Yesterday morning, while having my Saturday off, I heard a small voice gave a salam outside my gate. Peeking behind the curtain of the glass sliding door, there was silhouette of a small boy looking inside the house compound. In the background, another rode a bicycle away from my house passed the bushes in front of my neighbour's house. This boy who was standing in front of my house seemed a little nervous and kept looking back at the bushes but I can't see anyone there. He gave another salam and I answered. Through the half opened glass sliding door, I asked him if he needed anything. He said that he came asking for a donation. For his school, he said when I queried for a reason.
I then told him to wait and went to my room to wear a hijab since I intended to go out to the gate. While holding the keys of the grilled door, I heard 'bird' sound, not the chirping one but a hollow-sounding. Sound that I used to make when I was a little girl playing with my brothers and friends, we used the sound as a sign. When I looked at the boy, the little boy was now had turned his back and facing the bushes. I guessed that the sound should come from him. It then crossed my mind that these two young children, male, age maybe around 7-9 years old were playing a game on me. Is this a plain little child in front of my gate was for real?
Just about to open the lock, I asked him if he brought any letter from the school with him. He told me that his brother didn't gave him any. Simply then, I asked him if he can come back with the letter because I won't give without one. He just left without saying a word, walking towards the bushes.
I might be paranoid in this case and am thinking more that I should.
The donation culture has become part of the society. In a way it is good especially when we know that we are helping others. It is a mood booster. In Islam, it is known as zakah or sadaqah.
But many schools are using the students to ask for donation, and some are for its own operational up-front. Up until one point I do not know which one is true, which is bogus. This boy coming to my house was unlike any other boy that we usually saw asking for donation in the shopping complex. I was very sure that he was a local, from the same kampong. My worry was that these boys probably thought that the easiest way to get money was by asking donation, which means that our society of the future generations could be in grave danger. Just use our imagination if my instinct is true.
I prayed for these two children and hope that I was wrong. If I was wrong, then I prayed that someone else with a bigger heart would gave them a better donation and God would pardon me for such bad thinking.
