The Women of Terengganu

After the mid year break I held my first over night English Camp with 5 other schools, 6 other ETAs, and 120 female students at a beach in Dungun, Terengganu. We called it “The Women of Terengganu English Camp” and it has been in the works since January.

We noticed right away that our female students tended to be very shy and passive in class. So we decided that we wanted to take some of our top female students somewhere special to work on their self-confidence in English.

All of my girls before getting on the bus to go home.

As a part of the camp we mixed fun activities like cooking s’mores and slack lining with confidence building dance and drama competitions with a little bit of seriousness in the form of a ‘Love your body workshop’ and small group discussions about relationships. We packed the two days full of activities and the girls really seemed to respond. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the girls in a place where they felt comfortable to be themselves. By the end of camp the girls were making speeches (in English) in front of large groups and performing their own dance routines in front of 100+ people. Definitely things I never would have expected out of my girls who use to hide behind their hands while speaking in class.

Climbing the rocks at the end of our morning beach hike

Since our return to school I have noticed that the 20 girls I brought with me have begun to open up more in class and every once in a while running up and giving me hugs in the hallway. Hopefully this won’t fade overtime, but instead spread to their friends. One can only hope. Now it’s time to stop writing blogs and start planning for camp number 2! Any suggestions on favorite camp activities would be more than welcomed.

Kangaroos, Kualas, and Dingos, Oh My!

So I have been off in the great down under for the past week and a half: Sydney, Australia. I have been slightly obsessed with visiting Sydney since the 2000 summer Olympics. I came to the conclusion that Malaysia is way closer to Australia than Michigan and decided to treat myself to an early 24^th birthday present.

My Sydney tour has been the family friendly route. My first few days included visits to the Aquarium, the Opera house, the zoo, the Australian wild life exhibit, and the Royal botanical gardens. Lots of school kids on field trips and lots of animals, which has actually been a lot more fun than my original expectations- I’m not really an animal person. I have also been reading the book series “Clan of the Cave Bear” which is a well-researched fiction book about the lives of cavemen, cavewomen, and the origins of humanity. I think the combined efforts of seeing these really unique animals and reading these books has given me an intense desire to go back to school for biology. And that’s just weird; I’ve never been a science person. However it does fit into my typical pattern in school of wanting to know everything and not being satisfied with only studying one thing. I want to figure out how everything in the world works weather it’s the reasons that lead one country to develop while others stay stagnant or the mysteries of the first people (and yes as I type the words “figure out how everything works” I’m realizing how science geek it sounded. Maybe I am a science person deep down). Anyways the first half of my vacation definitely led me to the conclusion that I never have an excuse to be bored- there is just too much cool stuff to learn about.

Feeding a kangaroo at the Sydney zoo.

My first day was extremely overwhelming. It was cold, rainy, and oddly familiar; everything that Malaysia is not. I kept forgetting that people could understand me, and the market near my hostel had everything you would ever need. In Malaysia I’m lucky enough to live near a large super market, which is fairly rare in Terengganu. When I’m in KT I have a hard time articulation what I’m missing from home. I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything (except maybe good Mexican food), but being in that super market made me feel like I’m missing so much.

One of the coolest things in Sydney was called ‘Vivid’. It was a month long event happening at the harbor where the opera house and the modern art museum are located. At night the whole harbor was turned into a light show. Meanwhile the opera house was hosting techno inspired performances and the local restaurants turned themselves into faux night clubs. The harbor was packed and the energy was high, definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

View of the harbor from the Rocks during the Vivid light show.

Opera house tour- check

Aquarium visit- check

Forced to buy a winter coat- check

Stay a night in a Olympic village hotel- check

Spend a lot of time sketching and reading- check, check

Sketching on the back of an old reciept from the Royal Botanical Garden.

Now it’s time to get back to school and prepare for the second half of the year. Time is going to move so quickly the next few months. I already have every weekend booked through September, starting this weekend. My dad has arrived in Malaysia for a work trip and this weekend I’m making a trip out to KL to celebrate Father’s day with him. I am beyond excited and life is good.

