I just got back from my first ride on my motorbike! My hands hurt from how tightly I was gripping the handles, but I was starting to relax by the end. I’m not doing anything too long or wild at this point. I am driving through neighborhoods and just daring to go out on the main road the short distance to my school. Not far. Not ready to actually ride to school just in case my baju kurung impairs my ability to start the engine. And just in case I can’t actually start the bike which I’m still having some trouble with.
At this point, I still don’t have a lot of time to blog and to fill in all the details of where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. I’m sorry. I really do want everyone to know what kind of adventure this has been.
I am healthy now (I hope; I felt a little funny today). I am teaching now. Many other happenings transpired in between. Allow me to try and cycle back through some of them.
Orientation was a long process and feels very long ago at this point. In an odd way, it hard to remember what I learned though I took copious notes, had a good time, and know that I am applying the lessons I absorbed (for the most part).
Going way back to January 20, I left the city of Kuala Lumpur along with all the other ETAs to – finally – spread out and go to our various locations…sort of. Because it’s a holiday for Chinese New Year all over Malaysia, we couldn’t just start teaching instantly nor actually have our in-state orientations so various people from the Departments of Education in each state (Terengganu, Pahang, and Johor) were in charge of tending to our needs over the weekend. Fortunately for me and the fifteen others who are now stationed all over Pahang, we had Puan Faridah to take care of us. Essentially, she was our Malaysian mother for the next week and saw to our every need – entertainment, food, accommodations, etc. She also coordinated our orientation when it actually began.
I remember that coming off the bus after a long and rainy bus ride across the middle of Malaysia. I was apprehensive to say the least as we pulled into some sort of school campus and there were photographers and strangers waiting to shake our hands and lead us into a room for high tea. At least here, high tea means an afternoon meal you partake in before dinner and supper. Yes, Malaysians are a little like hobbits at times. That high tea was a really awkward meal. While in KL, most of us had become friends with ETAs headed for the other areas rather than just becoming a giant clique within each region. Now, there were sixteen of us and there was a whole table-full of people we did not know at all who, evidently, were supposed to care for us. Oh how much changed over the course of a weekend.
Taking you through the details might be fun or very tedious, but suffice to say that through many outings and eating experiences, walking on beaches, building bonfires, and hiking hills that really should be considered mountains, our group bonded. We also became better acquainted with dear dear Puan Faridah and my PPD Officer for Maran (PPD is just a more localized government branch for education) Saiful. Saiful is a man of many talents who makes you feel extraordinarily clever because he is easy to laugh (and no, not just because he doesn’t understand what you’re saying. His English is quite good; he just likes laughing). By the end of the long weekend holiday, it felt like such a burden to move from the little town of Berserah where we were staying at the facility BTPN and head to a hotel in Kuantan.
Kuantan is the major city in the state of Pahang and as such, is less conservative and has such amenities as places to sing karaoke, watch movies and go bowling. These, at least, are major attractions for the students at my school because Maran has truly no entertainment except for watching the very leisurely lives of extraordinarily leisurely people. Not that exciting, right?
We selected our roommates. I roomed with dear Miss Nicole. I am very fond of her and her lack of stereotypical Kentucky-ness. We do have people in the ETA program this year from SoCal, Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, Hawaii, and several other states which make me think of people back home all the time. No Oregon or Arizona though, and I’m the lone representative from Colorado. Anyway, Nicole and I have oodles to talk about simply because Nicole seems to do a little bit of everything. Quite impressive really. She makes me motivated to learn to read faster just so I could learn and read more.
That first night in Kuantan, two of the ETAs actually had their birthdays so, of course, we needed to celebrate them. Little did we know that Puan Faridah and her daughters Mutiara, Mumtaz, and Adiba who often got in on the action of our orientation and were their mother’s grown-up little helpers (they’re 26, 23, and 22 now I believe) also planned on celebrating Holly’s and Katia’s birthdays. It resulted in the following: we ate dinner at the hotel because it was provided and were told to meet Faridah at eight to go out for karaoke. That sounded like fun. Thus, we agreed. Once we were all gathered, we headed to the nearby mall and…did not head to the karaoke place. Instead, we went to Pizza Hut. Is there karaoke in pizza hut? No. There is an excessive amount of strangely-flavoured pizzas and pitchers of Pepsi. That’s right; it was time for dinner number two. Thank goodness that I cannot have gluten or dairy. I think I would’ve been sick. Though I am curious about the chicken masala pizza which others claimed tasted like Mexican food (I miss Mexican food). But that’s not all!
In out attempts to be good friends, we had found a bakery that afternoon and bought a cake for Katia and Holly. While at Pizza Hut, the lights inexplicably went out. I would have thought there was a power outage except for the fact that the rest of the mall was still fully illuminated. That’s when the recorded birthday song started playing and not one but two cakes began hovering through the darkness. Okay, they weren’t actually hovering, but when they have candles lit on top and the rest of the restaurant is really dark, it did look like floating cakes. Once the candles were blown out, everyone started dishing out cake. Hooray again! I’m still gluten and dairy intolerant and not going to vomit!
