I was feeling really bad just now. Deflated. Empty of all energy. My head was spinning. So many things to do.
And all it took was a painkiller - though I wish I had Oxycodone or Vicodin - and some hip hop to get me some energy. And then I forced myself to start work on something.
I hate slave-drivers, because I am one with myself. I still need a massage, though.
I discovered, in my short trip to Kuantan, that there are people who are living with less than RM400 a month, for a household of eight people, and that is IF their employers pay.
There are people who have cars - beat up jalopies - but have to scrounge up tapioca and other tubular plants just to eat. And their vehicles gather dust in their front lawns. No petrol to take them around twon, and feel great about themselves.
I am sure there are many sad cases everywhere in Malaysia. People who are taken advantage of by politicians come the elections, but discarded by both BN and PR alike when the mean seasons come and they start fighting each other.
These politicians never cared for these people. Rightfully so, perhaps. It is too big an undertaking for their small minds.
The people at my village itself is part of the problem. They are an envious, perhaps even spiteful lot. Full of hate and suspicion. The poor Malays are perhaps the most cynical people on earth - believing in obscure conspiracy theories than science and fact. In this case, it works against them.
Most of these people got married and then had loads of children. One guy I know has, in his own words, "Satu dozen campur dua." - 14. And he made less than RM1K a month. The fuck is he going to feed them?
They see birth control as sinful - like real Catholics.
My father observed this as a failure of the Malaysian entertainment industry.
"After 9pm, they have nothing to watch on TV, so they turn off the lights and start to 'roncoh' the wife." 'Roncoh' meaning to insert a tool roughly and scrape the walls of something. He pronounced it as 'ghonchoh'.
I have never agreed with the marital institution and how it has destroyed lives. And I believe that the number of kids should be limited. But we would be worse than Pol Pot or Hitler if we were to go against these people's freedom.
Freedom to fuck, and freedom to fuck themselves.
However, no matter how undesirable these fuckers and their actions are, I believe that people who have the means should help them.
Not for thanks, because they will never thank us - not all of them. Not for 'pahala' because I believe doing something for 'pahala' is a bit conceited and dishonest - but you are welcome to race me to heaven, man. To each his own, right?
I believe that these people should be helped, simply because they need to be helped, and we can help them. Rather than squabbling for Toyota Camrys and unshaved armpits, perhaps we can channel all that time and energy into something constructive.
I hate demonstrations. If I ever get caught for something I did or didn't do, no need for candle-lit vigils, please.
In the Koran, God said that He will not change the fate of a people unless that people change its own fate. In other words, be proactive, you stupid pieces of shit!
I have the headman's number. And I plan to do something about it.
These people need food, for they have so little. Clothes, cause the last time I brought a suitcase full of them, they wore it till the threads start coming out.
Some have trouble keeping a roof over their heads.
And then, the next step - providing them with a means to get income. I am targeting a total RM500 from various industry to help them cope with their lives. It can be done. Just needs some management.
So, here's an initial checklist. Will have more when I get specific information later on.
FOOD:
1. Sugar
2. Salt
3. Rice
4. Tea
5. Coffee
6. Salted fish
7. Shallots, onions, garlic
8. dried anchovies
9. salted fish
10. milk powder
11. dried chilli
12. dried noodles - fettucini/beehoon, stick noodles, etc.
13. eggs
14. cooking oil
15. flour
CLOTHES:
1. T-shirts. Lots of t-shirts. I got them shirts last time, but they prefer everyday wear.
2. Baby clothes.
3. Children's clothes
4. Feminine(?) clothes.
SHELTER
1. There is one family - single mother of EIGHT who lives beside the mosque, in a wakaf home. The husband died recently, and she has trouble paying the rent. The social status of the husband - he is an alleged drug abuser - as well as the normal kampung spite has caused some of the village people to try and evict them from the premises.
2. various families living in squalor. No modern toilets, etc.
Now, my master plan, eventually, is to set up income-generating industries for these people.
Their skills are limited, and most would sabotage each other, so a clear management team should be assembled.
Case study: Most of the women can cook. So one of the desperate housewives suggested some months ago to provide breakfast items in the form of nasi lemak and nasi minyak. She was to do nasi minyak, and her neighbour to cook nasi lemak.
