Last Friday I had the first community event at my center. Since our community doesn't know us that well yet and since I suspected that the Malaysian style of organising things has the potential of driving me crazy, we went for a simple choice: Movie Night + potlock (which basically means that everybody brings food and drinks). And I must say the choice was very appropriate - for the community and myself. I will not dwell on the fact that the whole technical part of things (screen projector, speakers, projector, laptop- all coming from different parts and needing different cables to assemble) was ready on Friday at 4pm. This might seem good enough, only we had started doing this on Thursday at 1pm. I will also not dwell on the surreal (and completely useless) conversations that accompanied this process, on how tiresome it all was and on how I was thinking that all will be ruined and a plan B will need to be found. Of course, I was by myself on the stressing part...everybody was just "everything can Ana" (which is the motto of this country!!) and being very relaxed about it.
Anyways, the magic night came and we hit it off. We had quite good attendance. Lots of kids and teenagers and adults. We showed the movie Freedom Writers and we also had another surprise...today it is the birthday of my volunteer so we had prepared surprise cake for her.
Apart from the fact that the evening went very well (and that my Romanian stew was very appreciated - because yes, I cooked mancarica cu ceapa using the rice cooker!!!), I was surprised and amazed at the warm and fun atmosphere that it prompted! We had some of our women students who gave us these huuuuge hugs that made both me and Kavi (my volunteer) think of our mothers. We had kids who were just coming over to hug us (seriously, one of the girls would go playing and at one point she would be back with those big black eyes saying "teacher, hug" and then clinging to us :)). We had students who just started buying things for our evening just because they know NGO life is not really prone to wealth. We had people giving us roses - for Kavi, for her birthday, for me, probably just not to feel left out :) And we had the awesome after moments when most of the people had went and we stayed on to clean and wrap up with our teenager class. Who started dancing like mad and did not want to leave home anymore!! And who despite whatever people might be saying about Muslim kids, know how to boogie!!
I guess it's an understatement to say that I enjoyed Friday night. It was exhausting but so so so full of all sorts of emotions that life should be filled with, that I am now looking forward to my next encounters with horrendous Malaysian planning. I just need to remember that it is totally worth it in the end! :)
My wonderful Kavi...the best volunteer in the world!! :)
With one of my favourites :)
With the cool chicks :)
With the huggy girl :)
Naughty but oh, so cute!! And so smart!