The Kids Are Back in Town

My two children are back in Malaysia and are fast asleep from anexhausting long trip from Columbia, Illinois to their present pillows and bedsheets in Sungei Pinang, Penang. We arrived here by the Transnasional Express bus from Kuala Lumpur where my cousin Zakaria had dropped us off at the Jalan Duta Bus Terminal. They had put up at his house yesterday upon arrival and I have been staying at there since my arrival in Kuala Lumpur from Kuala Terengganu a few days earlier. Zakaria is to me as close as it gets to becoming a wholesome person. A very hard worker with a no nonsense attitude towards everything that he does in life. A very devoted and strict Muslim yet flexible when he wants to be a successful career man who was high ranking police officer and later an attorney, giving up being a lawyer he joined the National Bank and giving that up is now head of security for a major company in the oilpalm plantation business. I love this man and have very high regards for his achievements in life. His weakness is in his love for good food for which money or time or distance is of no consequence.

Two days ago we went to Putra Jaya, the new mega city where all government offices are presently located not too far from Kuala Lumpur to look into what has become of my application for my children's citizenship status. We dropped in at the Dept of Registry where e the files I had submitted were being processed and discovered that not much was being done about them. Upon enquiring we learned that there was an inconsistency with regard to my children's date od birth and the registeration date for my Muslim marriage certificate. According to the dates and figures my children are cosidered bastards as they were conceived out of legitimate Muslim procedures. However if they were to be viewed from the original marriage certificates which took place in California they are okey, they are legit. So on account of this their applications have been sitting in someone's drawer till we decided to start digging arround for them. For the past six years I have received various excuses as to why my children does not qualify to become Malaysian citizens and now I have this.

The final decission will still have to be made eve if all the paperworks were acceptable by the Home Ministry where a Minister will have to sign the okay and this will take God knows how long according to the man we talked to. The gentleman offerd an advice that we see someone we might know at the higher levels and get them to push for the application to be accepted. So off we go round the mulberry bush to look for the key man in the Home Ministry who could make things happen and this includes writing a letter justifying why the application should pass or be acceptable and providing more documents in the process. Such Is, Such Is.