On the home straight…
It doesn’t feel like long ago at all that I was writing my second newsletter. But it is already June, the next newsletter I write will be the fourth and last one and I will be at home in the UK, which is scarily now less than 60 days away.
My volunteer work has been going extremley well these past three months, with the end looming I think it has made me want to give it my all more than ever before.
In March Kelly’s Dad came to visit and we were spoilt rotten! He found it fascinating that we live of very little and I think he was impressed by our tight budgeting. He has friends who live in Brunei and so we were lucky enough to join him on a trip there. Brunei is not the most obvious backpacker destination but it was a brilliant trip. It is a really strange country, nestled between the Malay states of Sarawak and Sabah, but absolutely nothing like Malaysia. It is heavily Muslim and a country very rich in oil. The jungle there is beautiful. The highlight of the trip was when we visited ‘Kampung Ayer’, a village built in the water; it was really interesting, everything a village could need was reached by boat, the photo below is the local water village school.
When looking for more productive things to do in our evenings we came across an organisation called Kechara Soup Kitchen. (http://www.kechara.com/) It is a Buddhist charity which has many branches including an animal sanctuary and a peace centre. We were really interested to see the place and went along one night to volunteer on the midnight handout rounds in Kuala Lumpur. The night we went had been sponsored by ‘The Hilton’, who had donated food for over 100 homeless people. After the initial briefing our job was to go around in groups to different areas of the city and give the food out to those who were too far away from the Kechara base. It was a really well organised run and it was great to be a part of. We hope we are able to go back a few more times and help out before we leave.
In School: April seemed to be the month for competitions and I found myself often staying late after classes, coaching the schools Choral speaking team. The team of 35 students had to memorize a 9 minute long script and recite it with hand gestures using the tone of their voice to make it more interesting. I had never seen Choral Speaking in the UK and it was a very creative way to get the girls to use English and develop their confidence speaking in public. The competition involved 18 schools and although our team didn’t win over all they performed very well.
Parliamentary style debating is something I had been involved in, back in the UK and so it was great fun helping the schools debating team prepare for the annual debate. The team had to propose the motion: ‘Parental neglect is the main cause of moral decline in youths today’. We worked with them on many arguements and statistics and they debated very well on the day of the competition, and the third speaker who gave a rebuttal speech even won title of Best Speaker for the debate.
My timetable has been full of English classes with the ‘removed’ class, those who really struggle with reading and writing. Being with them so much and seeing the students improve in such a short space of time is amazing and whenever you are hot and tired and ask yourself why your doing this, your answer is right there. I really feel the school has benefited from having Kelly and I here, we have made such good friendships with both the teachers and pupils and it is going to be very sad when we finish work at the end of June.
Kelly and I set up an English club which takes place on Friday afternoons. It has been great fun to do and we were surprised by the regular attendance with it being after school on a Friday. We have just finished reading Beauty and the Beast and now will be focusing on revision for the mock exams that are very soon. Hopefully someone will carry on the club to give the weaker students extra help.
Annual sports day is fast approaching and so we have been roped in to after school practices. The school has four houses, or teams and Kelly and I have both been given one. I am training ‘Kamerah’- the red house and Kelly ‘Senyum’- the green house, so things are getting competitive. It is pretty difficult to motivate the pupils to train for long distance running when it is 30C still and the sun is fully out but we have had some fun trying to practice high jump and long jump.
Out of work isn’t any less busier than in work. We recently found a local orphanage which two of our students live at. The organisation has two homes and the one closest to where we stay has 20 orphans aged between 5-18. Our plan is to try and go twice a week and help with English revision or anything else they need help with, we wish we had known it was here sooner but better late than never!
We have also got into a strict fitness routine. In June we are hoping to complete a 10km charity run to raise money for The National Autism Society Malaysia. It doesn’t sound too difficult but the temperature has risen to it’s highest these past months and its normally 34C by midday which makes running a little bit warm! My aim is to raise 500RM for the charity, and to complete the run in 1 hour 30 minutes! If you’d like to donate you can click here…http://www.kl-marathon.com/profile/64200
A Chinese friend of ours has just started giving us cooking lessons. The other week we were taught how to make Chicken Rendang, a spicy coconut curry along with vegetarian fried rice and steamed water spinach. It was delicious and I am looking forward to recreating it back in the UK!
The other weekend we went to Seminyih to visit two other Project Trust Volunteers at a care home. The Project is different to ours in that it is a care Project where the volunteers care and teach the children at the home. Three years ago, funding was raised and a beautiful complex was built for the residents. It now houses around 160 people, some are elderly people, the others under privileged and orphaned children, from babies to 20 years old. The orphanage was lovely and we had so much fun playing with the nursery children who have so much energy. They are well clothed and fed and I imagined conditions to be much worse than they were. The sobering moment came when I saw the children being beaten. It didn’t just happen once, and it wasn’t even necessary, it never is. The sad fact is that the carers and people who have put in all the love and hard work to give these Children a home can’t see that hitting a child is wrong on so many levels. I was only there for two days but left very saddened by it all. We have been to schools and seen canes used as threats many times but I am not sure how I would cope having to witness abuse every day. I have a lot of respect for all the volunteers who have had to spend their year biting their tongues in homes where the children are beaten or much worse and there is not really anything that can be said or done about it. I guess its a hard lesson to learn that human rights in some places just aren’t so important.
The next time I write a newsletter I will be on the other side of the world. It’s really hard at the minute to imagine leaving and coming ‘home’. I have become so settled here, work is going great, I have made some amazing friends and I feel like there is still so much left to do. At the same time though I miss my family like mad, I can’t wait to see them, and I can’t wait for a proper roast dinner! August is fast approaching and I feel like a year wasn’t a long enough ‘gap’, I suppose it’s time to snap back to reality, go to University, and let someone else have a go at living my volunteer dream.
