To Dwell in Possibility: May 2013

Community Service Report: Ecoteer on Pulau Perhentian

I can honestly say my week on perhentian with the other YES Abroad students, volunteers, and villagers was among the most tiring, hottest, busiest, amazing and above all rewarding week in Malaysia.

Before our trip, we were given only a little information about exactly what we would be doing. We knew there would be teaching English, cleaning up the community and interacting with the locals, but that was about it. I'd say planning was pretty minimal, but somehow the few conversations we had sufficed.

Sunday morning, after a rough taxi ride from kuala Terengganu to kuala besut, where the jetty was located, I met up with Ari, James, Teresa anI can honestly say my week on perhentian with the other YES Abroad students, volunteers, and villagers was among the most tiring, hottest, busiest, amazing and above all rewarding week in Malaysia.

Sunday morning, after a rough taxi ride from kuala Terengganu to kuala besut, where the jetty was located, I met up with Ari, James, Teresa and Ben. It was a sweet reunion, as Ben was the volunteer that met us when we first landed at Kuala Lumpur airport and he was with us our first few days in the country.

Our first day on perhentian was a lot of sleepiness.y We went in a sweltering tour of the island, met the other volunteers that would be at the ecoteer house with us for the week, and listened to some presentations about ecoteer's work on the island and the coral and turtles there.

The rest of the week was honestly a blur- but in a good way. The days and nights more or less fused together into one sweaty, challenging but ultimately worth it week.

With the children, we ran two school slums, English club and ecoteer environmental club. At English club we taught the children the body parts using pictures, a song and a few games. The children were certainly energetic and although keeping them under control was difficult, I think the students and us as the teachers enjoyed the experience.

At the environmental club, we taught a bit about endangered species. The children used arts and crafts, more pictures, and of course a game to learn about the threats these animals face. The kids were honestly sweethearts and they loved hanging around me because I could speak Malay with them. I even managed to pick up some of the island slang. As part of this club, we also went with the kids to clean up the beach. The beach was strewn with rubbish, and even the rubbish we collected was just left on the beach to be either burned or transported away from the island. It's a bit of a vicious cycle. However the kids were very passionate about helping is to clear up the litter and I think they definitely appreciate the value of a clean beach.

One of the projects ecoteer is trying to implement on perhentian. At around six o'clock everyday three volunteers go around asking the food stalls and the home owners if there's any food waste there. A lot of the places don't bother to separate the food waste and the paper products, which is a shame, because composting is effective and fairly simple. It seems like as time has gone on, more and more people are separating their trash, so hopefully this project will be a success in the future.

We also helped out painting a mural in the school library, a menu board for one of the restaurants and cleared the community garden. All the volunteers were also responsible for chores, so we all ended up clearing the table, cooking dinner and clearing the garden at least once. It gave the ecoteer house a really community feel.

Hands down, the most rewarding experience for me was teaching English to some of the Malay ladies that operate a bakery/ restaurant on the island. They were a group of fun, funny, and really eager to learn aunties. We taught them basic phrases only, like greetings, questions about the meals, if someone is a vegetarian, but even those tidbits of language can be helpful when dealing with a tourist that speaks no Malay whatsoever. Knowing that we gave them the tools they needed to further their business and interact with their customers is such a fantastic feeling. An impact like that can last forever. With weekly lessons from ecoteer volunteers, The women hopefully will continue to practice and learn English. Although a few phrases don't seem like a lot, I feel like we've opened a door to more social interactions for them.

I'll never forget my time in perhentian. I know that our time there was short, but so well spent. I hope that the children will remember what we taught, the housewives will remember to separate their food waste, and the boatmen will think twice before tossing their petrol cans carelessly on the beach. What I loved was that for a week, we were seen as part of the island. We were teachers, big sisters/ brothers, children and friends. Perhentian is blessed to have such a beautiful community there and I would love to see it flourish and become an environmentally friendly place. Perhentian brought me closer with the other YES Abroad students and also with myself.