This only lasted for a few days because:
1. Both started doing BOTH dishes, envious and greedy for the other's profits.
2. Marketing failure. They wanted to sell it to the village folk who are just as poor and whom all believe they could cook better than the other one.
3. No follow-through. They do not have enough capital to sustain even six months of 100% losses, which is a MINIMUM in any business.
4. No means. No transportation, no connections, no deals, no fill-in-the-blanks.
There was also a viable cottage industry of sewing, but:
1. The capital is too high and these people do not and cannot work together as a co-op, because they are like that.
2. No one has ALL the necessary skills. To get skills, you need to pay for training, and the ones who do have them, do not divulge in their secrets or are reluctant to, because village people often backstab each other.
Yes, I know it's ugly. But somebody has to get down and dirty. And it's not going to be politicians, UNTIL they see the kind of mileage they can get from this. The politicians who DID try to help, were not smart or honest enough to foresee the necessary whatever to ensure the success of their 'assistance'.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE:
To ensure a continuous, income-generating industry, one needs capital and a means to achieve set targets, and of course, marketing arrangements.
My idea is to get the people to produce, for example, 1,000 packets of nasi lemak every day - say 100 packets from each household. Each with its own brand (simulated with ink rubber stamps), as these people cannot work together and are individualists to the extreme.
These packets will be sent to different parts of Kuantan. Perhaps 50 packets at one restaurant, 50 at another, or even 200 at a larger establishment.
This should be the primary market. Selling it at the village itself could only be done as a secondary target.
In other places in Kuantan, where the village is constructed near the main roads, some enterprising villagers have set up rows upon rows of food stalls. Anything from nasi lemak to gulai kawah to sup torpedo. Something like kampung Baru over 20 kilometres.
This formula works, as people who stay in the rural areas stop for these breakfast things en route to work in Kuantan city offices.
I do not think ALL villages should do this, and direct supply should be the order of the day.
This also creates a few job opportunities:
1. Delivery man, with his own transport.
2. Project manager - probably a kaypoh tudunged-makcik with a calculator and a former direct-selling/pyramid-scheme enterpreneur.
The same model can also be applied to, say, school-uniform production.
No one can compete with China for:
1. Cheap material.
AND
2. Cheap labour.
So, don't go against them. Not head on.
Buy cheap material from China and get the extremely cheap labour from villages to turn them into school uniforms.
The possibilities are endless, but these people in rural areas need proper management. Cool heads. Pure hearts.
If I had two million ringgits, I would have retired and did these charity projects. But I don't.
So what I can do is perhaps:
1. Set up food banks.
2. Set up clothes donation shit.
3. Work towards setting up self-sustaining industries.
There is a new breed of people in rural areas I can count on. The educated folk who moved to rural areas in order to live rustic, even bucolic lives.
Some are retired people. Others are the younger generations who gave up on city life, cause it's fucked up and are actually quite close to their homes in the villages anyway.
Sure, not all are trustworthy, but enough exist to handle these things, if they want to. I need to set up a coalition of the willing. If Bush can do it, I can find enough to do it as well.
And then, there are mosques. The majority of the people in this country are Muslims. Islam is the national religion. Tons of money are spent on mosques and the construction of new mosques.
As a Muslim - though admittedly not a very good one - I am embarrassed that most charity projects are done by churches and temples. Not saying there are no projects done at mosques, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
It's time to take back the mosques.
Those who want to use it for political activities should be allowed to do so. At least it's being used for something. But these kinds of projects I am thinking of should utilize the mosques as a community center.
Why?
Well:
1. Gets people together. Networking is always good. Regardless of race, religion, political inclination.
2. Shows that we don't have AK-47s and shaped-charge grenades hidden behind the mimbars. A better image for Islam.
3. Bridges the gap between the 'lost' Malays such as myself and the hardcore grassroots.
4. Thins racism - as I suspect a significant number of non-Malays could be interested in doing this.
I am serious about doing this. If I had an agenda, this was it. I want to be a superhero. All of the things I did in my life so far, culminates in this. All the subtle machinations, the building of foundations, all my observations, it is to do this.
And as always, it was something I wanted to do when I retire. Then, I figured, hell, man, I can do this now.
And as soon as I get enough information and the means to do so, I will let you know. In the meantime, I need to take care of myself, and my own work.
Back to my scripts.
Live long and prosper, you sons of bitches.