Talking about FOOD

This post is in dedication to my dad who will be joining me in Malaysia for the month of June and especially asked for information on eating in Malaysia.

Sooo here’s the thing. If you love fish you’ll be in food heaven. They put in everything and you can usually count on it being very fresh (especially where I live on the coast of the South China Sea in a small fishing village). Malaysians usually fry their fish, along with the majority of their food, but they have also perfected the fish sausage and various other processed fish varieties. At our local night market you can even buy processed fish in the shape and color of angry birds just waiting to be placed in the deep fryer.

However, if the only fish you eat is tuna and the occasional piece of salmon, and you grow ill at the thought of a whole fish head and all, like me, Malaysia can be a little difficult food wise. For a typical meal I usually go for my standbys of sup sayor (vegetable soup), nasi paprik (rice with a red pepper and onion sauce), or roti cani with dal.

There are not as many varieties of fast food places in Malaysia as compared to the US but Malaysians take it to another level. Take McDonalds for example. In Malaysia, you have the typical McDs menu, but you also have their doubles menu which takes any sandwich already on the menu and doubles it. You can order a quadruple burger and the Mega Mac is a sight to be seen. Additionally, here Mc Donalds has a delivery service. I can only imagine how my college all nighters would have been different if the Alma McDonalds delivered. Finally is their reward program. I’m not exactly sure what joining the McDonalds reward system gets you but I know in must be good because you get a large sticker to place on the back window of your car and every car in Malaysia has a huge McDonalds sticker on it. That was really shocking to me when I first arrived, because in the US eating at McDonalds is not something people usually brag about after the age of 17 and here it is plastered all over their cars.

Now as you might notice, it’s a bit difficult to eat healthy here which is reflected in Malaysia’s high diabetes and obesity rates as compared to other South Asian countries. Many of my fellow ETAs have been complaining about gaining weight. I however have been losing weigh which I think is in large thanks to my avoidance of all things fish, in ability to eat more than one meal a day with rice and my addiction to their delicious fresh fruit.

So if you ever make it out to this region, here are my top 5 foods you should try.

1.       Chicken Satay with peanut sauce

2.       Roti Cani with dal

3.       Nasi Goreng Paprik

4.       Sup Sayor

5.       Tom Yam

…and top 3 foods to avoid, even when the locals try to force feed you

1.       Durian (a local fruit that is out lawed in hotels do to its horrible smell)

2.       Karapok (fish sausage)

3.       Rose Water (it’s a red juice that they serve at celebrations, super sweet)

Top 3 foods to eat at home before you leave, because they’re just not the same in Malaysia

1.       Mexican food (it’s not available, but if you do find a random place offering it stay away the Malaysian version I had replaced sour cream with mayo)

2.       Alfredo pasta ( They don’t do a lot of pasta here, and even less dairy based meals)

3.       Bacon, peperoni, basically any ham based foods that you enjoy. (It is a Muslim country after all.)

My perfect Malaysian Day

Hanging out during Teacher's Day

Wednesday May 16 was Teacher’s day here in Malaysia and it was easily my favorite day since arriving here in Malaysia on January 4. 

Malaysian schools go all out for Teacher’s day celebrations. There was a parade of teachers, an assembly honoring the teachers and celebrating birthdays, a lunch feast, games like water balloon toss and rubber band shooting, and a talent show. Oh, and lots of presents. Lots and lots of presents. I am now set in my coffee mug, tubaware, pen needs for the rest of the year. 

Playing water balloon toss against the other teachers. I got second.

I spent most of the morning in sheer panic because I had been forcibly volunteered to sing Selenia Gomez’s “Love you like a love song” to the entire school for the talent show. For those of you who have witnessed my singing abilities in the past you may remember that I have absolutely no ability to remember a tune or to sing on pitch. Luckily, a few of my favorite students took pity on me and agreed to be my back up. We sang and we were even asked for an encore. I had a blast working with them all day and I was able to hang out with the drama kids who were preparing for their skit as well.

