People need inspiration. Or most people need inspiration. I believe most people search for inspiration quite constantly.
So yes, one of the things I am looking for in Malaysia also in inspiration. And as with most valuable things, inspiration sometimes comes when you least expect it.
Last night it came under the shape of a person and a conversation. Teacher Jo is her name and she is orang asli, so part of the aboriginal people in Malaysia. (short note: around here, people teaching are called teacher to make it less formal that Mrs but to differentiate them from students). Anyways, teacher Jo is part of the first generation of students that SOLS ever had. Apparently the organisation started with her and another 7 students, living and studying together in a sort of an empty apartment - literally empty! Now, the purpose was that of a boarding school (which it now is). However, at the time, things were very different. Students had no beds and were sleeping together with the teacher on the floor in one room. They had no tables or chairs, and were studying again on the floor in another room. The teacher who started the organisation had not managed to get enough funds to provide food for the students,so they had made a deal with some food places nearby to give them the uneaten food. This was once a day and generally not much, but enough to survive.
Their learning schedule was tough - waking up at 5:30 for exercising, lectures of English, maths, and other basic subjects, but also discussions on "science of life" topics. This is a tradition the boarding school has kept until today. Every week the students have a life topic - this week they had "I want to or I need to?". Every day starts off with a half an hour discussion on the specific topic. And Friday is seminar day! Each student tells a story or shares how they think about the topic discussed. There is interaction and moments of illumination.
I was inspired by Jo for various reasons. Her story is touching and her pride shines through. She is now basically running the boarding school, that has become just one of the many projects SOLS runs here. Her passion is obvious in the way she talks about these children, most of who are also orang asli and have very few means of survival. In Malaysia, learning English is basically your key to rising from poverty.
But I found even more touching her answer to the question "what is your ambition for SOLS? What do you want it to become?". She said she wanted the boarding school to be a large nice building, where students could live 2 or 3 in a room, have higher standards of living and more materials to develop. She made it very specific: "I want better conditions for students, not for teachers". Her point makes sense. The boarding school is not a bad place - the conditions are not very good for the kids, but they do have everything they need. However, there is a considerable difference from the boarding school and the headquarters of the organisation where most of the people working in the organisation live.
I found it impressive also because her motivation for wanting that was "most of these kids have been treated like dirt their whole life. And I would really like them to see and experience that things could be at least a bit different."
I have come to realise that this blog of mine is a bit of a one-way communication. So, hoping to change that a bit, I will pose a question (hoping someone will answer it :)): What's been your last source of inspiration?