| Better Beds, Better Sleep | ||||
| By Tan Kim Hion and Koh Poo Leng Translated by Tang Yau-yang | ||||
Wet floor were not the most comfortable place to sleep, but they had to suffice for many flood victims. But after receiving folding beds at a relief distribution, they could rest easier and have more energy to face the challenges on their road back to normalcy. "Although Master Cheng Yen isn’t here personally, we still feel her love for us,” said Charlie B Din, the village head of Kampung Paya Mendoi. Tears welled up in his eyes as he lay across a folding bed. On January 11, 2015, Tzu Chi volunteers held a relief distribution for flood victims at SMK Kuala Krau, a secondary school in Pahang, Malaysia. Items including daily necessities, blankets, disinfectants, and folding beds were given out. Charlie B Din, himself one of the aid recipients, finally cracked a smile when volunteers handed the items to him.
Volunteers followed him home after the distribution, though the other members of his family were not there. “The flood came in that high,” he said, pointing at a water line on a wall. “The lowest 23 homes in the village were awash first.”
A flood-damaged gas range lay on the floor. An improvised contraption made with wood planks in his bedroom served as his bed, such as it was. It was not long enough for a tall man like him to stretch out. Though he did not particularly enjoy sleeping in a constrained, curled-up position, he didn’t have much choice—the only alternative was to sleep on the cold, wet floor. The volunteers helped him move the rickety old bed out of the house and open the folding bed he had received at the distribution. The village head could not wait to lie on it. He stretched all out on the bed, first flat on his back and then sideways. He was enchanted. He sat up, choked back his tears, and said, “This is good, really comfortable. Now I can have a good night’s sleep with my body fully stretched out.” Norhayati Ibrahn lived in Kampung Tanjung Kubu on the bank of the Pahang River. As soon as she and her mother had received their goods and returned to their house, they pulled open their folding bed. The Tzu Chi volunteers who had followed them home sat with her mother on the bed. The old woman smiled widely. She held a volunteer’s hands and gently said, “You’re all very kind, very kind.” “Look! Mom is smiling! She has rarely smiled since the flood,” Norhayati Ibrahn said a bit emotionally. She did not expect that the first group to reach them with aid after the flood would be Chinese—people of a different ethnicity from her, and total strangers to boot.
The daughter cast her mind back to the time when the flood struck. The Pahang River rose fiercely and quickly. She, her mother, and their neighbors had to run for their lives, leaving all their things behind. They were put up in a shelter, which was without water and electricity for the first two days they were there.
A week later, the water had receded and they went home for the first time. When her mom saw what the flood had done to their house, she cried her heart out.
“Dad built this house with his own hands,” Norhayati Ibrahn explained, “and many things in the house belonged to him and Mom. After Dad passed on, those were the only things that Mom had to remember Dad by. When the deluge destroyed everything, it was more than she could take. She has cried a lot since.”
Their furniture and refrigerator were covered in mud and their walls and windows were damaged. Having nothing better, they slept on the damp concrete floor with only a straw mat to shield them from the chill of the floor. Things did not look very good for the two of them. Then Norhayati Ibrahn heard about the Tzu Chi cash-for-work cleanup program. Early on January 10, she took her mother to SMK Kuala Krau to sign up. The program did not extend to their village, but at their sincere request volunteers visited the village to appraise the situation. They saw a dozen families, all consisting of older Malays. No aid had reached them yet, so the volunteers arranged for trucks and people to come in and clean up.
“Ours is a forgotten village,” Norhayati Ibrahn said. “If you hadn’t helped us, we wouldn’t have been able to afford trucks to haul away the garbage. We’d have had to live with stinky rubbish.” She was really glad that her village got the assistance.
She sat on the new bed and said to her mother, “This bed from Taiwan is wonderful. Mom, lie down and try it out.” The old woman cheerfully did as her daughter suggested. Then she smiled and said that after having slept on the cold floor for several nights, it would be a great blessing to sleep on such a comfortable bed.
“Thank you for coming to my home often to show care for my mother. Only when she’s happy will I feel right,” Norhayati Ibrahn added. At the sight of her mother tightly embracing the volunteers, she realized that love knows no skin color, ethnicity, or religion. All people are family.
The volunteers told them that the blankets they distributed had been made from recycled PET bottles. That made Norhayati Ibrahn think. She thought of the Styrofoam, plastic bags, bottles, and cans floating in the river. She did not know where this stuff all came from, but she knew that if people kept throwing garbage into the river, one day the river would again carry such garbage into her house.
“Although I’ve known Tzu Chi for just two days, I really identify with its ideals,” she said. She believes that everybody should recycle and help others now, and not wait until another disaster strikes. “Mom and I used to live idly before the flood. Now I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to join in Tzu Chi’s recycling work. That is a meaningful cause.”
Her decision moved the volunteers. They hugged her. She hurriedly wiped away her tears and smiled.
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