On stage singing with my two awesome backup singers.

It was the first time where all of the kids, teachers, and administrators were relaxed and just enjoying themselves. I had a great time chilling with the students and soaking in the emotions of everyone at school. It was my perfect Malaysian Day, which lead directly into a pretty awesome weekend.

At the end of the day I had to rush home to catch my plane to KL for the weekend. All 50 of the ETAs were gathering in the capital for the mid year meeting. It was the first time we had all seen each other since the first half of January. Good food, story swapping, and fun were all apart of the weekend along with meetings with the Ambassador and the Malaysian Ministry of Education. We parted to prepare for a week of exams and then 2 weeks of vacation. I, myself, will be heading to Sydney, Australia for two weeks taking my continent count to 5.

Bringing art into the language classroom

For the mid year meeting in KL this past weekend (Yes, I know halfway through already!) we were all asked to write an article on one of the activities we are most proud of at school. So here for your reading pleasure is the article I wrote:

Form 1 students painting a mural for Earth day.

How do you teach a language when the teacher and the students can’t communicate? There are probably many answers to this question, but my answer has been to rely on my strengths- art.

Soon after I walked into my first class I realized that many of the tactics my teachers used in my high school Spanish classes were not going to work here. There just wasn’t the technology or the resources I was used to having in a classroom, and more importantly I don’t speak the students’ language.

I quickly ran into problems trying to explain myself in classes, but after a few trials and errors I began to rely on my training as an art student. I started to draw visuals to go along with my English to more clearly communicate with my students. This tactic has been especially useful with my students who are illiterate in Bahasa Melayu let alone English. One of the teachers at my school after a successful lesson once told me, “those four girls fail Bahasa Melayu but now they are speaking English.”

 I have found that incorporating art projects with my lessons has also been particularly successful with my youngest students, 12 years old. These kids have extreme amounts of energy and have very few opportunities to use it during their listen, copy, worksheet classes. Including art has given them a way to release some of their energy through creativity as well as allowing themselves to express themselves further than their current English ability allows and helps to ingrain new vocabulary into their memory. I have also noticed that lessons that include creative projects have helped me with discipline in my youngest, rowdiest classes.

 For Earth day I was looking for a project to do with my students to remind them of how important it is to take care of our environment. I floated the idea of a beach cleanup with the students,  but received a lackluster response. Our project instead turned into a mural entitled “we’re all connected” on a wall in the school. As we painted we were able to talk about the environment, climate change, and what the students could do to help. We were also stopped by several curious students who wanted to know why we’re painting the mural. I was very impressed as I heard my painting crew explain to the passerbys about Earth day and our mural.

The headmaster at my school seemed impressed with our work and put in a request for a Teacher’s day mural we have been working on. And as a result we are forming a Mural Club at school where we work to brighten up the old, bland school walls.

Half way through the school year and I have only made a little progress on my Bahasa Malayu skills, but I have made a lot of progress with communicating with my students. Through my broken Bahasa Melayu, their English, and our art we are able to figure each other out and after all that is the point of learning a new language. Is it not?

Getting by with a little bit of help from my friends

April, we were warned, will be the longest and emotionally the hardest of the ten months we would spend in Malaysia. It’s our fourth month which means we are finally fully settled in our new homes. April is the start of the dry/hot season and previous to this year it was the only month in the school calendar without a vacation day. Luckily for us the new King decided to add a holiday on a random Wednesday- I’m assuming this is solely for the benefit of teachers across the country.   

As promised it has been a very long, hot month. However, it’s also had a lot of highlights.

1.       I started the month off at a school wide camping trip where I was able to talk to some of the students in a more informal setting. It makes my day each and every time I am able to have a conversation with a Malay that goes beyond the basic small talk.

