The internet here at the moment is frustratingly slow and it has taken me about 2 hours to open all you emails so I will reply eventually but urgh..hopefully the internet will be back to normal soon.
I don't really know where to start. So much has happened since I last wrote. I got fairly bad tonsillitis and spent 3 days in bed and about a week not being able to really drink much becuase it was too painfull - which is always nice when the weather outside never gets below about 28. I'm all better now through and hopefully it stays like that!
Living here at the school is most likely the closest I will ever come to feeling like a celebrity. Everytime we walk the school people look at us and wave and smile and increasingly, will also come and talk to us. The other night Rachel and I went to the "co-op" to buy some water and we ended up with about 30 kids surrounding us asking us questions and trying to teach us all their names. I have discovered I'm HOPELESS at Malay names since many of them are Arabic. They are hard to pronounce let alone remember as we meet about 30 new kids a day. I also find it very ammusing that many of the kids think Rachel and I look alike. Beyond both having freckles, dark hair and being tall we really don't look alike. We have also been told, for the first and last time in our lives, that we look like Barbie Dolls.
About a week ago Miss Ven Woo was visiting her "homeland", being so Malay and all, and I got to chat with her and eat cheesecake which was really lovely. Speaking of cheesecake, Rachel and I had an ardent craving for some yesterday and so decided to walk down to the shop that sells it. We ended up getting a lift there and walked back which took about 45 mins. Now we thought this is a perfectly normal thing to do but today we have had over 10 teachers coming up to us to say "OH why did you walk?! Its so far! (its not) and its not safe (it is)". Everyone seems to be perplexed to why we would want to walk when we could have called a cab. And it is true. Malays seem to rely on their cars so heavily...one of the english teachers drives her car to work...she lives on campus and it is literally 30m for her to walk while another drives her car to the sports field, again only about 30m, which I thought was so ironic.
Lately becuase of the events in Israel and Palestine we have had a few students come up to us asking our opinion on the issue, which we choose not to really answer beyond saying that we don't know enough about the issue to comment. We have also had another student ask our opinion about Islam which was fine but again a bit difficult to discuss.
The weekend just gone Rachel and I plus 5 other gappers (who are in schools not too far from us) all went up to Langkawi which is an popular holiday island really close to the the Thai border. It was fairly touristy but at the same time not too busy. We had a hotel right on the beach where we spent most of our time. Both of the English girls (Rachel and another girl Ellen) got horribly sunburnt which we found funny and spent a long time talking about how we, being Australian and used to harsh sun, knew how to protect our skin and already had healthy glowing tans (which wasn't quite true as many of us were also a bit pink). One of the coolest things we did in Langkawi was eat at quite a few restraunts right on the beach and watched the sun set. It was beautiful. However being the "locals" we are now, we found the meals quite expensive at these restraunts. A meal was about 12 ringgit (less than $6) where as in the local towns we pay about 3 ringgit for a huge plate of noodles or 70 Sens (30 cents) for Roti Chanai (a bread similar to Nann bread with daal or curry with it). We also, more than once, uttered the pharse "tut tut stupid tourists" while we were in Langkawi, regarding outselves far above these clueless westerners.
The other highlight of the trip to Langkawi was a trip up a cable car which brought us to the top a mountain 700m above sea level at a surprisingly fast pace. Even I got a bit freaked out on the cable car and I quite like heights. The view was truly amazing though. Well worth it. While I was in Langkawi I was able to use my sweet Malay/Indo skiils to bargin down the price of a few choice pieces of clothing etc.. (don't worry mum I only bought 1 dress, the rest was for the others).
Coming back to our school was acutally quite nice as I have really begun to feel comfortable here. We got our timetables and next week we start teaching about 6 classes a week each. It's not a lot but I'm surprised at how tired I am at the end of each day and it means we have a lot of (much needed) time to plan our lessons and also help to plan extra-curricular activities and our weekends away! Speaking of which we (the same girls that went to Langkawi minus one) are going to spend the Chinese new year long weekend in Georgetown on the Island of Penang as it has a large Chinese population and we hope to see parades and get a feel for the place.
Ok I think that is it for now. I will wirte again after Chinese new year. I hope everyone is well and happy with their uni offers (I'm sure you all will be).
Love Hannah
