Day 1-4:
It’s already the 3rd day of my arrival in Malaysia. Thinking back the past 3 days, I have really changed a lot.
As I chose to arrive at Singapore Changi Airport instead of the airport at Johor Bahru, I had to cross through the border between Singapore and Malaysia. I don’t know I should say I was lucky or not because the LC committee in Malaysia were so nice that they came all the way from Malaysia to Singapore to meet me but they were late for nearly two hours. I was so panic at that time. On the one hand, I did not know if I should continue waiting because when I went to Delifrance which was the place that we were supposed to meet each other, I found that there were nobody waiting for me. On the other hand, they had promised to meet me there. I became even worried when I found that there were actually 3 Delifrance at the airport. I used my phone card to phone them but they could not be connected. When I could finally success in calling them, the phone had already had its line cut when I tried to ask whether they were coming to find me. As I was a bit hungry after4 hours of flight, I decided to have a meal at Delifrance and then went to Malaysia by myself. But then, I saw 3 girls coming! I tried to wave my hand so that they could see me but they just failed to see me and left. Maybe I was luckily fallen onto their blind spot~ :P I immediately put my bag on the shoulder, ignore the meal and ran to them. Finally, we met each other!!! (And then they told me that it is Malaysian culture not to be on time = =”but I was so happy that I did not feel angry. There is nothing to be angry at other culture, right?)
Wa! I originally believed that it would be easy to get from the airport to Malaysia custom. What I had found out was that by traveling in MRT only, it already took about 2 hours (change lane for 4 times). But the condition at the border was even worse, because it was the busy hours, people went back to Malaysia after a day of work at Singapore. There are many many many people at the border and the buses (we need to travel by bus to enter Malaysia after MRT). The number of people was even more than that at the Lo Wu border at the eve of Lunar New Year. You can imagine: all men with bad temper crowded at the border! They did not queue up in line. They just pushed each other arguing who should come first. The way was very uneven. We always needed to go up and down. It would be very tired to walk for such a long distance in an uneven road, not to mention my heavy IBM notebook in my handbag and the >20kg luggage. But the AIESECers were very nice. They helped me when they saw me tired to death.
After a hard day, I went to bed early at about 2 o’clock :P waiting for the other day to come—Sunday, a day off!
I originally decide to get up at 9am to say hello to the residents in my accommodation. Dame it! I woke up at 6am! I couldn’t believe it. My accommodation is a Chesire Home for disabled people. Upon the rise of the sun, they would get up. And the mentally retarded people would start yelling…… Suen la, I gave up my sleep.
On the road, there are no women walking. Even if there are women, they would have their head covered with a piece of cloth. So, it is very uncomfortable that all men would stared at me and the other intern who came from Germany strangely as if we were not wearing any clothes. So disgusting were their eyes!
I originally think that my job would be very easy because I don’t have many things to do actually. However, when it comes to interacting with the residents living here, who are all disabled people, it would be extremely difficult. Firstly, most of them are mentally retarded or with other mental problems. It is very difficult to understand their behaviors. Secondly, most people here do not speak either Madarin or English. This makes our communication hard. Thirdly, even if they know our language or are mentally normal, they cannot control their bodies and even their tongues.
Every morning, the mentally retarded would get up at about 6 and start yelling. Sometimes, I would hear people crying but when I try to approach them to try soothing them, I would find that they are not crying at all. They always produce strange sounds and behave strangely. I believe that clapping our hands is the international language of praising people. But when I clapped my hands after a mentally retarded boy sang and dance, he became angry. People with mental problems usually cannot control and temper and manner easily. Frankly speaking, I am so afraid of them sometimes. I am not discriminating against them but I just cannot help with the uncomfortable feelings they had created to me.
But what I discovered is that if you try to open your heart to show that you care about them, they would be very happy. My job is nothing related to administration work or other practical things. It is actually to give hope to the disabled, show them there is love in the world and their lives have values.
People here can seldom go out because no one would want to bring them out. Many of them have no families because their families abandoned them. They can just know the outside world by talking with us—interns from different countries, by watching television, by surfing the internet(unfortunately only two of them know how to use the computers) and by their own imagination…… Everyday they have nothing to do because they have nothing can do, probably except sleeping and eating. And that’s why they sleep so early everyday at 6pm after dinner. For those who are mentally normal, they are not allowed to study after they are eight. They would end up staying here to make mats for the rest of their lives.
To me, I would think that their lives are full of waiting: waiting for visitors to come, waiting for the computer lesson which is once a week, waiting for meals, waiting for the end of the day, waiting for their deaths……
