BINTULU 8

Bintulu 8 – February 19th to March 23rd 2005.

Bintulu March 14, 2005.

I ponder. Another day goes by. In fact its been a few days since I posted my last ramblings. I am now into my fourth week in Bintulu. The two boys are constantly keeping us on our toes. School break has just started, so the two of them are together always. They play together, loudly and they fight loudly too. The little sister are often awakened in a jolt. We have to constantly coax them to be quiet. Its peace and quiet when they are asleep.

Over the last few days three of my sisters and their families went through different functions. One had held a celebration for her eighth grandchild yesterday, another held a marriage solemnization ceremony for her son also yesterday and yet another sister attended and accompanied one of her students to functions upon functions celebrating her success in obtaining A1s in all 17 subjects she took in the recent examinations. (See my previous blog on this). For obvious reasons I could not attend the first two functions but I am sure the functions went well, and I wish all of them well too.

Over the last few days a number of visitors came to visit Mini and the baby. One of them came and introduced Reverse Osmosis (RO) Water system to Shaffik. He even demonstrated the difference between RO water and other waters available. He was convincing. But then again, all of those trying to sell their stuff, whatever system it is, will be just as convincing. So where do we go then. There are many systems of water purification in the market. All of them claim theirs are superior than others. Theres even one system that claims to purify water to just water, nothing else. Is pure water and nothing else in it really good for us? I ponder. When I was in school, health science taught me that we need minerals in our body, all sorts, from calcium, magnesium, iron to selenium and a myriad of other minerals. One of the sources of these minerals is the water we drink. To my mind, we only need to purify and clean the water from bacteria and impurities, without any need to remove all else from the water. So, something at the back of my mind suspect, only a suspicion, that there is a correlation between the water supplier, the Jabatan Bekalan Air, Puas or whatever and the water system manufacturer. I wonder. When I was young, I used to carry water in metal pails and other containers from the standpipes at the roadside into the house, (water were not piped into the houses then). I used to drink water direct from the pipe. Nobody thought of filtering the water before use. Even when the water was allowed to stand in the containers for a long time there were no sediments or any settlements at the bottom. Now? Phoooh! The muck that comes off the water filters is just unbelieveable. Whites when washed in the washing machines can turn yellow if not careful. I even read in the papers that people have found all sorts of impurities coming out of their taps, including live ‘crawlies’ and worms!! So can I be blamed for pondering and wondering if there is a connection between suppliers and manufacturers?

I recently see advertisements and hear news of a prominent personality appealing to people to attend a musical function that is held to collect funds for the Tsunami victims. Over the past few months there have been many funds and collection centers set up for this purpose. Millions upon millions have already been collected. A lot of Hoohaaa on the amount collected, of how generous so and so are, such and such a company are. They appear on TV to show to the world how conscious they are to the plight of the victims. Who then is responsible for all the money? Who then accounts for all that has been collected? Its money held in trust from all that has donated. As its money in trust, it should be properly accounted for. If not it will be a breach of that trust!! How about the victims? Have they been adequately attended to? I know from an experience of someone very close to me that her attempt to pass on donations directly to the victims at one location was thwarted by the politicians and their cohorts, to the extent of using the police to prevent her. All donations must go through a certain ‘authority’ they say. Is this then genuine attempt at helping the victims? I wonder and I continue to ponder. I am very much afraid of the wrath of the One and Only, the Almighty. Was not tsunami one of it?


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Bintulu