At the time, I remember wondering if one of us had been clever enough to coordinate with Puan Faridah to have the cakes presented there. No. We still had our cake ready and waiting for when we returned to the hotel. Are you disgusted yet?
We did go to karaoke after the unexpected food marathon. We rented a really big room so that all sixteen ETAs plus many other folk helping with the orientation could fit inside. The variety of songs was excellent from oldies but goodies to Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and N*Sync. We did feel rather scarred when someone chose a Lady Gaga song just because a music video accompanied each song (some with the original music video and others with odd clips often of Eastern European people wandering around and being model-esque).
Alas, orientation began the next day.
Thankfully, it was not as bad as we expected. Over the course of the next several days, Faridah made it her mission to really give us useful orientation info. We had an “intensive” bahasa Malaysia day to really test our knowledge of Malaysian after lots of vocab in the morning to having a mini Amazing Race where we had to use our language skills to get envelopes and proceed to the next station.
Partway through orientation was when we met our mentors. Our mentors are teachers from our schools who basically volunteered for the job of helping us through our time living here and liaising as necessary when principals, other teachers, or anyone else we need to communicate with do not have the English skills necessary. My mentor is Nor Fuady. I call her Kak Nor. “Kak” means “big sister”. I have a 57-year-old big sister. Oh the joys of the little Malaysian that I know. Although we don’t always understand each other and I have had to be rude and put my foot down about some things, she has been wonderful and beyond hospitable as she and her husband have taken me around and helped me and Patricia settle in. Kak Nor is a short and stout little lady whose stamp of approval is “very nice” so I listen very carefully for that turn of phrase. She’s one of the English teachers at my school and…JUST HAD HER FIRST GRANDSON WHO I SAW WHEN HE WAS LESS THAN 30 HOURS OLD! Usually I am not so excited about babies, but they were so excited, it was hard not to be.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Meeting Kak Nor was awkward for me just because there were so many expectations for what this relationship entails. If it wasn’t a good relationship, doing my job as an ETA was going to be downright impossible. Fortunately, that is not the case. However, because of a law here in Malaysia, my mentor is leaving me in July because she is turning 58. I’ll probably panic a little when that day comes. Regardless, I really did not need to be so anxious during orientation because the activities they planned really helped to understand one another a little. We did a rap version of a traditional, Malaysian folk song as well as traditional Malaysian games for kids and even a circuit of silly games. I’ll just say that bowling with coconuts is hard; making coconut milk is a challenge when you actually have to grate the coconut; throwing rubber bands over small sticks is absolutely stupid; and fishing for glass bottles with a nail on a string can be very frustrating.
January 31. That was the day our orientation ended and we were handed over into the capable hands of our mentors and principals. There was a little ceremony which included a song that we ETAs sang to thank Faridah for going far more than the extra mile in tending to all our needs. Before we knew it, it was time for good-byes and heading out to all over the giant state of Pahang.
I am in Maran. Maran is a giant district with many little villages, but I am actually in the town of Maran. It’s small and simple and doesn’t have much to do, but the people are nice and it’s close enough to the highway to really go somewhere if you want to. However, the buses to these exciting places are few and far between. Basically, I feel like the world could pass by Maran with ease.
I live in a fourth-floor apartment with Patricia. Our apartment is simple and does not have some of the basic appliances and other qualities one might expect from an apartment in America like a microwave and hot water, but the simple accommodations are more than enough. We have an ample supply of fans to blow the hot air of Malaysia around and beds and even a Western-style toilet. Our stove is a little excited to be on fire whenever we turn it on, but we’re learning to deal with high-powered flames.
My school! I will write more about my school in the days to come because this post is already incredibly long.
I really do love my school. I love the students because they make me feel famous and popular everyday because they always want to greet me if they see me (we’ll see if this lasts). I also appreciate their attempts to communicate with me as there is an ample language barrier on a regular basis. I am determined not to speak Malaysian to them just because I know it’ll become too much of a temptation for me to learn their language rather than teach them mine (especially because students here, frankly, are not so motivated). Still, the students are friendly and warm. Even if they cannot speak English and are illiterate, they smile and I die a little bit from how adorable I find their brown faces.
I have only done one week of serious teaching with the students at this point. The first week, I was just introducing myself and expectations for my single session a week per class (there are fourteen classes) as well as doing a little activity to test their already-acquired English skills. I’m still getting a feel for how to teach each class, but the students have been very gracious so far. I only hope to hit my stride before they get bored with the novelty of a girl from the United States who doesn’t fit their stereotype.
And that’s about where I’m at. There will definitely be more details in the future, but that’s a rough look at what I’ve done and where I’ve been. Stay tuned! I will try to update every week if I can or even just write wee segments about life in Malaysia (and attempt to upload pictures).
