Kuantan

After Melly & Diana left for Kuantan, I was left to work at Selangor on my own. MFD finally arranged time for me in a classroom during the school week. I was sent to a pre-k class (only four students enrolled) and I was surprised to see that only one student was present. Since attending pre-k is not required, it is entirely up to the parents to drop their child off at school or not. The teacher admitted that students' attendance isn't stable. I watched while she taught the only present student (six years old boy) who sat there, recording numbers and doodling in his journal. He had absolutely no conversational skills and refused to say anything other than answer the teacher's questions with single words. Later, I found out that a second student was asleep in a corner on the other side of the room. He was sick with a fever and his parents weren't able to pick him up due to work. So his pre-k classroom became a daycare for him until his parents picked him up. At one point, the sick student got up and pulled out some toys and the working student joined him. They spent the next half hour playing with puzzle pieces without saying a single word to each other. The teacher asked me a million questions about American Deaf schools but after that, she engaged in a long side conversation with my interpreter and left me sitting there.

The next day, we returned to the school so that I could continue to observe pre-k. But I was both surprised and not surprised that no students showed up. The teacher was alone in her classroom and apologized about us coming all the way for nothing. On a brighter note, I got to see the UPSR students (our first group in Malaysia!) It was good to see them even if for a short time. They actually thought I flew home to America and back in three weeks!

After a disappointing round at Selangor, I couldn't wait to get out of there and get to Kuantan. It took four long hours but I was reunited with Melly and Diana! The campus there is just like Selangor's but smaller. We held our usual English camp there and I was more than happy to see that the students were very smart. The majority of them knew basic English vocabulary and had some sentence structure. They were able to answer questions and so on. Their sense of humor really stood out and we just could tell that they were happy especially since they spend every waking minute together (all of them live at the dorm). There is only one Deaf teacher at this school-- the rest of the teachers are hearing and know little sign.

One thing we were surprised to learn, most of the teachers who teach at Kuantan right now are actually teachers for students with learning disabilities. They graduated with that sort of major and only work at the Deaf school right now because they were placed there by the government. They learned sign language and work with Deaf students not because they wanted to but because they had to. Almost all of the hearing teachers kept asking us if the students we worked with understood us. They kept implying that they weren't smart enough and looked as if they were almost apologizing for the students' "slowness". It took all I had to keep from explaining that the students were not slow, it is simply their lack of knowledge. There is a big difference between our (Melly, Diana and me) and the hearing teachers' style of teaching. These teachers expect their Deaf students to sign along with them as they review materials or go over new concepts. But what they don't realize: are the students really absorbing new information or just repeating? In our education courses at Gallaudet, we have learned that one of the surefire way to know if the students are actually learning is to keep asking them questions. Once they are able to answer our questions regarding new materials, we will be able to tell if they've understood.

We can clearly see that the teachers ARE trying to teach. I hope they will keep improving. We have never once heard the students complain about their teachers so that shows me they admire and listen to them.

Kuantan has the best cafeteria food! They kept us full all day and had stuff we were actually willing to try. All through my stay there, I ate with my hands, using the shovel method. I haven't used silverware in a long while. Not only that, I've also given in to using the floor toilet (even if it took me three weeks!) It's almost rare to find toilet seats so we have to squat and pee through a hole in the ground.

The students were loaded with a million and one questions and were not afraid to bombard us with them. They would ask random questions and especially wanted to know when we would leave the campus. Everyday they asked the same questions and that's when we saw it. They would miss our company. We girls would sit around with them, answering their questions big or small. "Are your parents Chinese?" "Why do you have moles?" "Have you seen an UFO?" Little girls would point at my tattoos and ask how I got them ("somebody drew them on me while I was asleep.") A young girl even gave up her stash of pandan cookies and presented us with one each.

Bottom line: they craved attention from stimulating people-- namely people who knew fluent sign language. They needed people who would keep up with their communication level and listen to them. They needed people other than staff who tell them to line up and to take their baths. Don't get me wrong, the staff there are wonderful and really take care of the students but when it comes to simple conversation, it just doesn't seem present.

