Under The Lamp

26 March

Finally it was the day for WAO’s staff retreat to Penang, on the west coast of Malaysia. Cannot exactly complain about getting a free holiday, I really came to WAO at the right time of the year. We left in the morning and the drive was about four hours long.

I was so happy when I finally got to see a beach and the sea. The guest house we were staying at was almost on the beach and really cozy. I shared a room with three others. As soon as we got there I changed into my swimsuit and went to the beach. Nobody wanted to swim with me though as they either didn’t like being in the sun or thought the water was too dirty.

I find it quite funny that white people want to get tanned and Asians do everything they can to get whiter skin. It’s really difficult for me to find a soap or body lotion here that doesn’t have the whitening effect.

So it was all of us interns who were enjoying the sunny beach, while the rest of the gang was chilling in the shade. Well Sarah, who is a local, was actually also with us on the beach, wearing sunblock 130 though, hehe. I didn’t even know they made sunblock with that high sun protection factor.

While waiting for everybody to get ready for dinner Karin and I had a cocktail in the bar on the beach. Then we all walked together to a big food court, which served local food. I had a coconut to drink for the first time and it was quite nice. To eat I had my favorite; naan bread with chicken and I also tried satay, crab and some other seafood stuff. I was so full afterwards.

On our way back Jessica, Karin and I walked too far and ended up at the Hard Rock Hotel, a few hundred meters away from our guest house. We walked through and pretended that we were staying there and took pictures of “our” nice hotel. We also took some pictures of a good restaurant and  some expensive looking food and even of the waiters there, so that we could show the pics later and say that we had dinner there and not at the cheap food court, hehe. People must have thought we were a bit strange.

Cool pic, making WAO in the sand with our shadows

We ended the evening with playing cards. First we were playing with money and I lost mine really fast. Then we continued playing a game where the person who wins becomes the president, the second person the vice president and the loser the asshole. Guess which position I was in the most? Well I might not be lucky in games, but maybe I will have more luck in some other area.

Anyone who is traveling to Malaysia should really know the meaning of these words, as they are frequently used in Malaysia.

Lah – Ends almost every single sentence. It is supposed to be used to put emphasis on what you say, but people here overuse it a lot, or they are really serious about everything they say :)

Can Can – When you accept something or agree to do something.

Cannot lah – When you can’t accept something or don’t want to do something. Usually the answer I get at the market when I try to bargain, haha.

Aiyo – Oh no!

Niiice – Originally used by Soo, Jessica’s landlord to describe food that tastes good. Now Jessica, Philipp and I use it all the time for every situation.

Not niiice – Used when bus drivers open the door on a crowded bus while the bus is moving and you are holding on to the door or after drinking absinthe, hehe

24 March

Jessica called me to come and help her look after the kids at the Refugee, while their mums were busy with cooking class. Since I love kids, I didn’t have to think long about it. It was 9 kids in total at the centre, all different ages, ranging from 2 to 12. None of them spoke English which complicated things a lot, since nobody was listening to me or they were just testing me since it was the first time for me to meet them.

We started out with what we thought was a calm activity, painting with water colors. But it was everything but calm. The children were shouting all at the same time, “Auntie, I want blue paper!”, “Brown!”, “Green!” The youngest kid was painting the table orange and soon everybody were fighting about the colors, walking on the table and painting on each other.

Jessica didn’t feel very well so she soon abandoned me with responsibility for all the kids.

After the painting activity I decided to take them outdoors and play football. I divided the group into two, the older kids and the younger kids and then gave them one ball each to play with. After just 5 min one ball was gone on the roof. I let the older kids continue playing with the other ball and tried to involve the younger kids in another game. To make them all stay in one place I pretended that the grass was a sea and that the swing they were on was a boat. In the sea was a dangerous shark who liked eating kids (the shark was of course me). The kids thought this was really funny and enjoyed running up to the shark who was sleeping under the tree and disturb the shark so it would wake up and chase after them. After the second ball was kicked over to the neighbors we went inside again and then it was time for me to leave and go back to the admin office.

After 2 hours looking after these kids I was totally finished. Returned to the office with a terrible headache, sweaty and with the thought that maybe I don’t want 4 kids of my own after all. But at least it was fun to play with the kids as a change to sitting in front of the computer in the office.

In the evening we had a goodbye dinner for my housemate Karin, who was leaving for Thailand. Went to Kitchen of India and had our favorite food here, naan bread with butter chicken, yummie :P

Ok, I have not been so good at updating the blog lately. In the beginning I tried to write everyday, but haven't been very good at that recently. That is why I have to skip the 22:d of March, since I really can't remember what I did that day. It was a Monday and probably a quite normal day at work.

