Last week Maria (our part-time helper of 11 years) Whatsapped me a photo of a receipt and meds. The receipt has the name of a maternity centre in Cheras. When I saw the photo, I knew that something went awry with her pregnancy. She was about 11 weeks along. And I had the hunch that she wanted to borrow money from me.
My hunch was right. Maria later called me to tell me that she did a procedure to remove some polyps from her cervix at a private maternity centre. Her gynae also told her that the fetus wasn’t doing well and I think had no heart beat. I didn’t really understand what she was trying to explain to me.
Maria had to do a D&C procedure at the maternity centre the next morning. The earlier procedure cost her RM650 and the D&C would cost her another RM2k. She didn’t have enough money and asked if she could borrow RM500 from me.
I knew that there’s a high possibility that Maria may not be able to return the RM500 to me due to her financial situation. Her husband earns a meagre wage as a leaves blower. She also has to send money back to Indonesia to her mum, mil and for her toddler sons’ expenses.
I told Maria that I could only lend her RM400 as this was all the cash that I had with me. She needed the cash immediately. I don’t carry a lot of cash with me as 99% of my stuff are purchased via e-Wallets or online.
When I told the mil about Maria’s predicament, she was very empathetic and immediately told me that she could lend Maria RM100.
So now we have RM500 and Maria who was accompanied by her husband came to our condo pronto to get the cash.
Maria brought along a gold ring to pawn to me but I told her that I don’t want her ring. She promised me that she would return the RM500 to me by 10th August. I think she’ll keep her promise but given her financial situation now, it is highly unlikely that she could return the money to me on time. And in the event that this is true, I’ll treat it as charity and donate it to her. I hope she will still return to work for me though. She could at least repay me through instalments. In her 11 years of working for me, she has never once borrowed money from me.
Tomorrow is the 10th. I’ll know by tomorrow if Maria has kept her promise.
Meanwhile, without Maria coming to help me, I’ll have to clean the fans myself and get a reliable air-cond service company to clean my air conds.
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