This weekend I helped out with an English camp run by Pat and Colin, two ETAs who live in a remote area in central Pahang. The camp took place at Tasek Bera Ramsar Site, a lakeside campsite. The lake supposedly forms the largest freshwater ecosystem in Southeast Asia. The fact-checkers I've hired for the blog have the night off, so I'll let that claim stand for now.
Malaysia sometimes feels like an entire nation of concerned parents. My mentor was worried about me driving alone, but she just told me to be careful. Then I went to grab lunch after school at Sri Villhas, the Indian restaurant that I eat at nearly every day. The owner convinced me to try her rice and vegetables this time instead of just alternating between dosa and roti like usual, and it was delicious. Then we had a nice chat about how her friendship with an American expat helped her realize that American women really DO love their husbands and their families, just as much as Indian women do. Apparently, we aren't as heartless as we seem on TV! Heartwarming. I avoided telling her that I myself am incapable of loving others and think only about prestige and material possessions. When she found out I was leaving straight for the camp, she instructed me to get my oil, brake oil, water, and tires checked at the gas station before leaving and took my phone number so she could call me to make sure I made it alive. All good advice--I did get those things checked at the gas station and felt better for it. It was very nice of her to look out for me like that, and I did appreciate it.
But here's the thing: I already have two overprotective and concerned parents. I really don't need to find them at every turn. Guess this is part of culture shock, and right on schedule. The teachers at my school are all very concerned for my well-being, as are all the people I meet here, including strangers. And they all have advice to offer about what I should do. At first I thought this was great, because I obviously have no idea how to do things here. But now it's beginning to wear on me, especially when the advice is conflicting. I have a tendency to be overly swayed by other people's opinions and advice, especially when I respect them and think they have more experience than I do. In Malaysia, though, I have to learn to have more confidence in my own instincts. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the saga of me trying to get transportation, which dragged on for over a month. Everyone had their opinion. "Car is safer." "Better you rent." "Better to buy." "Try to learn a motorbike, then see if you want to buy." "Scooter is better for ladies." "Why don't you lease?" "You're buying a used car? But then you have to pay to service!" "Why not just pay a taxi driver to be your driver?"
Anyway, I drove about 2.5 hours through the Malaysian countryside to get to the campsite at a place called Tasek Bera. The scenery was beautiful and the roads were good up until the very last, pothole-ridden leg of the trip. I ended up arriving about 45 minutes before the bus with the other ETAs and their students did, because, in true Malaysian fashion, the bus picked them up way behind schedule. I wasn't sure where to go, so I pulled into the parking lot in front of the lodge reception. I took a deep breath, internally congratulated myself on making it through my first Malaysian road trip in one piece, and promptly locked my keys in my car. This move is what I would call "classic Liz." In fact, my readers probably saw something like that coming. At the very least, none of you are surprised, I know that.
The weird part is that I wasn't as worried about this as I would've been in the US. Why? 1) My car is a 1991 Ford Telstar with more miles on it than I would like to admit publicly. No one wants to steal it. In fact, the doors only really close properly if you ram into them with all your force. I managed to lock the keys in there AND to leave the front door slightly ajar (but not enough to stop it from locking), a true feat even for me. Somehow this fact was a comfort. 2) I thought, "This is Malaysia. Some strange man is going to figure out a way to unlock this and help this young woman alone. It'll probably permanently damage the car, but they'll do it. I can see two Malay ladies at the reception desk, so they'll have my back and not let anything creepy happen."
