Selamat detang ke Malaysia!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I'm sitting in the little conference room here at the Good Shepherd KL center. The Good Shepherd Sisters have a convent here, as well as a group home for teenage girls and an emergency shelter for women in crisis. Courtney and I have been here since arriving in Malaysia on Saturday. On Wednesday, we are going to take a train to Ipoh where there is another shelter for women. We will stay there for three days and then come back to KL for one night. Then we will fly to Sabah, where we will probably remain for the rest of our stay in Malaysia.

After leaving NYC last Thursday, so much has happened and I don't think I can make this entry a narrative - it would be a novel! Instead, I'm just going to describe some of my favorite tidbits and happenings. Here goes...

1. The Good Shepherd agency here in Malaysia is called "Pusat Kebajikan Good Shepherd." Pusat means center. Kebajikan means welfare. They call it PKGS for short.

2. The little conference room that I am sitting in, as well as the staff's adjacent offices, looks like it was furnished by Ikea. Beautiful wall board, table, and swivel chairs. When Courtney and I were given a tour yesterday, we were impressed with how modern looking the office space is. Then earlier today, we were sitting with some of the women and one of them pulled out the most current Ikea catalogue to practice saying the prices in English! Made me laugh.

3. There are nine "ladies" from Cambodia and one from Eritrea here at the shelter right now. They all came to Malaysia to be domestic workers, but then ran away from their employers because they were abused. We have been hanging out with them. Most of them have very little English, which makes communication difficult, but two of them have conversational English. The woman from Eritrea told Courtney that she didn't even know she was coming to Malaysia after leaving her country. When she got to Malaysia, her "employer" just locked her up in a room. She couldn't do anything. Then one night her employer got drunk and left the keys and some money on a table. So she stole the keys and money and ran and ran. She ran until she found some other African people who took her in for a little but. While there, she created a Facebook account and, through some of her friends from home, found out that her family had moved to Australia. And she was able to make contact with her family (Facebook comes to the rescue!)! The African family she was staying with helped her go to the embassy and she was then placed here with PKGS. She is waiting for her papers to go through so that she can reunite with her family in Australia. She hasn't seen them in six years.

4. We are on a hilltop overlooking KL and it is jaw-droppingly beautiful. To Courtney's and my American sensibilities, we are in the middle of the rainforest. But apparently Sabah is even greener! We have yet to see the monkeys that steal all the fruit from the trees surrounding these grounds, but hopefully tonight is the night. Also, a couple nights ago, we heard the Sister's dogs violently barking at someone/thing. The next morning we found out they were trying to keep a wild boar away. I guess monkeys and boars are their pigeons and squirrels.

5. Being here reminds me a lot of being in the Philippines. We went to Mass at a local parish with some of the Sisters and staff on our first night and as soon as we walked in, the sounds, smells, heat, sights reminded me of the Philippines. So that bit of familiarity has helped a little. But at that Mass, because I was so exhausted from traveling, so sweaty from the humidity, and so overwhelmed with my decision to do this year (I kept thinking, I can't do this for a year!!), I had to spend the majority of the service deescalating myself. I was starting to panic. But I was able to calm myself down, using some handy breathing techniques from orientation (thanks Julie!). And then after church, we went to a Chinese hawkers market where all these vendors were selling food outdoors. As always, sharing a hot meal (claypot chicken rice) with good people made me really happy. Some things don't change, even halfway around the world.

6. I just heard the Muslim call to prayer coming from KL for the second time since being here. So haunting and beautiful.

7. Food so far has consisted of a lot of rice, chicken, and vegetables. And it's all been delicious. So I'm a happy camper.

8. Malaysia is super diverse in terms of demographic. There are several big ethnic groups - Malay, Chinese, and Indian (as in from India, the first time I heard Indian I thought it referred to indigenous). When we went to Mass, I was completely blown away by all the different faces and colors. I totally was not expecting that! Then there are also tons of migrants - Burmese, Cambodians, Filipinos, etc. etc.

8. We are pretty comfortable right now. Yesterday, the director of PKGS, Theresa, took us to the Kuala Lumpur City Center where the famous Twin Towers are. We went to this upscale shopping center to walk around and have some dessert. We had our shaved ices, similar to the Filipino halo-halo, amidst the Prada, Chanel, and Tiffany's stores. Then she took us to a market so that I could buy a cheap watch. I got a pretty snazzy one for ten ringgit, which is about three US dollars!

9. Our first foray into international simple living was yesterday when the water pump was turned off. Courtney and I were getting ready to go to breakfast when we realized that the shower, sink, and toilet weren't working. But that wasn't supposed to happen and the Sisters turned it back on. The Eritrean woman here at the shelter showed us how to wash our clothes by hand today. Both Courtney and I pretty much know how to do that, but we wanted to see how they do it here. That's somehting we will have to get used to doing all the time. No more washing machines!

10. After being here for two and a half days, I feel like I have come across a lifetime of lessons. Language, time, consumerism, food, weather, solidarity, stress, travel, loneliness, love. I can only imagine how the rest of this year will pan out.

That's all for now. Much peace and love to you all!!