Post Birthday More Than Half Way

G'day! I'll write about stuff that happened last week after we got back from Singapore.

On Thursday some children from a Malaysian school in KL came to visit with their teachers. They had prepared activities to do with the children including singing, dancing and arts and crafts. I think the younger children enjoyed it but the older ones thought it was a bit weird as they were pretty much the same age as the Malay kids. However it was nice to have a day off teaching and it was interesting talking to the Malaysian teachers. They were from a Christian school just outside KL, and one teacher thought it was necessary to ask Jo and me probing questions about our faith. He found it hard to believe that we are not religious, and this is where most people stop asking questions. He wanted to know why we did not believe in Jesus and then decided to show us what a Bible looks like. Little bit awkward. Hopefully another thing that we can show people here is you don't need to be religious to be a nice person, as I think Jo and I are pretty nice! Anyway, rant over, after that we had an amazing free lunch where Jo and I acted as dinner ladies. Fried chicken, vegetables and omlette thingy plus coke for those who like coke (everyone but me). Lovely! The Malaysian school also ran a service after lunch and all the groups performed a song or dance they had learnt in the morning. Very cute. There was also a section where Pastor Henry spoke to inform all our visitors about the school and highlight the fact that "we currently have two teachers from good old England!"... followed by turning heads to the back where we were seated and big cheers. Awkward but nice to receive the appreciation I guess. The Malaysian "this is a Bible" man then took the stage and invited all the teachers from our shool up to be blessed. A very weird experience. As Jo and I walked up to the front through all the children seated on the floor, we gave out multiple high fives. After the service there was ice cream for dessert and everyone went home after a busy day.

On Saturday we got up early to head into KL. For once we got the train from Rawang, which would take us to KL Sentral. We were very early as we always find it a good idea to leave plenty of time. We looked around the shops in the station and had a coffee. At 12 o clock we went outside to the meeting point, the bus stop opposite the Hilton, where we met Pete and Simon. Shortly after Saradha picked us up in her car. Saradha is from a group called the Soroptomists, who I have never heard of before, but they organise everything for the volunteers here and where Pete, Simon and Sarah teach. She was taking us to the house of one of the other club members where we had been invited for lunch. The house was massive! Like something out of that show, MTV Cribs... A big electronic gate entrance, marble floors inside, swimming pool, perfect interior and a wonderful "puppy" called Samson, who is actually six months old but bigger than most normal dogs. About ten ladies from the club turned up. We chatted and ate lots of delicious food. Someone had told them all that it was recently my birthday so I was given another cake and some little presents, a nice unexpected surprise! Saradha and her friends were very complimentary of the job we've been doing and said that all the children want us to be their teachers, so it's nice to know that what we're doing seems to be worthwhile. After lunch we were given stacks of leftovers to take home and we had a lift back to the station to get the train. What a lovely day out.

We had made plans for when we got back to take Bibi, a girl from Class A, to karaoke, as she loves singing and wants to be a singer. However, Jo had kept the destination a surprise and Bibi seemed very shocked and happy when she found out what we were doing. We spent a couple of hours there singing songs and Bibi was definitely the best singer, sorry Joyce! After that we went back to Bibi's house to see Bruno and Simon and we drank home made carrot and orange juice and played cards. It was one of those nights, Jo kept on losing at twenty one, and I was having a lucky streak. After a while of this going on we broke down into one of those laughing fits which I think everyone found very confusing as they didn't know what we were laughing at, but also funny because we couldn't stop. Bruno kindly filmed the shenanigans but I'm not sure I'd want to watch it back. New phrases coined, which one day I expect to be used by everyone in general conversation - "square and square" and "HOLD YOUR GOATS!"

Half way through this week already, time is still a flyin'. We booked our flights to Japan in January for the last leg of our journey where we will meet Hazel, my sister... who I believe is probably the main reader of this blog so, hello Hazel!

Surprise surprise!

Friday the 19th of October - got up and went to school like a normal day, apart from Jo was more worried than usual about being on time. When we got there I was invited to join the usual Scrabble festivities which take place on a Friday morning as Jo mysteriously disappeared with 4 of my class. Ten minutes later King told us all to gather at the football field where we all walked together to the community hall.... only to see upon entering the room balloons galore and a massive banner saying "Happy Birthday Megan!" with a cuddly teddy bear on! The children loved the balloons and being able to play in such a huge space. We played pass the parcel and other games, then started on the cake. I had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me by about 90 people, that was fun but a bit embarrassing! The day before some of the children had been busy making cakes and Pastor Henry's home and a grand total of 10 cakes were brought to the party. In addition to this there was also one special cake (I think shop bought) with extra decorations and that! What a start to the birthday festivities of the weekend to come!
 

This is me with some of the girls from Class B, infront of my banner!

My tasty cake (there were also 10 more cakes cooked by some of the children at Pastor's home, in a steamer! Never had so many cakes at a birthday ever!)

Here are some pictures from our adventures in Singapore!

This is our luxury coach we took to Singapore, after missing our original bus due to numerous setbacks. This one had massive reclining chairs and TV screens to watch films!