23 March

Karin & I had our second English lesson with the women at the Refugee. We divided the women into two groups as some of them knew a bit of English, while others were totally beginners. I was working with the two women who already knew some English and was teaching them how to write a CV and a cover letter for a job application and explained the difference between a qualification and a benefit. It was not the easiest, since I’m not so familiar with all the terms in English myself, but in the end we had a finished CV for both of them at least :)

21 March

Finally we made it to the Batu Caves, Jessica had been trying to go every weekend for ages. It is situated 13 km north of Kuala Lumpur. It is a limestone hill with a series of caves and cave temples. It is one of the most popular holy places for Hindus outside India and the temple is dedicated to Lord Murugan.

We were planning to go there really early in the morning to avoid the hottest sun, as we were going to walk up the 272 steps to the Temple Cave, but then we were not there until nearly 11 o’ clock anyway.

It was quite funny when we stepped off the train and were going to take a taxi to the caves and everybody was repeating Batu Caves!? Batu Caves!? I guess we looked really touristy, so it was quite obvious where we were going. Most of the time I don’t feel like a tourist here though, since I work here.

Actually the stairs were not as difficult as we had imagined them to be and we were on top quite fast and not too sweaty as we were walking up in the shade luckily.

I was really impressed by the gigantic statue of Murugan. With its 42,7 meter it is the world’s tallest statue of Murugan.

Anyways, I’m really glad we went there and I recommend everyone who comes to Malaysia to pay the Batu Caves a visit.

20 March

Sorry my international friends, will write the following in Swedish, so if you want to read it, just try google translator and maybe you  can make some sense out of it.

Så min hyresvärd tipsade mig om att åka till Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, som ligger i Kuala Lumpur och är ett populärt ställe att besöka både för turister och lokalbefolkningen. Det som lockade mig dit var att vandra i skogen bland vattenfall och att komma bort från stadsmiljön för en stund. Jag bestämde mig för att åka dit på egen hand. Googlade hur jag skulle ta mig dit och det visade sig att jag först måste ta en buss, därefter två tåg och sedan en taxi. Det gick rätt smidigt ändå och kostade inte mer än 20kr allt som allt. Hade dessutom en väldigt trevlig taxi chaufför som jag disktuterade våld mot kvinnor med.

Väl där kändes det som om jag befann mig i en sagovärld. Jag vandrade omkring i skogen på alla möjliga stigar. Hoppade till vid minsta lilla ljud, rädd för att det var en orm eller något annat läskigt djur. Jag tog en väldigt brant stig 500m upp till en smal hängbro som gick över skogen. Jag vågade dock inte prova den, men kanske åker tillbaka dit en gång till, för det verkade rätt häftigt. Jag såg även några traditionella Malay hus, och små söta apor.

Därefter mötte jag alltså upp Jessica och Karin vid Central market, en stor marknad som säljer souvenirer, smycken, kläder m.m. Fanns mycket fint, men det mesta som jag ville ha var rätt dyrt och det var inte jättelätt att pruta, men förmodligen kommer jag att åka dit igen någon gång framöver.

Vi var också in i en djuraffär som sålde hundvalpar. De var urgulliga, men jag blev upprörd över att hundvalpar säljs på det sättet. De satt i små burar och det var rätt uppenbart att de var understimulerade och stressade.

Innan vi åkte hem gick vi även igenom Petaling Street, där det säljs en massa märkes prylar (väskor, klockor, kläder m.m.) Allt fejk of course :)

19 March

At work Jessica, Philip, Sarah and I went for a study tour at another NGO in Kuala Lumpur. I learnt quite a lot about international treaties and the UN system, but got bored afer a while since they were talking for two and a half hours non-stop.

Afterwards all of us girls went to Jessica’s gym. Sarah and I get to train there 7 days for free, since Jessica is a member. This was actually my first time at a professional gym and I must admit I felt a bit awkward among all the fit people there. A woman gave us a tour around the gym first, since we had to pretend to want to join the gym in order to get the free trial. It was the most fashionable gym I have ever seen and it actually felt more like a night club when first entering it, with disco balls hanging in the roof and loud music playing.

