Thaqif First Challenging Week @SBI (Sekolah Bina Insan)

It's been almost 10 days now since Thaqif left home to embark on his new journey of life. The first week seems quite a challenge for a boy who has been at home the last two months of the school holidays and been treated like a King! After going through such comfortable life, the drastic switch took a toll on him! All of a sudden, the strict rules of getting up as early as 4.30am , having to make your bed every morning, queue for the bathroom, walking at least one km to and fro between the mosque and the hostel 4 times a day and washing your own clothes are just too much for him to swallow! He called and cried barely 2 hours after we left him on his first day (day 1). Ibu was shocked to receive a call from Adik since she knew all the public phones at the hostel use italk and we did not get for him the italk card. We only spare him some coins for the public phones. He told Ibu that he called from the mosque and we thought that he was smart enough to find a public phone take takes coins to contact us!

The next day (day 2) after maghrib he called again and Ibu immediately recognised the number! Again, the same story being repeated. Adik wanted to come back home, he did not like hostel lifestyle, too strict and too many rules you have to follow. The orientation week was just too hectic that he did not have the time to rest and freshen up! The distance from the hostel to the mosque is just too far and too much for him to take. But we managed to calm him down, gave words of encouragement and asked him to take things easy and remain compose. We told him that it is normal for ta'aruf week (orientation) to feel tired and exhausted. After all, it was only for a week and his nightmare will end soon. After listening to all his woes, Ibu could not contain herself and finally we decided to make the trip to Bukit Seri Putra that very night, and it was only his second day in SBI!

When we arrived, they have just finished solat isya'. Abah parked the car outside the mosque and waited for him to come out. As usual, Adik was among the last to come out and he had a shock of his life to see us. When we saw him, he looked just fine with his friends around, no crybaby face or drama queen attitude.  Since they have to attend a briefing at the hall, we only talked to him for couple of minutes. Abah told him to be brave and stop complaining. After all, he gets the best of everything compare to Kakak and Abang and should be thankful. He should understand how tough it was for us to find the right school for him since he was practically involved in the process. I think he knows that and doesn't have any intention to quit from SBI. He is just feeling homesick after being in his comfortzone for so long.

The next day (day 3) after solat asar, we received an sms "Bu Adik sakit demam". It was from the same phone number that he called the last two days and Ibu started wondering how advance public phones nowadays. So, Ibu out of curiousity responded to the text message "Adik kat mana?" and the replied received "Kat mesjid". Ibu immediately called the number and somebody answered the call. It was Budin, a second year student in KUIS. Budin is the son of YB Manik Urai who happened to be Tok Abah's friend and we met him during registration day. So, Adik has been using Abang Budin's handphone to make calls when he met Budin at the mosque during prayers. Well, Adik is smarter than we thought he is :-) We asked Budin to check on Adik and let us know if the fever got worse. That night he called again and told us that he felt better after taking panadols. He sounded excited when he told us that Ustaz Don conducted a session in the morning as part of the ta'aruf programme.  Since Budin was leaving for Kelantan the next day, Adik told us that he won't be calling us until we meet on saturday. So no updates for day 4 and day 5.

Iman Muda Thaqif :-)

Parents outside the hostels

Visting time

On Saturday #KL112, Hari Kebangkitan Rakyat (day 6), we left home early, had breakfast at the rest area Serdang and reached KUIS around 10.30am. Many cars already parked outside the hostels. Adik was waiting for us at the balcony and the moment he saw us, he ran down the stairs to meet us. He looked happy and jovial with his "serban" on and started telling us his experience after a week at SBI. He wanted to spend time at home and since we have until 6pm, we decided to take him back home. An action we regretted later as he was reluctant to return back to school and started reciting the same old story again! . We had difficulties convincing him that life will be much better next week since he will start with his daily routine, attending classes, prep with more free time to rest and do all the errands. He finally succumbed to our request to return him back to school.

The next day (day 7), after picking Faiz and his friends from IQKL for a short break at home, we went to SBI again, just to be sure that Thaqif is ok. He was happy to see us and we went out for a while to get him some pizzas for his roomates and italk. We stayed with him for about two hours before we left. This time he was in high spirit knowing that he can call us anytime with the italk. We hope that he will soon find his way around, get to know more friends and get used to the routine in SBI.

Looking forward to Thaqif second week in SBI, hoping for a better story as he continues his journey....

You can watch Thaqif aka "budak comel" on video during Minggu Taaruf at Sekolah Bina Insan KUIS facebook page!