“He is chenghu nang, gar’ment person,” Ah Beng said to Mahmood. “Maybe we both can go and look for jobs at Kallang Basin…”
“Okay friend-friend, we go find jobs,” Mahmood agreed.
Fatima found a job at a garment factory in Kallang Basin, a walking distance from our kampong. She blossomed at her work and enjoyed getting out of the house and meeting people. Though the job was repetitive, sewing the hems of clothes, her hands needed to be quick and she felt proud of her own skill. Like many of the village girls, she was exposed to a new way of life, and she was earning good money.
I got a job too. My interview with the PSC was a success. I hadn’t been sure which branch of nursing I wanted to be in. I was still a frog under a coconut shell and didn’t have much knowledge. The interviewers at PSC informed me about a national campaign coming up to educate the population on dental health and hygiene, so there were new openings for dental nurses and Assistant Nurses (Dental), AND, for short. The first would work on young children with milk teeth to take the pressure off dentists and dental surgeons, of whom we didn’t yet have enough to cope with the growing need. The second would assist dental surgeons in their work to extract, conserve or operate on teeth with various oral conditions. I felt that if I chose the first, I would be limited to just treating children’s teeth, whereas in the second option, I would be working at the Dental Clinic in ORGH with the possibility of experiencing a variety of oral and dental conditions which would be more varied, so I chose the latter. It was going to be a two-year training period of lectures, practicals and in-service experience, all of which would be paid! I would be supplied with two free sets of white nursing uniforms, one nursing cap and two pairs of canvas shoes. Like my school shoes, the nursing shoes had to be blancoed. But at least now I would have two pairs, so even if it rained and I could not dry one pair in the sun, there would be a spare one ready. All the nurses in the hospital would be dressed the same, except that the epaulets on our shoulders would identify our sectors—blue for general nursing, green for midwives, and yellow for dental. We would begin with one stripe for the first year, two for the second, and a solid coloured epaulet when we graduated.
“Mak! I’m going to be a nurse!” I told her when I got home, beaming.
“So, finally!” she said with equal joy. “It was worth putting you through school.”
I thought back to the early years when I couldn’t even read the words on a Milo tin. I had felt stupid and had persuaded Mak to send me to school. As Ah Tetia wouldn’t let her use any of the housekeeping money for my education, Mak was the one who worked for the money for my schooling. She made nasi lemak, and I carted it around the village in a rattan basket to sell it. She also had to take in the neighbours’ washing and I had to help to bring up the water from the well.
So, this was a tremendous moment for both of us.
Though I protested that I could do it myself, Mak spent an entire afternoon ironing my uniform to get it all nice and crisp. First she filled the serika, a heavy metal iron, with burning coals, then closed it. On a folded towel, she spread out my uniform, sprinkling water on it. Then, taking a piece of banana leaf, she scorched it with the hot iron before gliding the iron repeatedly on my uniform, bringing up the delicious smell of the banana leaf, almost as lovely as when she put hot nasi lemak onto it. Meanwhile, my blancoed shoes were baking in the strong sunlight. On the morning of my first day at work, I woke up before sunrise to have my shower in the communal bathroom, just in case it was occupied later, and made me late. I put on my uniform, saving the cap till I got to the hospital in case it got squashed in the bus. When I was all dressed, my mother looked at me and said with her usual enigmatic wisdom, “Remember. Work to serve others. Not yourself.”
I felt 10 feet tall as I walked through the village in my crisp white uniform. I would need to take the same STC Bus number 18, which I had taken from ORGH to Serangoon Gardens, to buy my father his last treat of fish and chips. The journey would take an hour and would cost me 30 cents. I wondered what Ah Tetia might have said if he could see me now.
“Wah! Ah Phine!” Zul said. “You are a Missi now! A real jururawat. A nurse.”
“Missi” was the colloquial manner of addressing a nurse.
“Not yet lah,” I said, “just about to start training.”
“Missi! Missi!” The other kids teased me, but this time their tone was respectful.
ORGH sat on a hill opposite Neil Road, where the bus had its terminus. The Dental Clinic was an elegant colonial building with cream columns and facade. The clinic was also a teaching university, training undergraduate dental surgeons. There was a department for prosthetics, extracting teeth, one for conserving, orthodontia, plus a section for dealing with local surgery on gum boils and lacerations. There was also an operating theatre for people who had to have anesthesia for their procedures and for life-threatening conditions like mouth cancer. It was so fascinating.
In the Nurses’ Room, I looked into the mirror, to pin my nursing cap onto my head. Okay, I was still dark and ugly but I felt like a different person. I could