Teresa and I snorkelling

One of the kids with his artwork

The village

Teaching Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes

3 comments

, by Hannah

Lists

You Know You're Becoming Malaysian When...

After nearly 11 months in the country, I consider myself pretty Malaysian. Here's some of the habits/ ticks/ words I and other exchange students have picked up that have made us "Malaysianized"

You know you've been Malaysianized when...

You know when to use lah, leh, lo, lor, meh, and ma all correctly
You know the pros and cons of using DiGi, Maxis and Celcom
Why do like this meh? is a completely okay question to ask
You don't go out if it rains. Or even the day after it rains if it's a bad storm. Actually the rain stops all plans, and who wants to deal with the jam anyways??
You think of KL people as city folk
"We see how first" are words to live by
You know the words for eat and tea in Tamil, Malay, and a few dialects of Chinese
Complaining about how hot it is while soaking in the aircon/ fan is a completely justifiable way to spend a day
As is going on facebook, twitter, and 9gag for 7 hours straight
School holiday? Sleep until noon
You know you should be studying but instead go on to twitter to complain about how much homework you have to do
Shaving is optional
You know at least 1 Malay and Tamil song
You know whether to call someone "anne" or "abang"
You'd rather call a women that looks slightly older kakak than deal with the consequences of calling an older looking woman that's young mak cik
Arguing with the taxi drivers to use the metre isn't so difficult
Crossing a busy street? No problem, use the hand
You know how to use chopsticks and eat with your hands
You've slowly forgotten how to eat with a knife...
You get scolded by the prefects for not buttoning your baju kurung
You know what food stall at the canteen has the best food on what days
There are people in your class that speak better English than you
You know exactly what drama went down on twitter last night
You always take a Chinese friend with you to eat dimsum because the dimsum women always try and rip you off
People back in the US don't understand your English
It's really hard to understand a non-Malaysian accent
It's really difficult to form an English sentence without using a Malay or Chinese word
You've used the phrase "special discount untuk mat salleh boleh cakap bahasa melayu" countless times
You get really angry when someone thinks you're a tourist
Hearing someone talking about you in Malay and approaching them and saying saya boleh faham bm is the best. thing. ever.
You've never watched a Korean drama but still know what's going on in at least 3 of them from your talkative classmates
It's second nature to bring tissue with you everywhere
You've learned to not be offended when a Chinese or a Malay auntie tells you how fat you've gotten
Whatsapp is crucial to survival
You can't go more than one week without eating roti canai or nasi lemak...
... or one day without eating some form of nasi
You can tell how sweet the teh o ais is going to be based on the race of the pak cik or mak cik that makes it
You know what night market is open when and where
You feel vaguely uncomfortable when you're in a new place and the call to prayer goes off and it's not the one you're used to
You can tell what app someone is using on their phone based on the azan it plays
You know what the call to prayer sounds like on at least 3 different radio stations
You start to spell things the British way
You know and taste the difference between Malay and Chinese char kuey teow
You know which way to fold and your banana leaf and what it means after eating banana leaf rice
Everyone goes to you with their problems because they know you don't know the names of anyone in school still
Life without roti scares the crap out of you
The GE is all you can talk about
You laugh at the amount of political flags hanging up
You still don't know the name of two girls in your class
You know the LRT and Monorail system better than your host family
The Starbucks baristas know you by name because you hang out there so often
Malaysians know more about American pop culture than you
You still can't recognize school people when they're not wearing their uniform
People start ridiculous rumors about you (I DID NOT MOVE TO CHINA FOR 2 WEEKS)
It doesn't phase you when you find out it was your English teacher that started the rumor
You're tired and lazy all the time
Going on a run is literally a joke
People keep telling you the rainy season sudah pass but it still rains everyday
There is no such thing as too much milo
You started saying going back to America instead of going home, because Malaysia is home
You don't know if you have friends/ who your friends are back home, but that's okay
The thought of leaving Malaysia makes you cry. Really, really hard.
You know that you'll be back one day!!