We’re back at it here in good ol’ Labis.
(Actually, I’m not sure we were ever not at it. Or, in fact, if we were ever at it in the first place. Or, what “it” is.)
Oh wait, I know: bullet blogging! Yeah, it’s been another two weeks-plus (the standard format for giving any length of time here, as in “I’ve been here for four months-plus” or “You walked to the yoga studio?! That must have been five minutes-plus!”), so here we go.
• I’ve gotten out of Labis the last couple of weekends.
Last weekend, I headed up to Kuala Lumpur, nominally for a book fair that went on the last two weeks. I stayed in Labis Friday night and Saturday morning to coach and offer moral support for one of my students, Husin, who was competing in the district public speaking competition Saturday. Given two days to prepare, I think he did a fine job. “We’re not losing. We’re learning how to publicly speak.” Right?
Saturday afternoon I hopped on the train to Kuala Lumpur. And by “hopped on,” I mean I walked twenty minutes through hundred-degree heat and waited 45 extra minutes (the train was delayed?!) before plopping down in my seat, drenched in sweat but holding onto a tall, cool Budweiser cup of sugar water sugar cane juice.
I met some of my fellow ETAs up there (Charlie, Kat, and Jon, along with Raymond and Olivia, that power couple of legend), and we hung out Saturday night. A little bird (not Twitter, I mean an actual little bird. Well, an actual metaphorical bird.) told me that some of them may or may not have checked out the Bursih protests and may or may not have enjoyed the fringes of a cloud of tear gas. (And re: Bursih, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t read a ton about it, and it’s not a common topic of conversation around here. I know there have been some pretty serious protests and that the police haven’t always been the kindest, but that’s about it.)
The next day we went over to the book fair, but I didn’t buy anything on account of my frightful aversion to RM300 books. We spent the rest of the day wandering around from mall to mall (literally, four malls in one day), but it was still a good break from small-town life.
• We had the day off on Tuesday, so I headed over to Batu Pahat to meet up with my friend Ashley.
Two local buses seems like a fine trip, but for some reason the path to Batu Pahat is not easily traveled. After two and a half hours of travel, I arrived at BP Mall and used a payphone to call Ashley, having left my phone at home.
But once there, it was a good little trip. We saw “The Avengers” Monday night and went out with some of her fellow teachers on Tuesday. What we thought was just going to be breakfast in Batu Pahat turned out to be a day trip to Johor Bahru, where we bought bootleg DVDs and had lunch.
• The Hindu temple in Labis held new year-related celebrations from Wednesday to Saturday, and of course Adeel and I showed up for dinner.
Dr. Rajoo (my yoga teacher, cereal adviser, and good friend in town) took us over to the temple Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and we watched the ceremonies before the community dinner. We both felt sort of like intruders during the religious segments, but I really did enjoy being there for the dinner. The temple had two long tables with chairs on one side each, and people sat at banana leaves, to be served a variety of dishes by the young men in attendance. Once someone finished, she or he folded up the leaf and tossed it into the garbage, and another person would sit down, to be met with another leaf and more food. The rush of everything was fun, and the food was awesome. We also got to chat some with Thilaga and Prasad, Rajoo, and Karthik and Dashin, two young friends in Labis. (Sidenote: I met Karthik, a med school student back home on vacation, in my yoga class, and he’s a great guy, as evidenced by his appreciation for “Refresh” by the Barbaloots.)
• After staying in Labis Friday night, I bussed down to Johor Bahru Saturday morning. Kat and her roommate Shobee were hosting a Cinco de Mayo party (Adeel answering a teacher’s question about the weekend: “There’s an American…well…. There’s a Mexican holiday this weekend.”), and Tina’s birthday was Sunday, so most of the Johor crowd got together, and it was a good time.
Indian food = great. Mexican food = greater?
It was good to catch up with the other Johorians. You know, I feel like too much of my time is spent complaining, but it just helps to hear what’s up with other people. And I don’t think I complained all that much this weekend. Some, but not all that much. For all of the good things about Labis, it can just get to be very isolating. The language and cultural gaps can be really tough to deal with, and it can be especially difficult considering our job is to try to overcome those. The fact is that regular conversation hasn’t been particularly easy to find around here, so it’s good to just sit and talk to the other ETAs sometimes. This weekend was one of those times.
On Sunday, we hung out at Johor Bahru City Square, and, yes, we saw “The Avengers” again. Still good. (Although I did find this guy’s take on it interesting.) After some Indian lunch (still love you, Indian lunch), we headed to the bus station, hung out some more, and headed home.
• And now, we’re back at it. The other “back at it.” The one with the teaching and the sweating and “there’s no running water in our apartment?” and yoga and basketball and reading and occasionally measuring the distance between May and November on my calendar. Back at it, indeed.
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