"Bakat dikurnia jangan disalah guna, Jangan kufur nikmat yang diberi percuma,Guna kelebihan untuk hikmah bersama."
Last weekend was by far one of the most hectic yet amazing weekend I have had since I can remember.
1) I met up with the bride-to-be Nurul and her fiance for a quick lunch and it was just nice to get together and talk about life, work, and of course her wedding preparations. Because come on, I am a girl who still gets giddy inside when I hear about wedding preparations. With all the flowers, dresses, halls, I got nervous inside like as if I was the one getting married! Hah! I still can't believe that this person I've known since I was 14, who ultimately failed together at trying to skateboard is getting married in 4 months. Wow, time just needs to like, chill out and let me finish my cup of tea.
2) I went to Buku Jalanan's birthday bash at Shah Alam with Zharif after meeting up with Nurul. It was a laid back non-fancy type of festival which was just perfect in its own way. With a couple of stages set up for forums and discussions, live performances, it was nice to see everyone gathered around just for the music and some input. The theme of one of the forums was "Dari P. Ramlee ke Rindu Awak 200%" which when I saw its title on one of the posters actually really caught my eye. Although I didn't have the whole chance of listening to the whole forum, it definitely did make me wonder on how drastically our film industry has changed from being something so classy to something so...unrecognizable.
3) We ended the night at the batting cage in One Utama with one of Zharif's friends who had made it clear that he needed to clear off all the things he had on his bucket list before he graduated which meant me twisting my every muscle trying to swing the bat and actually hitting the ball. I'm not even talking about hitting the baseball so that it had an actual trajectory; but like hitting it so that it'd bounce off and nearly bruise me type of hitting. But I had a really good time because it was so nice to actually let go and be myself in front of the guys. Then again, when have I not ever been my weird old self when I'm with Zharif? So, yeah.
4) I spent the Sunday at Dapur Jalanan. This was probably the highlight of my week in total. I had heard of Dapur Jalanan-which is basically a soup kitchen, when I was still studying in Japan but since then had never actually participated in anything. Luckily, Zharif is very much active in Dapur Jalanan so it was just the perfect opportunity for me to actually experience it myself. And let me just say, you just have to be there to actually understand the whole experience. Unfortunately for me, it was raining cats and dogs when Zharif and I reached Pasar Seni's LRT station and we got automatically soaked from all the rain and wind that came at us. I was practically freezing underneath my wet clothes which got me thinking; I wonder how the homeless people deal with it. They obviously don't have a place to call home to, so I wonder where they shelter at. Or if they even shelter at all, because as we all know, these people like to walk and scatter around. The thought of that immediately erased me of my worry about the rain and how cold I was. I was just lucky enough to actually have clothes on to keep me warm.
So by the time we started giving out food, it was already 6 pm because the food came late due to heavy rain and traffic. Mind you, it was still drizzling while we were giving out food. We were lucky enough to actually find a spot to put all the food despite raindrops dropping into some of our bubur kacang and air laici.
While I was there, there was this one lady that caught my attention. She had been waiting behind Zharif and I while we were waiting for the food to arrive. She had a little boy with her. And she sat him down as he opened up one of his new toys which I peeked to see was a character figurine thingy from The Hobbit. I honestly thought at first that she was just another volunteer probably just wanting to help around. But later did I discover, while I was giving out food, she strolled by and said thank you with her two hands full of nasi, roti canai, and sandwiches while her kid followed beside her. Then it hit me. She and this kid, she wasn't waiting for the food to arrive so that we could provide for them; she was one of them who needed the providing. So the strings on my heart tugged. I wonder what happened. Why was she there. Did she really have no place to go to? Or maybe her husband left her and she had no financial aid because we all know how common these type of stories are. But nonetheless, where was her family? I still can't stop thinking about it. I wish I had the time to ask her where she was from, how old her little boy was, because he looked pretty much Mikhail's age. I got home that night thinking and wishing if I could really just do more, you know? There must be something more I could do than just give out food. If it was possible, I wanted to follow them to where they were staying just to look at the state of what they call 'home'...
We see so many homeless people on the streets sometimes and we're scared of them because their mainly old men with cut out shorts and t-shirts but its when you join these kind of activities you realize, that there's actually more to that. Just because they dress different doesn't make them less of a human than we are. Zharif even told me that there's actually a whole family that is homeless. A whole family. Imagine that. Imagine what a loaf of bread to the whole family could do. So many of us believe that charity is so associated to money. I don't deny that charity funds are a great way to help, but that can never, ever, be equal to the feeling you get from giving something such as food directly to someone and actually looking them in the eyes when they truly say, 'Thank you.'
All I can say is, my one day in the rain with the homeless people has taught me more about life than any book/forum/talk has.