On our first day in Singapore we took a trip to Universal Studios, on Sentosa Island. The Transformers ride was AMAZING. There is a point to 3D technology after all! All the rides were based on films and TV shows, including Shrek, Battlestar Galactica and Madagascar.

This picture is from our wild night out in Singapore! Moments from this night include Jo being scared by a waiter and screaming when he asked her if she wanted another drink and lying on the kitchen floor of the hostel at 5 in the morning, much to the amusement of the rest of the residents. A birthday sambuca and free drink tokens adds up to a fun filled birthday night out!

Singapore Zoo! Today was my actual birthday and with proof of this I managed to get a badge and free entry to the zoo, result! It was pouring with rain today but we still managed to have fun. There were plenty of monkeys, much to Jo's delight. My favourites were the naked mole rats, manatees and this lovely pygmy hippo here!

 

Dongle related aggravation: I just wrote about 5 long paragraphs for you to read, then the internet crashed, so now I've decided on the photos and small captions approach. Maybe this is better that my boring ramblings, you decide! Anyway I had a fantastic birthday weekend, definitely one to remember.

Feeling in My Fingers

Currently it is bucketing down with rain, thunder and lightning thrown in for free! The weather is wet wet wet. Today's date: Tuesday the 16th October. I'll start from last week, haven't written anything in a while!

So last Monday was free hair cut day where a group of hairdressers come in to cut the children's hair. Jo and I also got in on the action which was a bit scary as it was hard to tell the hairdresser what we wanted. I think I managed to get the message across that I wanted to keep it quite long and I still have most of my hair so.... success!

On Friday we once again went to frequent our favourite beer spot where Mansu tried to get us to go to KL with him to his favourite cha cha cha club. We were very reluctant as getting into a car with a drunk man at the wheel was not appealing. We managed to decline although Malaysians on the whole do not like to take no for an answer. Mansu's gem of wisdom for the week: I have a baby face. I suppose it's good to look young. At about 1.30 we headed home where Jo decided a drunken skype session with friends would be a good idea. I'm not sure if she still felt that way in the morning.

The next day we got up early at 7.30 to get the bus and meet the fellow volunteers who are based more centrally in Kuala Lumpur. Weather verdict - torrential rain. We got off the bus and made our way to our suggested meeting place of Starbucks for a much needed coffee. We were the first there followed by Sarah, from Australia and Pete and Simon, of Bath, UK. We went for some lunch in Chinatown, swapped teaching and travelling stories and drank beer. Sunday was spent at the internet cafe planning lessons and being annoyed with STA Travel, So much hassle from them!

This week we are planning our trip to Singapore at the weekend, so exciting. Saturday Universal Studios and on Sunday a birthday at the zoo. This will be up there with the good birthdays, I lookforward to telling you how it goes.

Time Flies

They say time flies... well we're already a week into October!! Lots of small things have happened this week: an enormous beauty of a moth and some bats to add to the wildlife count, and Jo is now known as Joyce. I write this whilst drinking a cup of lemongrass tea in an attempt to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and try to upload my video for Gunnersbury so I can email it to Julie. This is no mean feat on our painfully slow dongle-net. Joyce and I usually end up wanting to cry after using it for about half an hour. What did we do before the days of technology eh?!

One of class A has been in hospital this week, Nu Nu. She lives at the home with Pastor Henry. One and a half years ago she was diagnosed with a kidney condition which they have now discovered is a disorder of the immune system. I decided it would be nice to make her some cards and pictures so we did this in class on Thursday, it definitely highlighted once more the loveliness of class A! Pretty cards with nice messages inside, colourful pictures, a wordsearch containing all our names in the class (genius!) and some fun maths problems. I'm sure Nu Nu will now be kept very occupied during her recovery. She's out of hospital now but it's sad to know that she'll be having treatment for the rest of her life.

Back to the slow internet issue, apologies for the lack of pictures, there's no point even trying to upload any! I hope that my writing is gripping enough to keep you interested! Or you just carry on reading because you are nice.

Yesterday there was no school because there was another funeral in the community, the second since we've been here. This time it was a small baby of one and a half months. Very sad.

In the evening we went to the pub and met up with our regulars there, although there are always new people to meet. On this occasion - Kelvin, a 40 something year old man who likes to spontaneously burst into dance or song, particularly to Gangnam Style. He also seems to find Joyce a lot easier to say than Jo, hence the name change. Also his workmate, who had numerous specific English related questions for Jo and me. Much of the evening was spent trying to explain the difference between demand and remand. It would also seem that Mansu the police officer enjoys analysing people. After a less than polite analysis of Jo last week, tonight he told me that I have a heart of stone... but am also very romantic. I wonder where he gets all this immense wisdom from.

Today King took us to Samuel's house, about 15 minutes walk away. He is a teacher at the school and father of Esther and Mary, two of my students. They live in a nice house with their baby brother Benjamin, currently suffering from chicken pox, Samuel's wife and sister. They cooked us an amazing lunch of rice, noodles, coconut curry, fish, beef and vegetables. I've decided that I need to learn how to cook fish properly because this was delicious. On the way home we borrowed some umbrellas to protect us from the blazing heat and entertained King with some old-lady Joyce jokes.

Later we are going to visit the house of one of my favourite adult students, Nu Cing. She has some traditional Myanmar costumes for us to look at.