I ended up staying at Kuantan for a week instead of just a couple of days. I felt that I would benefit more there than hoping students show up at Selangor. And I'm glad I did. Anna got a text message from the warden the day we left that explained the children's reaction when they found out we were gone. Even if we told them a thousand times the exact date and time we were leaving the school, they just wouldn't believe it. When they realized we didn't show up at mealtime, they actually went looking for us. I wonder how they felt once they found out we were really gone.

After Kuantan, we returned to our apartment at Kuala Lumpur and packed up. The next day, we took a 5 hour bus ride to Penang, an island west of Malaysia. It cost us 25 RM (about nine US dollars) and with some prior research, we were able to navigate ourselves to Baan Talay, a homestay, in a taxi. We checked in and to our relief, this place is way nice. I'm actually writing this right now in the comforts of our own room by the beach. I have to say that the beaches here at Penang is overrated (maybe because I was so blown away by Siloso Beach at Singapore?) The people who run this homestay-- KD and Saracha are really cool. The vibe here is pretty mellow especially with other white travellers (European and Australian).

More later with pictures of Batu Caves and Kuantan (I'm behind, I know!)

"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations but truth has only one mode of being."
-Jean Jacques Rousseau

moose hands

Hello from Kuantan! The group here has just become my favorite ;) We cannot stop laughing with and at them! Despite the tiny ants in my bed, the food here is plentiful and the campus is gorgeous.

More later when I get back to Kuala Lumpur,
Amati

"be yourself. imitation is suicide."

Pictures from Pesiba:


soaking our feet at the fish spa!




we did a Jeopardy game with the students and one of the categories was "America" and one of the questions asked what our names were. this girl wrote down the answer-- guess melly's got a new last name ;)


the group at Pesiba-- this was taken on the last day so some students aren't pictured


my surprised reaction at how big my tosai was!


newcom bar-- we met Danny who treated us to a few jugs of Tiger beer

Batu Caves

After being rained out, we went for a second try and went all the way to the end of the LRT line in Gombak and got on a taxi to the caves. Turned out that this trip would become my second favorite adventure! (next to Singapore, of course)

Batu Caves is this spot, kind of like the holy ground for Hindus. Its a hill made of limestone and in order to reach the top, we had to climb 272 steep steps (and more!) There's a giant golden Hindu shrine that overlooks the place. I couldn't look up at it much because every time I tried, I felt like I would topple off the steps and roll all the way down to the bottom. Smells of incense and bat shit filled the place as we trekked through leaky depths. The dripping water helped us keep cool but attracted mosquitoes from what felt like every corner of Malaysia! There was a chapel where Indians prayed barefoot and had red ash marked on their foreheads.

Wild hens, pigeons and dogs roamed the place looking for food, undeterred by the tourists around them. Luckily enough, we went on a quiet day so it wasn't crowded. There are usually several festivals in spring so it was considered off-season by the time we went. We didn't realize that there were hidden trails leading off to other caves but there's no way we could have survived these without a tour guide. Next time, I guess! Even if we didn't get to do that, we were still taken back by the cave's beauty. The details were fantastic-- the age of the place and all the green growing between the crevices. We watched bats fly overhead and then disappear in the darkness. I just absolutely loved it.

The best part? The wild macaque monkeys! I had heard about the monkeys before we went but I had no idea of how many there would be. They were everywhere, hundreds of them. I didn't really think they would approach us but they did. It was nothing like anything you could find in America-- in fact, this kind of thing would probably be illegal! Our first encounter was when a monkey jumped on Melly out of nowhere and grabbed her plastic bag to savor the apple inside. He ran off and chomping on it happily, leaving us in shock. After that, I couldn't resist buying a bag of peanuts to give everybody so we could feed the monkeys. My heart kept pounding because I kept imagining the worst (ten monkeys on me at once fighting over the food-- rabies much!) but it turned out to be wonderful. After all, the monkeys were just there to get food from us and nothing more. There was a king monkey-- slightly bigger than the rest and we could tell that the smaller monkeys were terrified of him but that didn't stop them from trying to beat him to the food. Survival of the fittest! We tried our best and fed as many as we could. They came up to us one by one and took peanuts from us. I can say I never thought I would feel tiny monkey fingers on my hand. This certain monkey kept wrapping his hand around my fingers and holding it as he used his other hand to slowly take the food.

