It is a small village in the kecamatan of Tambusai, Kabupaten Rokan Hulu in the Province of Riau, Sumatra. During the Padri Wars of 1830's , Tuanku Tambusai (aka known as Fakeh Hj Muhammad Salleh ) fought the Dutch forces together with Imam Bonjol and Tuanku Rao in West Sumatra and in Northern Sumatra .The last defence was in Benteng 7 Lapis,Daludalu which fell in 1838. He escaped capture and came to Malaya. He was buried in Rasah in 1882.
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Ma(i)d Hassle
The problem of getting someone reliable and dependable to help out when you need it most has been a classical theme from a single family unit right up to various sectors in our service industries. I had the experience of a maid whom my son employed when his first child is still an infant, who ran away right under my nose one day while I was dozing off in the living room. When I woke up and realised that my grandson was alone sleeping, it dawned upon me that the maid could be outside and called out for her but to no avail. Only after I saw her sandals missing, I sensed something wrong was happening. When I asked my wife if she had seen the maid, she too gave me a negative answer. Two weeks later my son told me that the agent informed him that she died of dehydration. Apparently she took refuge at her friend's house and went down with diarrhoea but being too afraid to go and seek medical aid since she had no papers on her, she died probably after losing so much fluids. Today at about 11.00 a.m. the Maid who stayed with my sister in Seremban to help her looking after my aged father left her house when she had to go to hospital for an appointment.We took this new person after the previous one went home and her replacement had not been able to settle down with her work and we sent her back to the agent. But due to some unavoidable circumstances, we took her back because we had no choice. The haggling between the two countries on how much maids should be paid seemed to have taken a toll on many. So I had to go along today with my brother to the Police Station to make a report on the missing maid. Fortunately the procedure is simple and straightforward, as we have to submit the report to the authorities responsible for her visa.Since the maid took her passport with her, she could easily claim that her stay here is legal, but once the work visa is cancelled, her stay here is deemed illegal. Now we have to sort out with the Immigration Department and the effort to find a replacement has to start all over again. This is what I mean by a Ma(i)d hassle.
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5 comments:
Dear Hal,
The agents are the ones. They 'recycle' the maids. They send u the maid, collect their dues for the service,get back the maid under some pretext, send to another employer and collect their dues again.
The rules have been changed to counter this sort of situations but the agents somehow get around it'
Getting a maid is a risky venture. You just hope your luck holds!
Akhi Halim, Kk is right and my son has experienced the same problem. My wife lost a few thousand ringgit
to an agent who promised to send a maid but failed to do so.
Maybe it's high time for Malaysia to think in terms of training professional house helpers, maids, domestic assistants or whatever you want to call them, with an attractive pay scheme. If the pay is good and the job is given a proper prestige, I am sure local girls (and boys) will be interested in the job.
Dear Hank and Akhi Norzah,
Our people had been spoilt by the cheap wages that had prevailed for a very long time and now they have become addicted to it. I refused to have foreign maid for me, but this is for my father and the agent is a close relative who had been doing it on an independent basis for umpteen years. The recycling is not involved in this particular case and a replacement is being pursued by her.
It is not only just the wages Akhi, and you have rightly said, it's the poor prestige that is attached to such occupations. That's the most difficult obstacle to overcome.
I do not think we can change this situation within this decade, given the situation where the service sector is crying for help to allow them to continue hiring foreign workers as our own people are unwilling to take up the long working hours and the poor prestige attached to them.
kaykuala,
And so we have none. It is all quiet and peaceful.
Whatever the PM is going to say about Idris Jala's projection, the national debts stand at RM 362 billion while the fiscal deficit is RM47 billion. The subsidies total RM74 billion a year (NST Friday,28). If nothing is done ID fears that Malaysia will go bankcrup by 2019since the debt increases by 12% a year.The denial syndrome is certainly sickening, ya Akhi. But more importantly, why cut the subsidies to to solve the problem? Do that and the price of things will go up, Anyone can solve a problem by just cutting expenses here and there, and let the poor suffer. The challenge is to raise income to meet the expenses. We hear companies making RM millions of profit. Only GLCs like Perwaja ,Sime Darby etc areloosing billions of ringgit. Why can't something be done to raise the income of the nation as what the NEM proposed to do? Idris Jala has pointed out the problem. Govt should act immediately to solve it and not dilly-dolly through
a negtion of the issue and at the last moment as an act of desperation cut the subsidies or allow prices to soar up as it did once in the case of the price of gas.
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