And you know what? I was right. No sooner had I broken a pen in an attempt to stick it through a small hole where part of my window should be than a group of Chinese men hailed me from the lodge and asked what happened. When I told them, with an exaggerated face-palm thrown in to ensure effective cross-cultural communication of my utter stupidity, they came over to help me faster than you can say, "Sweaty damsel in vehicular distress." The first thing they did, to my chagrin, was to bump into the door to make it close all the way. "But, but," I spluttered. Then, I saw one of them take something from the back of their pick-up truck. It turns out it was an ornately-decorated, long, silver knife that he slowly removed from a leather scabbard. I had to laugh, and when I mimed pretended fright they all laughed, too. One of the men, who I noticed had extremely long fingernails, slid the knife down between my car window and the doorframe and jimmied it around. Another friend then slid his own car key into my door, and together they got it to open--just like magic! Frightening, frightening magic. The most magical thing of all is that both lock and window still work. (That's kind of an overstatement, since the automatic windows in my car have never really worked, but still.)
Next thing you know, one of the men was inviting me to sit down and have a drink at the lodge patio overlooking the lake. People always invite me to have drinks here, and it never means alcohol. I'm hoping that it also lacks the somewhat flirtatious US connotation, but that remains to be seen. I said that I should be buying them drinks as a thank you, but they would have none of it. I assessed the situation--2 reception ladies, me with nothing to do for an hour--and accepted the offer. I got two whole water bottles out of the deal, and a chance to have a short chat in broken English with the men. Turns out that the one who spoke to me most was an out-of-work rubber tapper in town to pick up some fish from a friend. At one point I left to use the bathroom, and when I returned he was holding a live fish wrapped in newspaper and putting it in the reception waitress's face to freak her out. Lovely. After that he and his friends finished their ice tea and departed, leaving me alone to contemplate the scenery.
The scenery included two medium-sized fish tanks, each one dominated by a huge, ugly fish. One of them had other fish in it as well. As I contemplated, a man who appeared to be working at the site in some official capacity (gardener? maintenance man?) walked over to the tank that had multiple fish and started torturing one of the small fish. He reached in, put his hands around the fish, and squeezed. Then he let it sink to the bottom, waited for it to swim dizzily back up, and squeezed again. Sometimes he would lift it out of the water for a second. This process went on for about five minutes. I was mesmerized and utterly bewildered. I was also surprised at the fish's resilience. It reminded me of a flying cockroach I tried to kill in my apartment once, except more lovable. While I was still gawking at this fish torture spectacle (air boarding?), a Malay family walked in and the woman introduced herself as one of the teachers helping facilitate the camp. While she and her kids were checking in at the front desk, I watched the fish-torturer blithely grab the fish out of the water, walk across the room, and drop it into the other tank with the other big, ugly fish. The big fish immediately snapped open its mouth and ate it in one gulp. The children didn't bat an eyelash, and the torturer walked away. I was the only one stunned. Well, me and the little fish, I guess, but he wasn't stunned for long. Somehow the combination of this incident and me being rescued by a sword-wielding rubber tapper really encapsulated the foreignness of this place for me.
The camp itself would further underscore that strangeness. The first thing I did was help the kids set up tents (I wasn't much help, really) and set up the tent I would be sharing with Amy. Things after that are kind of a blur in my mind of activities and breaks for prayer and time spent waiting around. Basically, although Pat and Colin had prepared a lot of activities and kind of thought they were supposed to run the camp, much of it ended up being run by the Malaysian teachers. In Malay. But the activities they put on were a lot of fun, and I think the kids enjoyed themselves.
The first night should give you an idea of how things went throughout the camp. First, the kids had to pray. They all gathered in a lovely outdoor auditorium right by the lake, and the ETAs absented ourselves to the dock to chat and plan. It probably wasn't far away enough, though, because we were still in plain view and soon realized we had to talk in whispers so as not to create an audible distraction. But it was nice to sit and compare notes about the funny things that had happened to us, like how I kept texting another ETA who had the same name as my landlady about problems with my apartment and didn't realize I had the wrong one until she finally said she thought I was mistaken a week later. Then prayers were finally over and we all had dinner. It turned out that some of the teachers had prepared a real feast for us--American style barbecue like hot dogs and grilled chicken, and whole grilled fish, and amazingly good french fries. Delicious, and so kind of them.
To be continued...I kept getting up to this point and losing the will to write more in what is already a very long post.
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