ended up with a carton of eggs and yes, I have a kitchen full of supplies too.

[Note: In case you are wondering, the carton of eggs we received finally found a new deserving family a couple of hours later, thanks to my mom.] - Mkini

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a director, a struggling producer, a photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.