Aunty Enn and Uncle Pete!

Sometimes you just know that things are going to be a bit strange when you work with Reach Out.
You get that feeling that its not going to be normal.
Such is the case a couple of Saturdays ago.
It all started quite innocently at the packing on Saturday afternoon.
Everyone working away, the usual chatter amongst this group of friends and volunteers when I got accidentally walloped on the head by a cardboard box.
Now, Jaja can pack a serious bear hug, and I found out she can also pack a fair thump with a cardboard box.
Then, a short time after, I hear one of our middle aged ladies calling "uncle, uncle".
I look round and discover she is calling me!!!
UNCLE????? ME??????
Outbursts of uncontrolled giggling ensued, led by our dear Enn, who was in tears from laughing so much.
UNCLE??? ME???
So I said to Milo and Enn after the packing that I thought it was going to be a strange sort of day. Revenge was in the air for the "Uncle" statement! After all I'm still young........(at heart)!
Off we go, midnight run and at our second stop I saw Feexa involved in a lengthy discussion with a new face on the streets, a middle aged Chinese gentlemen.
Joining the conversation he said to me that he wasn't in fact homeless, but had only come to see what this street feeding was all about as he had heard about it.
The fact that he was shoeless, a little disheveled, and had a piece of black rope tied round his trousers as a belt, led me to believe that this poor soul was not what he was claiming to be.
He was also wearing very thick round framed glasses.
The reason I mention the glasses will become apparent shortly as this tale unfolds.
So he said to me that he was so happy to see young people (pointing at Feexa) doing this type of work. I giggled.
"That's the missus" I explained.
He was quite shocked and said that he thought Feexa was only 23 years old.
I giggled again and got slapped by Feexa!
He then exclaimed that if I was her other half then I must have been a cradle snatcher!
This time Feexa giggled. She didn't get slapped!
Rather embarrassed he then told that actually I looked only late 30's, so that made up for things and certainly stopped Feexa's giggling.
Mind you it took a while for me to get Feexa back to normal from the "23 year old syndrome" that had kicked in.
Off we go on our travels and make our way down to the market in Pudu where Enn meets up with a client and passes him his food packet.
This chap then asks us to wait and he goes and gets a new chap we didn't know, introduces him to Enn, and we also give him a food packet.
Revenge is sweet.
When our new client takes the packet, Siva, (Enn's street friend), in a fierce voice says:
"Hey, you thank Aunty for the food ok".
AUNTY!!!!! AUNTY ENN!!!! Hehehehehehehehehehehe.
Revenge is mine!
There was a lot of giggling that strange day.

