Stories From Your Ayah

  You guys are such a forgetful bunch of kids. I hear Ummi nagging about how you always forget this and that. I am pretty sure that at least on two occasions, I had to send your water bottles or your pencil cases to school because you forget them in the morning. Its quite funny when Ummi said, “if you could remove your ears, you might forget where you leave it and you’ll have troubles hearing”. But I believe this is quite normal. I was forgetful too when I was small. Your grandmother nagged as well. Anyway, that gave me an idea to tell you a bedtime story. A silly story which I know you don’t believe it. At this moment I know you still remember the story. But I’m going to write it anyway, because who knows you might read this as an adult and this brings back memories of our family growing up as foreigners in Taiwan. As I mentioned before, the story is fake, but as 10 year old kids, the look on your faces showed that you were all amused. And at the end of this silly story, I shall t...

I  remember driving you guys to school on one Monday morning. We reached the main gate at around 7.30am, and I watched Muadz, Miqdad and Qhayra walked passed the running track towards the main building of Nanmei Elementary. I couldn’t help wondering what could be the topic of conversation between the three of you. You guys are the only Malay speaking children in that school. The distance from where you got off the car to the main gate is just a few feet away, but I would always wait for you to disappear into the distance before I start driving home. None of you are in the same classroom, so at one point you guys would have to part ways, say goodbye, and meet again during recess. Ah, recess… Everyone loves recess period. As an adult, I still remember the joy of hearing the bell signaling recess. The same kind of joy I have as an adult when I finish packing my bag to fly home after a whole week away from you guys. The same kind of joy when the car is loaded and everyone is strapped i...

  It has been quite a while since I started thinking to write down anything that I can remember from the day I was born. But your Ayah is so lazy. Guess its my nature. In any case, life has not been easy on us the past few months. The pandemic changed my work schedule and now I’m only home with you guys for only 8 days a month. It has taken a toll on Ummi and she has to do everything single handedly. You know that I every time I return from work, I am sent to quarantine for 5 days.    And my quarantine is unlike most travellers. Those people are only quarantined once they arrive in another country, so maybe at most its twice a year during this pandemic. But your dad is a pilot guys. It is my job to make people travel (actually for now its more of making cargo move from one country to another).  Regardless, quarantine is a must. So once a month, after being on flight duty for a week, I will be stuck in the hotel room for 5 days. Which means I would be away from home f...