As the Ramadan is nearly over, here comes the “mudik” season. “Mudik” means going back to ones’ hometown. During the season millions of people will migrate to their childhood home to celebrate Idul Fitri at the end of Ramadan with their parents/grandparents. To accommodate this yearly phenomenon the government has stipulated the collective leave and public holidays for Idul Fitri 2008 that is from Sep 29th until Oct 3rd. Offices will be closed during those dates. Mudik season brings various effects for families. One of them is the absence of people who usually work around the house, such as maid, babysitter, gardener, driver, etc. Family members have to delegate jobs in order to keep the house clean and tidy.

In our house we have two people hired to help. One is a maid, Aas, who does most of the household duties. She comes five days a week. Another one is a babysitter, Atun, whose duties are mostly taking care of Evan during the day and helping us while Aas is not around. Atun has been living with us for a year now; and this morning she went back to her hometown in Central Java for 3 weeks!

Evan was certainly sad knowing his “daily pal” was leaving. He hugged her and cried aloud. We had seen the same scene before and became pretty good in handling the situation. Just distracted him for awhile then he would be ok. He would probably still look for her in the next few days, but again, a simple distraction would solve it.

Now, the more challenging situation may occur later when we have to go back to work after the holidays while the babysitter is still on leave. Who’s going to take care of him? Will Atun really come back to us (she said she would) or shall we look for a new babysitter (like what we’ve been doing for the last 2 years)? This kind of problem is encountered by many working moms here.

Fortunately, we can always count on Aas as she’s been faithfully working for us for years now. She lives nearby the house and will take her leave on Tuesday for a week. We can be sure she’s coming back.