In this life you have to work at being interesting
Today marked my first day at Imtiaz Kuala Berang. Imtiaz is the Arabic word for excellence which was one of the catch-phrases of orientation, right up there with “Selamat pagi is good morning,” “Malaysia is a Muslim country,” and “no mini-skirts.” Suffice it to say, I now know Imtiaz means deli sandwich.
Let me run you through my day:
First I wake up before 7:00 am. This has never happened before. Ever. The only way I’ve seen 6:45 before today was if I forgot to go to sleep after watching infomercials. Sarah and I have a very nice apartment actually. We're in the Warden's quarters at her school, SMK Matang. We have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a storage room, sitting room, living room/dining room and a kitchen. It’s actually obscene how nice this place is. This is compensated by the fact that we’ve seen a roach every day we’ve been here… which is two so far. But if you take this out to its logical conclusion, we’re looking at well over 200 roaches over the course of our time in Malaysia. But since our friend Jackie is much more frightened of roaches than either Sarah or myself, we just figure every roach we see is one Jackie doesn’t have to.
So I wake up before 7:00 (only technically, as I when I finally stir it’s 7:05 and I’m running late), and once I get moving I proceed to the bathroom. Now whether the toilet is in the shower, or the shower is over the toilet is hard to say for certain. Either way, there’s only one small room for the both of them, so I guess it's called the showlet, or the toiler. I'll leave it up to you to pick one.
After exiting the showlet and dressing, Sarah and I are escorted to an assembly of students, all standing and in uniforms, although they all have different things they're supposed to wear, so I guess it'd be called multi-forms. I'll stop short of omni-forms because while there was an abundance of orange and gray camo for the boys, I didn't get the sense that anything goes. I'll wait a little while longer to bust out my Village People Native American outfit. You can't spring these things on people until they're so invested in you that you can't be deported.
Anyhoo, after a brief introduction about us and the Fulbright program in general (one of the bullet points said "fresh graduates and... supposed to be among the top students in the US" both of which set up unrealistically high expectations, twinged with sarcasm), Sarah was called upon to say something about herself. I think she overwhelmed them with her mastery of a language that they may or may not have believed was real before today. I was then asked to say a few words:
"(In Malay) I'm Ezra. I'm from San Francisco, California. I can speak Malay, but little." I then wanted to say that I used up all of my Malay, but since it was actually true, I had to say it in English and the joke was lost on most of the crowd.
Ustaz Saidi, a great, friendly man accompanied me to my own school, Imtiaz Kuala Berang (Imtiaz is Arabic for excellence). I was then toured around the school with my principal and Ustaz Rhman, the exhuberant and welcoming Arabic teacher from Jordan. Two years ago he answered a search for Arabic speakers to go to Malaysia to teach Arabic. He spoke no Malay and no English. Now he's very impressive in both languages and it seems like he's made a good life for himself. He's 24 and I can honestly say that his beard is much better than mine, which I was quick to point out when some teachers said that I was "taller, younger, and more attractive than him." We talked a lot today, as I had several hours of down time and he said, "in this life, you have to work at being interesting." This might be one of my favorite quotations of all time. People here are friendly and warm and everyone wants me to eat or drink something. This works out well as I'm almost always hungry or thirsty.
The short list of food that I've consumed in the last 24 hours:
Coconut rice
Some kind of squishy cake
Bright pink tea muffin
Potato lamb stew
Fish with chili sauce
Fish with red sauce
Fish with eggplant curry
Fish with question mark
Chicken
Chicken
Chicken
Question Mark
Rice
Sarah's getting pretty hungry (probably remembering just how good Question Mark was), so I'm going to have to call it a post. I'll write again when I've eaten more and actually taught somebody something. For example, did you know that Imtiaz means excellence in Arabic?