2.       I discovered Kapas Island. It is small island only 40ish minutes away from my house. It is an amazing get away where I can leave any stress on the mainland for a day with barely any commute. I’ve been twice in the past month. Once for a girls weekend and once was with all of the Terengganu ETAs.

3.       Celebrated Easter potluck style with the other ETAs in the area. Between the 6 of us we were able to put together a fairly nice American style dinner after school on Easter Sunday.  

4.       Visited southern Terengganu again with many of the Terengganu crew where we were able to go to our first movie theater and Starbucks in ages. Hunger Games did not disappoint and the movies are the perfect place to pretend you’re at home for a few hours.

5.       I went kayaking with my housemates, a few of my teachers and students. It was a blast and there is even a chance that they are starting a kayaking club at my school. *Fingers crossed.*

6.       Yesterday, I painted an Earth day mural with my kids during a Saturday make up day and now the principal wants me to design another one for the front of the school.

7.       My parents finally bought their plane tickets and will definitely be here for August break.

It’s been a long and frustrating month school wise with a lot of language barriers and cross cultural communication problems to overcome, but I had a good month because of all of the friends I have come to rely on here in Terengganu. I’m amazed at how close we have gotten in such a short time, but I guess that is what happens when 17 strangers in the same challenging situation. If any of you are reading this, thanks for my sanity.

In contrast the next two months are so full of things to do that I know that they are going to fly by. I can’t wait to see what they’ll have in store for me.

Side note: Alma graduation was today. I have officially been a college graduate for a year. All I can say is it has been one of the most eventful years I have ever had.

What?! It's already the three month mark.

I can’t believe it has already been 3 months. It still feels like I got here a few weeks ago. I guess “time flies while your having fun” is a cliche for a reason. The past few weeks have been amazing both in and out of school. 

We had our first week long break and I went to Burma with one of the other ETAs. It was easily one of the best vacations I have ever taken, but I do not recommend it for the novice international traveler. Being a tourist in Burma presents a lot of new challenges. They don’t have ATMs in the country and it’s a rare case for a business to accept Visas, therefore you need to plan out the exact amount of money you will spend making sure that the bills you bring are US dollars with no wear and tear of any sort. If you do not do this you will run out of money and be at the mercy of the kind Canadians you run into on your trip who offer to trade flawless USD 20s for your old, folded bills. Traveling from city to city is also more complicated than I expected. There are a lot of mountains in Burma which means that it takes approximately 10hours by bus to get from one tourist destination to another and those who get motion sickness (like I do) should bring dramamine (I didn’t) for the long night busses. However for those of you who are willing to brave leaving the creature comforts behind you will be rewarded with some amazing views and an extremely rich culture. My favorite destinations were Bagan and Inle Lake.

In school, I have been having my students write pen pal letters to my mom’s 6th grade students. The project has been a bit bigger than I originally planned because I had the brilliant idea of typing up all of the letters myself realizing that it would be more time efficient to email the letters than snail mailing them. Even though I have spent nearly every evening this past week typing up grammatically incorrect sentences and long Malay names and their still long, strange looking nick names I have really enjoyed reading my students letters. I now have a better understanding of the common mistakes that everyone is making as well as a more thorough understanding of who my students are. I don’t know if it is because they have already become more comfortable talking about themselves in English or if they are more comfortable writing to an eleven year old as compared to a twenty-three year old, but they were much more open in these letters then in my original introduce yourself lesson. (Am I already considered old in the eyes of high schoolers?!) It was great to read what they had to say. 

This past week also marked a big milestone. I rode my bike over the bridge and into Kuala Terengganu proper on my motorcycle for the first time, AND I wasn’t even close to falling/hitting anyone. For people who knew me in high school you probably know that it took me 2 years after getting my license to drive on the highway and into the big city of Grand Rapids by myself. Progress. 

This week I’m teaching my students English basketball, finish writing my survey so that it can be translated, and preparing for my first English Day Camps that will be later in the month. Wish me luck.