While Jessica was working out with her personal trainer, Sarah and I did 45min on the treadmill. Thereafter we tried some of the weights and I found out that I am very weak and should go to the gym more often, hehe. The coolest thing about the gym is that there is a pool on top of the roof and of course we had to check this out. While Jessica was running on the treadmill, Sarah and I were relaxing in the pool. Afterwards we tried their steam room, also a first time experience for me, which was very nice and hot.

We finished our day by having dinner at Subways, one of my new favorite restaurants where I go several times a week for lunch

17 March + 18 March

Quite boring days at work. I helped updating databases with donors’ information and companies contact information for funding proposals. Sitting in front of the computer all day I had a terrible headache in the end of the day :(

After work I just relaxed at home and went for swimming downstairs in the pool.

16 March

In the morning I updated the database of all volunteers. I had to put in their name, address and phone number, which was more difficult than u would think as everything was hand written and sometimes it was really hard to figure out what the name or address was since I’m not familiar with the names and places in Malaysia.

In the afternoon I helped Karin teach English to 5 women at the Refuge. We split them into two groups and had them interviewing each other and do role plays. It was very basic since they all knew very little English, some of them hardly any. Luckily one woman could at least understand us and help translate to the others. One of the women I was helping was really enthusiastic and said she learnt something from the lecture and didn’t even want to stop after one and a half hour, so it made me very glad. This was actually the first time I interacted with the women who stays at the Refuge. I really enjoyed being there and hope that I can go there next week again.

15 March

New week at work and I started the day with uploading my pictures and videos from Saturday on WAO’s group on facebook and put links on there to the videos we took last week for the Pixel project.

In the afternoon I helped them put three shelves from IKEA together, which was quite fun as a break from the computer.

14 March

Went to Mid Valley Megamall for shopping in the morning. Found really cheap flip flops, less than 3RM which is like 5SEK!

In the evening we had a BBQ at Philip’s and Jessica’s place by their pool since it was Philip’s Birthday. People had cooked really nice food and I enjoyed having potatoes for the first time since I came here.

13 March

In the morning Karin, Jessica and I went to the event for International Women’s Day that we had been preparing for earlier in the week. We were supposed to help set up a tent with rooms that had different themes. It took quite a long time to get there as we fist had to take a bus, then train and thereafter taxi. So by the time we got there the tent was already set up, which we were quite happy for, as it was really hot outside. The event was held in a park nearby a mall and there were quite a few other NGO:s there besides WAO.

After a while I was sweating like a pig and it seriously felt like I was going to melt away. I was quite happy when I saw the ice cream man coming on his bicycle. He had a very weird ice cream combo though, ice cream served in a hot dog bun :)

After finishing setting up the rooms we escaped to the mall nearby for lunch and AC. I think that might have been the longest lunch I have ever taken. I had waffles with ice cream, which was very delicious as a change to noodles and rice.

When we got back it was time for the walk for women’s rights, the funniest part of the day and it was nice to be able to stop all traffic for once. I will let the pictures and videos talk for themselves :)

12 March

Today was a really tiring day at work. It was like none of us interns had any energy. I seriously felt like I was going to collapse from the heat. We were busy preparing everything for tomorrow’s event.

I am having a quiet evening at home tonight as I feel so exhausted from all activities the past couple of days and the tropical heat.

11 March

In the morning I was reading the Domestic Violence Act for Malaysia and talked to some volunteers who were there helping out just for the day. Then I went to a place with the other interns and a volunteer to pick up some furniture, which we are going to use on Saturday for the International Women’s Day event. Had lunch really late, around 3pm, so by that time I was so dehydrated and felt like I was going to pass out any minute. Karin and I made some signs that people are going to wear on Saturday when there is a walk for women’s rights, mine said: Stop child marriages!

When we got back home I was really exhausted, but still Karin and I went to our gym for the first time. Unfortunately most of the equipment was out of order though, but we did some biking and after that we jumped into the pool for some swimming.

10 March

In the morning I continued my work from the previous day by scanning the news paper articles I had cut out and putting them in the right folders. In the afternoon I attended a meeting between different NGO:s about migration issues. It was quite interesting to find out what challenges they are facing and how they work and plan to work in the future.

In the evening we went to Mid Valley Megamall to meet up with Jessica, Philip, his girlfriend and two of her friends to watch Alice in Wonderland. It was quite nice. The cinema was freezing though. Karin had warned me about this, so I had brought a scarf to wrap around me and warm clothes, but still I was freezing a bit. But it was quite nice for a change actually as I have been sweating constantly since I arrived here.

After the movie we all went to an Irish pub to have drinks and hang out for a bit (no alcohol for me though).