After a hour of entertaining ourselves with the monkeys, we took our leave back to town. We stopped by ABC (Always Best Choice) restaurant for an Indian dinner. Ryan Digovanni is now in Malaysia doing his internship! Its good to have another American around.

Diana and Melly left for Kuantan (far east of Kuala Lumpur) yesterday. I stayed behind to do some observing at a Selangor pre-k class. Yesterday, only one student was present. He was so shy but I was impressed at how well he was able to form letters of the alphabet and some basic signs. There are only four students enrolled in pre-k and most of them often do not show up. Case in point, today no students showed up so my day was cut short. I'll join Sazali later on this afternoon for the four hour drive out to Kuantan to meet up with the two girls. Even if just for one day and half, being alone in a foreign country was quite an experience. I was so lost in my thoughts and actually got several things done (laundry!) Thank god we have a machine in our apartment, but no dryer. Good thing its warm enough in the room so that clothes dry within a hour of being hung up.

So, I'm off for the weekend! I'll be returning this monday alone by bus to continue working at Selangor as the two girls travel up north to another school.

Summer book #2

"Still, I wish I knew more. When I was in seventh grade, I had a teacher who loved astronomy. He had this way of talking about stars that made you remember them forever."

"What did he say?"

"That staring at stars was like staring backward in time, since some stars are so far away that their light takes millions of years just to reach us. That we see stars not as they look now, but as they were when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole concept just struck me as amazing somehow."

The Choice, Nicholas Sparks

Highlight of the day

a diamond in the rough

Pictures from our Singapore adventure:


discovering Little India


our hotel room lights/ac wouldn't go on until our room key was inside this adapter. so when we left the room with the key, the power went off in order to reduce power waste. very energy-efficient!




we checked out Bugis street, one of the largest outdoors market


one of the many colorful fruit stands


fried squid, anyone?




the architecture in Singapore is beyond amazing


Anna admiring the riverfront










we got there just in time to see the sun set


mandatory flower shot


us with the mini-Merlion (later we passed by the big one located in Singapore Universal Studios)


that thing up in the air actually has restaurants and buildings! we could make out tiny ant-sized people walking around.






i spy a bird spying a glass of champagne ;)




one of the many statues around




our hotel at night


walking to....




this place was the absolute opposite of the city life we had been living in malaysia so it was definitely paradise




me and Melly discussing the possibilities of swimming to the other side




see how far away we are!






gettin pumped before our big ride




the view from the top of our zipline hut- we started here and landed on the bottom (white tents)

I arrived before Melly ;)


see you again someday, Siloso! <3

Pesiba

We spent last week working at Pesiba deep in the city of Kuala Lumpur. We took the LRT and then took a long walk in the city, weaving through sleeping bums on the street and hundreds of Chinese shack restaurants with skinned ducks in their windows.
When we finally got to the office, we ran about three stories up the stairs and I got a mean bruise on my leg. Their railing ends are sharp! Who knew.

Unfortunately, when we came in, we saw.....teenagers. Upon more observation on our part, we found out that we would be teaching English to students OUR age. Not only that, this class had a huge variety in terms of age. It ranged from a young boy of 9 years old to a 25 years old married man. That was certainly something. We automatically knew that the curriculum we developed for the previous camps was not going to work for this certain group. Quickly, we had to improvise a brand new lesson plan. Lucky for us, Anna was there as well and gave us a few ideas of what to do. Since the group had a good foundation of English (they were already aware of basic vocabulary and sentence structure because they graduated high school) we decided to go through the 5 W's with them (who, when, why, what & where) and past vs present words (ran, run) until they were comfortable enough to proceed.

