We are going to miss you...NOT!

I don't like to call them "maids"...House helper sounds more decent! And this is the picture of ours which was taken a week or so after she first arrived in Malaysia. Her size now....has increased by one third.What good life she has. Even the agency exclaimed to her "Have you been doing work or have you been eating a lot?". She really CAN eat (half a pot of a small rice cooker is just lunch!)!

Having her is like, to quote wifey "having another child of ours in the house except that she irons and play with the two younger ones"! My wife cooks at 5.30 am for breakfast and lunch every day, mops the floor, washes all the toilets (including my maid's) and I do the laundry of about three loads a day.

Her contract is ending in January 2008...but wifey decided to send her home before it expires since wifey wants to train her replacement before our fifth baby arrives early October or late September. She's flying off this coming Saturday.

Called her dad this morning and told him to wait for her when she arrives in Jakarta and the first thing he asked "Berapa uangnya kesemuanya" (How much is the wages in total that she's going to be paid?) I was like....."Aren't you going to ask the flight details etc etc.....?". When I broke the news to her...it was exactly the same response "Bagimana dengan uangnya..mahu dibayar dengan cek atau apa?" (What about the wages? How are you paying?By cheque?). In my heart, wasn't she interested why we are sending her back earlier than she is supposed to go back? The thing about her and her dad is that it's all money money money...It doesn't matter whether she actually deserves to be paid the wages in full or otherwise. What is due to her is still due to her...., right? Regardless of how incompetent she has been and how wifey and I have been doing half of her workload thusfar!

We have had good ones before....One was with us for almost six years until she was betrothed to a man who was 10 years younger than her and who was really leeching her financially that she had to resort to keeping and seling my wife's wedding ring and jewelleries (in spite of us bringing her for a holiday abroad, buying her jewelleries and giving bonuses). We just had to send her home! She actually named his son with the new husband after our second son, Yusof whom she looked after since he was three month old!

The other one only lasted for a year because she was offerred a teaching position back home after paying the middle person (did you know that to secure a government job you need to pay thiese middlemen fees? That's the extent of corruption there) her one year of salary working with us...Only to find out after she got back that that middle man wanted more and she was left in the lurch! She recently gave birth to a baby girl and named her after our first daughter, Siti Khadijah....My parents are flying over to Medan next Monday and I have told this ex-helper to wait at the airport to get goodies from us which I am sending through my parents!

But this present one......I don't think she'll be sorely missed.....

Keeping our fingers crossed that the new one who's arriving tomorrow will be better tah the existing one! Pray for us, yah!