Holistic ‘Hair’ Homeopath

The earliest memory of my life has to be my first day in pre-school (aged 6). Prior to that, I can’t remember anything. I have seen a family photo of me, possibly 3 years old. There I was, a small dark kid sitting on my mother’s lap.
Back then when I started schooling there wasn’t any preschool yet. However I did one year seconded to my grand aunt’s class. I can still remember how I sat on the floor with the other kids at Sekolah Kebangsaan Kuala Sg. Baru (now renamed Sek. Othman Shawal). The first day was awful. I was dismissed early and was given a bicycle ride home because I got scared of the class teacher; not of mine but of the class next door! He was called Othman Rimau (Othman The Tiger). I however came back the next day. We all walked to school stopping along the way at relatives’ houses to quench our thirst with cool well water stored in earthern wares.

A year later I started proper schooling in an English school (Masjid Tanah English School). Students consisted of children of various races and there I had friends that I can still remember to this day..There was Lee Soon Lock; Lee Kong Kian; Sivalingam as well as Abdur Rahman and Idris .There was no need for a special intergrated school. We all got along fine.

What do I remember of my country? Back then, there was no Malaysia. It was Persekutuan Tanah Melayu or Malaya. We had no electricity in our village. We used the kerosene lamp. There were no proper roads. The roads then were laid using red earth. Water came from the well. I remember once we had a bad drought and had water delivered by lorry. This was done by a Chinese man, not by the government. We had to be issued coupons and had to wait for the lorry to come with water from a tin mine. They would come in the darkness of the night. I helped my father search the nearby villages for wells that still had some water. We carried the water home in plastic containers to be used for cooking and drinking.

What I remember of those earlier years is that I had a happy childhood. I am sure that our society back then was coexisting together happily despite the lack of modern convenience that we today cannot live without.

I have always been individualistic when it comes to educating my children. I have tried many systems from the traditional Islamic school to the modern home schooling. I had been involved in the setting up of two Islamic schools in Kuala Lumpur, but I was ousted soon after. Disappointed and hurt, I started home-schooling my own children. Years later, I arrived in Damascus with three of my children and by 9/11, my children had just embarked on a new chapter in their academic life. Prior to my departure many of my ex-colleagues in the school were sceptical and some were outrightly against my plan.

Now 5 years on, my daughter had graduated and I have 3 sons in the degree programme. My sceptics began to see the results of my taking the less trodden road. Now they are beginning to send their own children to Syria, too. I hope that they will also be as succesful, although they are 5 years late.

It’s been quite a while since my last posting. Many things have happened since then. I lost a dear friend less than a month after Eid ul Adha. When I was back in my village during that occasion we had had a late dinner. I never thought that it was to be our last supper. He was his usual self, and happily telling me how well his homeopathic practise was doing. He was planning to send his eldest son to Syria to pursue his studies. It was to be some time this month.

However Allah has something else planned for him. Weeks later, my dear friend suffered a stroke…and hours later he was gone. His son, the one supposed to go to Syria, called me up and broke the dreadful news. During his funeral prayer I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing. I couldn’t help thinking about my own demise. What if Allah has taken me instead?

This thought usually enters one’s mind when attending a funeral especially as one grows older. We begin to think of the things that we have done and the loved ones that we will leave behind. Three of my homeopathic practising friends have left this world and their practise died with them. Now I feel that it is important that I prepare someone to carry on my practise. Without delay, I asked my son to come back from Eqypt to continue his homeopathic studies and also to intern at my clinic. He needs to know the ins and out of this business before it is too late. Alhamdulillah, it has been a month now and he is a great help both at home and at the office. Hopefully when it is my time to go, things would be in place and my patients will still have a homeopathic practise to come to.