-Ez
Let me run you through my day:
First I wake up before 7:00 am. This has never happened before. Ever. The only way I’ve seen 6:45 before today was if I forgot to go to sleep after watching infomercials. Sarah and I have a very nice apartment actually. We're in the Warden's quarters at her school, SMK Matang. We have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a storage room, sitting room, living room/dining room and a kitchen. It’s actually obscene how nice this place is. This is compensated by the fact that we’ve seen a roach every day we’ve been here… which is two so far. But if you take this out to its logical conclusion, we’re looking at well over 200 roaches over the course of our time in Malaysia. But since our friend Jackie is much more frightened of roaches than either Sarah or myself, we just figure every roach we see is one Jackie doesn’t have to.
So I wake up before 7:00 (only technically, as I when I finally stir it’s 7:05 and I’m running late), and once I get moving I proceed to the bathroom. Now whether the toilet is in the shower, or the shower is over the toilet is hard to say for certain. Either way, there’s only one small room for the both of them, so I guess it's called the showlet, or the toiler. I'll leave it up to you to pick one.
After exiting the showlet and dressing, Sarah and I are escorted to an assembly of students, all standing and in uniforms, although they all have different things they're supposed to wear, so I guess it'd be called multi-forms. I'll stop short of omni-forms because while there was an abundance of orange and gray camo for the boys, I didn't get the sense that anything goes. I'll wait a little while longer to bust out my Village People Native American outfit. You can't spring these things on people until they're so invested in you that you can't be deported.
Anyhoo, after a brief introduction about us and the Fulbright program in general (one of the bullet points said "fresh graduates and... supposed to be among the top students in the US" both of which set up unrealistically high expectations, twinged with sarcasm), Sarah was called upon to say something about herself. I think she overwhelmed them with her mastery of a language that they may or may not have believed was real before today. I was then asked to say a few words:
"(In Malay) I'm Ezra. I'm from San Francisco, California. I can speak Malay, but little." I then wanted to say that I used up all of my Malay, but since it was actually true, I had to say it in English and the joke was lost on most of the crowd.
Ustaz Saidi, a great, friendly man accompanied me to my own school, Imtiaz Kuala Berang (Imtiaz is Arabic for excellence). I was then toured around the school with my principal and Ustaz Rhman, the exhuberant and welcoming Arabic teacher from Jordan. Two years ago he answered a search for Arabic speakers to go to Malaysia to teach Arabic. He spoke no Malay and no English. Now he's very impressive in both languages and it seems like he's made a good life for himself. He's 24 and I can honestly say that his beard is much better than mine, which I was quick to point out when some teachers said that I was "taller, younger, and more attractive than him." We talked a lot today, as I had several hours of down time and he said, "in this life, you have to work at being interesting." This might be one of my favorite quotations of all time. People here are friendly and warm and everyone wants me to eat or drink something. This works out well as I'm almost always hungry or thirsty.
The short list of food that I've consumed in the last 24 hours:
Coconut rice
Some kind of squishy cake
Bright pink tea muffin
Potato lamb stew
Fish with chili sauce
Fish with red sauce
Fish with eggplant curry
Fish with question mark
Chicken
Chicken
Chicken
Question Mark
Rice
Sarah's getting pretty hungry (probably remembering just how good Question Mark was), so I'm going to have to call it a post. I'll write again when I've eaten more and actually taught somebody something. For example, did you know that Imtiaz means excellence in Arabic?
-Ez
Comments
take care!
I'm also glad that the toilet is not over the shower.
On the other hand, last week I baked some pumpkin blueberry muffins... very interesting! (and yummy) I've frozen some for you.
Lots of love,
Annie
Your blogs have had me laughing out loud here in my office.
Good luck teaching interesting lies! I'll think of you each time I eat at Barone's Pizza with the family. Are fried roaches a delicacy in Malaysia?!
Love,
(Auntie)Jan
Let you start make your day interesting. So you can feel fun and enjoyable being there...
Once, the colourful rainbow always shining us..