This being my first blog entry it seems a little strange and perhaps a bit self indulgent to be writing one. However I've decided it is by far the simplest way to let everyone know whats happening with me over here in Malaysia.
So, so far I've been here in Malaysia for a week. I flew out in the early morning of Tuesday the 30th of December. I flew over with 6 other volunteers from Melbourne but the flight over here was not great becuase I was very sick. I was talking to this woman next to me at first, who promptly ignored me when I threw up. Hahah guess I can't blame her though.
After arriving at the airport, we had to wait around the airport for 5 hours for the english kids WHO HAVE THE NICEST ACCENTS! ARGH! The other volunteer I'm placed with here, Rachel, is from a small town about an hour out of Bristol so we have spent a lot of time talking about the differences between Australia and England for example she had never had fairy bread, to which I promptly demanded that she try it AS SOON AS she got home.
There are 13 volunteers in total. 10 from Australia (9 girls, one boy) and 3 from the UK (all girls). So poor Matt, being the only boy, is placed in a school by himself.
After we all arrived we were taken to an international private school just outside of Kuala Lumpur for training and "getting to know you" time with everyone. The school had beautiful grounds and the training, although scary becuase we all just realised we were actually going to teach real kids, was really helpful and interesting. On the last day we had a practise class with some local students who were 14 years old. It went quite badly. We (Rachel and I took the class together) tried to get them involved but they wouldn't answer any of our questions. Becuase they are really shy and find it embarrasing to speak up. Even when we asked if there were any questions no one spoke up even though some of them really didn't understand. It was like teaching to a wall. Anyway afterwards when the local teacher talked to us he said that if the kids are finding it too hard / too easy / boring they will just walk out and if that happens we are the ones that will get in touble because it is our responsibility as teachers which I find crazy.
Possibly the highlight of my time during the training was when we went to KL for new years eve. We drove into the city arriving about 9pm and the 13 of us were let loose on the city. We wandered around just taking in the city and were followed around by packs of guys who were saying "oh di sini orang putih" or "oh there! white people" or sometimes "welcome to Malaysia". At about 10 o'clock we decided we would find a place to have a drink and spent the next hour and a half trying to find somewhere. Since Malaysia is a muslim country there aren't many places to get a drink apart from hotels etc.. which had a lockout by 10pm. We finally found an Irish pub at 11:30 and had a cocktail whereupon we also recieved free party poppers and flashing shot glasses (classy as! - I'm totally bringing it to every party I go to when I get home). The pub was playing horrible 90's music which we all sang along to, so much so that we missed new year and only realised when the fireworks started going off outside. After we watched the fireworks (which were set off worryingly close to all the buildings) we set off through the middle of the city expecting to just meet up with our driver and teachers. However everyone started spraying eachother with silly string and foam. We all got COVERED. Especially becuase we were white girls but it was so much fun. When we reached our driver we found Matt had somehow avoided getting sprayed and so promptly pushed him into a group of guys until he was covered head to toe.
So that was most of my first week here. I'm at my school now which is lovely but I will write more about it later!
Love han xoox
p.s for those of you who have left me a facebook comment, I can't access facebook from school because its blocked to I only log on occassionally.
