First Full Day In Malaysia

Almost three weeks have passed since our first full day in Malaysia, but I want to record some of those experiences of Wednesday, July 11.

I (Eileen) woke at 3am (noon for Canada); jet lag took about 4-5 days for most of us to get over where we could go to bed at a reasonable time, sleep through the night, and wake at a reasonable time.  Kate took the longest to get over jet lag.  One or both of the younger girls slept in our king size bed for those days, which is unheard of for them.  They were fearful, had bad dreams, and just generally didn't want to be far away from us.

We had every air conditioner except the one on the bottom floor (where nobody was) going full tilt.  We have six air conditioners in our house, for which we are very grateful!  These days we are down to using only three in the night and one of those we set to only sporadically come on during the night.  I slept with the air conditioner remote literally in my hand for a week - I'd wake up, turn it on; get too cold; turn it off.

The whole day we were exhausted and I just felt as if I was going through the motions in everything I did.  My brain said 'talk' so I did.  My brain said 'walk' so I did.  It was very much almost a moment by moment telling myself that I could do whatever I had to do.  There were definite times !!! in those first few days where I thought I had made a mistake to come to Malaysia, and I experienced those same feelings again the first couple of days of getting my classroom ready.  It felt very overwhelming and sometimes I wanted to cry; other times to vent (Garth heard some of it), but I just kept thinking that we had known so strongly and clearly that God wanted us to do this so how could I back out now. 

Throughout that first day and the next I just kept noticing and feeling the ants in our house.  They are really small and really hard to get rid of apparently.  They crawl on you;  I would look down at something tickling my arm or leg and it would be one of those ants.  I would just flick it off for it to go join its buddies.  Gross? - yeah but that is all I had the energy for then.

Kate had two bloody noses that day and one the next day.  They were bad ones, wouldn't stop bleeding for 20 - 25 minutes.  The third day she had a small nose bleed but hasn't had one since.  Thank the Lord!

It was very striking those first few days to see vehicles driving on the "wrong" side of the road.  We have since learned the safest direction when walking is on the right while vehicles drive on the left.  There are some sidewalks but most are difficult to walk on as they are in bad repair - uneven or broken.  Many sidewalks have trees planted in the middle of them or people have put their cut down branches or even garbage (not in a garbage bag) in the middle of the sidewalk.  Also, you have to be careful not to get your flip flops caught in all the grates.  A couple of times it has been a close call for Elizabeth.  Sometimes the grates have fairly large holes around the edge that your whole leg could disappear down. 

This is showing the sidewalk down the main road (6 lanes) in Tanjung Bunga.  Sometimes even on this very busy road (about as busy as Marshall Road in Abbotsford except many vehicles go highway speeds) we have to walk carefully on the road.  These pictures are taken almost directly across the street from Dalat International School where we teach.

 

Another first impression of our house is the bars on all the windows, even the teeny tiny window on the third floor in the back bathroom.  It felt like we were in a cage but it is just dismissed here, like it is normal.  The bars are pretty, just unnerving that first day.  This is looking out our living room window (taken at night).

It rained today, very heavy rain that soaks you quickly.  Loud rain too with the metal and clay roofs.

Speaking of water, we all had cold showers as we could not figure out how to turn on the hot water. It was actually O.K. because we were so hot.  Since then we have learned to turn on the electricity with a toggle switch outside the bathroom door (to heat the water) and then for most of the shower stalls to activate this other button inside the shower stall to allow the hot water to come through the hose head.

We had dinner at McDonalds; with all the changes we have already experienced it was good to see and taste something that was somewhat familiar.  We all had McChicken meals.  They are on sale for some reason here right now  and cost RM 5.95 (Canadian that would be about $2).  They are not as tasty here.  Nobody seems to buy the Big Mac meal but this may or may not have to do with the fact that it costs almost two times the price of a McChicken meal.

One noticeable change right from that very first day is that Garth is not congested at all in the morning.  Garth almost always coughs a lot in the morning in Canada - A LOT - but here not at all.  It was like night and day for him.  Hannah too, with her allergies, seems less bothered by them here.

Here is a "kid quip" from Elizabeth that day about her bedroom:  "I have so much space [in my room] I have to put some space for sale".  It is true that the rooms are large in our house here, amplified even more by ceilings that are, I estimate, 15 feet high.  (More on our house at another time.) 

That concludes my thoughts on our first full day in Malaysia.