Word From The Streets

Firstly my apologies.
If you find the contents of my blogs and postings about Kechara a little sensitive then I am sorry.
But I urge you to check out the previous blogs here and also previous articles written on the Reach Out Facebook site.
This will allow those who are wondering why I keep naming Kechara Soup Kitchen (KSK) and the Kechara Buddhist Organisation in my writings.
I have no personal agenda against Kechara. But their work is flawed and their intention is deceitful.
The poor of Kuala Lumpur have got enough issues.
They have been abused and used for quite sometime.
And I for one will not standby and allow this to continue without raising the awareness of what we face in our own work with Reach and how this so called charitable society KSK operates.
Transparency and truth. That's what we want.
That's why I name them.
Ok now that I have got that off my chest on with the latest news....
On the midnight run on Saturday's we have been meeting at the Al Wira mamak restaurant on Jalan Pudu for sometime now.
Last week for the first time 4 volunteers from KSK came, pushed their way through where we were seated and then returned the same way to a small table where they continued to watch us. Mind you every time I looked at them they looked away quickly!
We were seated outside.
Three Chinese women and one foreigner.
We know them as they have confronted us on the street before demanding to know who we were and why we were feeding in "their area"! So rude!
So last night we meet again for a quick tea and a chat before we get on with our late runs. Once again the KSK volunteers, (2 of them), arrive. One moves his table right next to ours (despite there being plenty of room on the street and no other customers and stands staring at us, (again until I eyeball him), and as I make a move to stand up and go to speak to him he moves off into the restaurant itself.
On both occasions they are in plain clothes and seem to have abandoned their KSK t-shirts and IC cards. The arrogance has to be seen to be believed. Ask those who were there!
We move off and as we are transferring food from Datin Sury's vehicle to mine a young Chinese fellow walks up to Enn and Feexa and chats for a while. He then moves off and joins the KSK team.
Enn and Feexa then let us know that he approached us asking if he can come and work with Reach as he finds KSK "too religious"and is "very fed up with them"! Enn gives him our contacts and asks him to call, (we aint stupid and I want to do a full vetting on this guy).
Oh and by the way, last week we had a call from our fresh bread sponsor wanting to know if there was any substance in the rumours she had heard that we were replacing the fresh bread she donates to us with inferior mass produced bread on the street!
We of course invited our sponsor to come onto the street at anytime unannounced to check that there was no fact in these disgusting and unfounded allegations.
Mmmm.....
So off we go on our midnight rounds.
At Bangkok Bank I run into an old friend Kevin.
Kevin used to assists us when we packed at Bangkok Bank and has been a street friend for many years. Kevin is a great lad, collects old cans and cardboard and knows everything going on on the street.
He is....was.... ( I can qualify the 'was' after you read the following), a staunch KSK supporter.
Kevin was fuming.
I have never seen him so angry or animated.
This is what he told me, in front of other Reach Out Volunteers:
1. An old uncle who used to help us pack on the street years ago has been employed by KSK in their Jalan Imbi Soup Kitchen premises and has been speaking to Kevin recently.
2. KSK does not cook food there. All food is delivered from sponsors.
3. KSK has every item they require fully sponsored and in fact has extra food that they can't distribute so return it (dry goods).
4. This uncle has advised that KSK have made it public within their soup kitchen that they are raising funds for a "new temple". I can only assume this is the RM120 million for their monastery in the Genting Highlands.
5. Kevin advised that a KSK volunteer recently told him that KSK will raise the funds for the new temple.
6. Giant recently donated umbrellas to KSK for the street folks. None have been issued onto the street. Kevin advised that they have been distributed amongst Kechara members for their use.
7. Kevin recently brought to the attention of Justin from KSK (Justin heads operations and occasionally goes on the street), that there was an injured man near to Kota Raya and that he had a cut arm that needed medical attention. KSK ignored Kevin. The man was left to his own devices.
8. KSK have been feeding in different areas each Saturday. Kevin believes this is to try and cover more areas so they can claim to "do lots of feeding for the poor but actually they don't".
9. Last week KSK didn't feed in the Bangkok Bank area as normal.
10. KSK is feeding at different times and as such don't manage to get too a lot of the street folks.
Kevin was scathing and has advised that the street folks are now dumping the KSK food as they have found it to smell and taste 'funny'. Many Muslims on the street are refusing to even accept KSK food packets.
I asked Kevin if he had met Ruby Khong the KSK President recently as she had claimed in a recent newspaper and magazine article that she was on the streets of Kuala Lumpur 'every weekend feeding the poor".
Kevin spat and what he said cant be written here, but the gist was that no he hadn't seen her and can't remember the last time she was on the streets.
Our Chow Kit crew last night found that at 10.30pm - 11pm they had significantly larger numbers of street folks wanting food as KSK had not provided. Normally KSK are there before 10.30pm and we have to cover the folks they 'miss'.
We were fortunate enough last night to have, apart from our great normal crew, 11 Ustaz and future Ustaz from JAWI join us as volunteers on the late run.
The reason I say fortunate is that Amin, Ash and I were able to show them a KSK Styrofoam pack at the HSBC/7-11 corner containing a handful of vegetables and a handful of rice swimming in oil.
It smelt off and when I allowed Ustaz to view it he recoiled in disgust due to the smell.
The young scholarship boys with JAWI could not believe that this kind of food was on the street. Our friends from JAWI then spoke to some of the homeless at this location and were told that yes it was KSK food. Yes it had just been delivered to them. Yes they refused to eat it. Yes they ate Reach food as it was hot and fresh.
I am making no comment on this post.
I have made my comments already in previous blogs.
But I only want to say that with each passing day more and more people are having confirmed what I have been stating about KSK, their agenda, and their treatment of the poor and destitute.
And that is why I write about them.
Because the homeless who don't have a voice have one with Reach Out.
And for that I do not apologise!

Half A Century.

I know that I said that this blog was about the adventures of Reach but allow me to wallow a little.
There is a connection here...honestly!
I've reached, (pardon the pun), half a century today. the third of December, 1960, born in Cresswell Maternity Horpital, Dumfries, Scotland.
Fifty years of creating chaos and mayhem, or so I would like to think hehehe.
So you reflect, right?
You reflect on what has happened to you. What have you really done. What is left.
I am totally blessed. Really.
I don't mean that in some arrogant, egotistical way. I mean that I have been blessed to find what I am truly supposed to be. What I really want to do. What I should be doing. My purpose.
I have travelled, been to many strange places, met many strange people.
I have done amazing things and also very very stupid things.
I have been right and also wrong.
I have been shamed and shameful.
I have had really only two jobs in my life and I adored doing both. I was a totally committed Policeman. I am now totally committed to my career in Security.
But there was something missing.
Protecting those that pay you for the work is excellent. That's business. That's life.
But helping, (perhaps also protecting in some way), those that can't pay, and doing it for the reasons of love and care....well that's a different ball game.
That's what I found in Reach.
I am also blessed to work in Reach with the most incredible human beings. Those that volunteer on the street, those that work in the education programme, those that pack the food, those that sponsor, those that offer their support without question. The friends that we work with from other organisations. Now that is what I should be doing.
And I can!
Reach gives each of us something we can not measure. It has no physical form. Is it spiritual? Maybe in some way.
But everyone of us is touched by what we do.
And Reach has been the conduit, the medium, to allow the energy and dynamic of caring people to form, grow and deliver.
I look back and I see what I have done in my life, some good, some things not so good.
Always evaluated and judged by society and what they consider 'the norm'.
But Reach forgives us our 'abnormal traits' if we work with real compassion. It drives us. It inspires us.
It ain't easy what we do. But who said if its good it was to be easy?
So in the last few years I have been able to do what I am suppose to do.
I am incredibly lucky, (yes blessed) to have found this at this time in my life.
In fact, to have found this at all.
To all those in Reach Out, thank you. Thank you for your support, your kindness and your care.
Most of all for your friendship.
Thank you to all of our street friends who allow us to do this work in helping them.
So here's to the next 50 years, (which I am really, really looking forward to).