From that point on, I can't really remember exactly what we did but it was largely improvised. Because of the big difference in levels, one of us worked with the 9 years old boy while two of us worked with the older group. This part gave me a chance to work one-on-one with a young student which I did enjoy. By doing this, I was able to practice certain skills. Interestingly enough, this boy comes from a Deaf family and still had trouble expressing himself. Every time I spelled out a new vocabulary word for him to write down, he would have no problem. But when I asked him to repeat after me, he would just make up the spelling as if I didn't just spell it out two seconds ago. His motivation level wasn't too high which is the major problem of Deaf students here. They do try but then give up when it becomes too hard.

I decided to write down the vocabulary words on the board, use flashcards and so on. Then when I wanted to test him on word recognization, I decided to write each vocabulary word one by one and have him draw a picture next to it. For example, when I wrote down "pencil" he would draw a pencil. He did this with absolutely no problem but when I erased the word "pencil" he would struggle with the spelling and make up something.

But after a half hour, I was happy to see that he had learned and memorized about 7 of 15 vocabulary words. A success on my part.. and his, I would say.

The entire time I was there, I kept reciting this to myself: "Teaching is teaching nevertheless." Not the learning experience I wanted but a learning experience nevertheless :)

We frequent the IOI mall right around our apartment for dinners at night and to kill time by walking around food and clothes stores. Its about a fifteen minutes walk from our place and is a good spot for us. There are so many malls here! Muthu took us to Times Squares mall in Imbi and wow, I take back what I said about the mall inside the Twin Towers. Times Squares is huge. It has ten floors and is complete with a movie theater and Cosmo's World, an indoor amusement park.

We checked out Cosmo because we found out we would get in for only 10RM (about 4 dollars!! We often get discounts here, thanks to our disability). It is the largest indoor amusement park in Malaysia. After that, we went and got a fish massage! If you haven't heard of one, its when you go into a spa and put your feet inside a fish tank and allow hundreds of fish suck away at your feet (yes, even between your toes!) to clean off dead skin cells. It actually sounds much more disgusting than it really is. It just felt like bubbles against my feet.

We've used the city bus everyday for about a week now. It's pretty easy to get around especially using the monorail. Using public transportation used to be a pain for us because we would constantly get stares from people. Men especially would stare at us for as long as we stood there. At first, we would challenge them by staring back in hopes of making them feel uncomfortable enough to look away but nope. They stared anyway. So after three weeks here, we've reached a point of ignoring it-- sometimes to the point of not even noticing it! We sure are getting used to their culture.

Another yummy find for us! We love this Indian dish-- Tosai. Guess we traveled all the way to Malaysia to discover our love for Indian food ;) Certainly will be checking out Indian cusine when we get back to DC.

Monsoon season is starting! We went all the way to Gombak to check out Batu caves only to be bombarded with this ongoing rainstorm. But no amount of water will stop us! We're gonna go again today. Batu caves is a popular Hindu site surrounded with animals and a giant stairs made up of 257 steps! Am sure we're about to learn some more information later today.

Macaque monkeys, here we come! :)

"why let uncertainty stop a rising star?"

Pictures from our stay at Johor




I have a fascination with the flowers that bloom here


our beds at Jomi's homestay


students at the English clinic


my group! we usually do moose hands to get everyone's attention- I guess they liked it so much they kept doing it during the pictures ;)


we tried to incorporate art and other subjects as much as we could in our English lessons


Melly leading warm-up activities (she has a new sign name now!)


playing the Elephant game


us at the treehouse restaurant


Malaysian food






we went to an outdoor market after the restaurant-- plenty of American brands for way cheap!


chowing down apom!










us doing our American powerpoint


I miss my family! especially my black and white anjing <3


Jomi's son


BBQ outside our homestay




Yazid making us our favorite drink-- longons