Storytime.

Whewww. So many stories, so many people, so much life the last couple of weeks. Courtney and I are moving - again! - this Sunday for our third and longest placement. We will be living in Pukak for at least 6 months. We have lots to look forward to, but right now I'd like to look back to my time here at the crisis shelter in the city of Kota Kinabalu. We've been here for 52 days, which is 7 weeks, and a lot happens in that amount of time. Especially when you're a Good Shepherd Volunteer. Especially when Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's happens in that amount of time. So here goes! Hope you enjoy.

1. Let's start with Christmas Day. Courtney and I went to Glory Christian Center, which is a (loaded!) Chinese church within walking distance from the shelter, in the morning. We had attended their children's Christmas concert earlier in the month, which turned out to be a Disneyland-like spectacle complete with laser lights and multimedia presentations and a ginormous stage and glitter and thousands of people. You get the picture. We were excited to see what Christmas Day at Glory would provide us with. It didn't disappoint. There was an encore of the kids' adorable (the girls in tutus) performances of Jingle Bell Rock and some High School Musical Christmas Song (that's probably the actual title of the song). There was a VERY dramatic play (lots of crying) entitled "When Love Was Born" (which was the overall theme and catchphrase of their Christmas Day celebration) which included a girl losing her parents, losing her friends, marrying a husband and having kids, losing her husband (not sure what happened to the kids), and then being visited by Jesus and accepting his love. There was singing Christmas carols with the onstage choir and cantors, with a huge screen backdrop of the multiple cameras filming them live, with song lyrics in both Chinese and English on the bottom of the screen. I was enjoying myself, feeling pretty lighthearted, happy to be there with Courtney on Christmas Day in Malaysia! Then the pastor started preaching. What really started my mind going was when he told the Prodigal Son tale as one of his points. Point being - son leaves home, connection between father and son remains alive, father lovingly and loyally waits for son to come home, son drowns in sin and loneliness, son comes home, father fully embraces son. Now, I was not surprised that the pastor told this popular tale (unlike Courtney who was freaking out a little bit next to me - gotta love her for looking out for me!). As Christmas is really a celebration of waiting coming to a conclusion, of light banishing the dark, a child coming into the world, I wasn't surprised to hear the Prodigal Son tale. It made sense. It also made me cry really really hard. Of course I started to visualize and imagine my very own missing brother. But what really made me start going, was the fact that the pastor never once acknowledged a mother or sisters or anyone else for that matter. I know it was an allegory, but it really irked me that on this holiday of all holidays, he only chose to talk about the Father's love, the Father's gift, the Father's sacrifice for the world. Because it wasn't just in that Prodigal Son point, it was throughout the whole service/celebration. Even though the theme, "When Love Was Born", implies the action of giving birth, nowhere did we celebrate Mary giving birth to her son Jesus. I thought it especially ironic that in the play, there never was any conclusion for the main character's kids. After she lost her husband, she just fell on the ground sobbing. Literally. The kids just disappeared. I started crying convulsively during the pastor's sermon because it got me thinking about how we, yes we which includes me, treat women. It got me thinking about how I am currently living and working during the holidays in a shelter for women whose family and whose communities have shunned them because they are pregnant. Some of these women are severely depressed (including postpartum depression) and I feel like in most cases, if they were surrounded by their family and friends, within their communities, they could/would be so much happier and less sadder. The ONLY thing separating themselves from that reality is humans and societal norms and regulations and selfishness. We judge women. We shame them. We beat them down. I started thinking about the women here at the shelter coming home with their babies and seeing them loving their babies. I realized that as much as I could sing carols with a glorious choir, or be dramatically shown, or eloquently and just as dramatically preachered to, NONE of that told me half as much about "when love was born" as seeing and experiencing the women here loving their babies. And isn't that what Christmas is about? A baby being born. So, I just got very angry and very bitter about the way the world treats women. I even started feeling guilty that I didn't honor my mom at my last birthday for giving birth to me! Hah. Courtney and I had a nice chat about all those feelings of mine after the service and I gratefully realized that rather than really disliking the church and the pastor and the world, I really just felt a sadness in general. I don't disrespect or blame this Glory church for doing things the way they do. It was really lovely and festive and fun and good people all around. And I realize that people worship differently, image their God differently, talk differently. I was very frustrated, but I was also grateful for the service for reawakening the feminist in me, the questioner in me.

2. Fast forward a couple hours to the Christmas celebration at the shelter! All of us decorated the house, cooked, baked (AMAZING chocolate chip cookies by our very own Courtney Hershey - a little piece of home!), and dressed up to prepare. Our celebration started with a Catholic Mass in the living room. It was really lovely to be with the women and sing Christmas carols with them. As glorious and bright lights as the morning celebration was, I couldn't help but prefer that small living room sitting in plastic chairs under fluorescent lights with 20 people (women, staff, volunteers) quietly having Mass. But of course, it wouldn't be normal if a church service didn't get my brain going. First thing that really amused me and got my racial identity inner dialogues going, was that the priest very obviously didn't know that I am a foreigner because every time he stopped his sermon to translate to English (which was like every other line), he would look directly at Courtney, never at me sitting right next to her. I felt some sort of way about that, but I think mainly I just thought, it'll be fun to talk to him after Mass. Hah. Second thing that really irked me in a similar vein as the morning service had, was that at the end of the Mass the priest said something to the women to the effect of, "Peace be with you because God still really wants you to be happy, even with the mistakes you have made and sin you have committed." Immediately, I was like, uhhhhh DON'T talk to them that way, you don't KNOW them!!! Though I'll give him more credit - he might have been addressing ALL of us sinners in the room, not just the women. I just assumed he was talking to the pregnant women. So I got really mad about that, but I guess the Christmas spirit is a real thing, because I really found myself enjoying the priest's presence the rest of the night and not holding anything against him. Maybe I am becoming less judgmental after all (one of my new year resolutions). Anyway, after Mass was dinner, which was phenomenal. Courtney made 3 roast chickens, a la Thanksgiving, and they were delishhh. I made a cheesecake and it was soft. Lol. But people were kind and said it was good. I personally preferred it the next day when it was more like a cheesecake. Tons of good food and sweets. Then the festivities commenced with a Christmas carol competition between two groups of girls which they had been diligently practicing for, of course karaoke and line dancing (and of course I unknowingly chose to sing the SLOWest and highest version of "White Christmas" ever), and gift exchanges! I really like how they passed out all the gifts one by one. It made each gift truly a special gift. Courtney gave me a freaking awesome travel Scrabble and a cute bookmark and energy shot blocks in orange flavor and a strawberry candle - she knows how to speak to my heart and soul. We got a couple other fabulous gifts from other staff - my favorite of them is a baju kurung ("baju" means dress) which is a traditional Malay dress, consisting of a knee length tunic dress top and an ankle length skirt. All the secondary school girls' uniforms in Malaysia are a form of this. And older women wear them as fancy dress. Courtney and I really love ours. If you check out my previous post on New Year's Eve, you can see me wearing my baju kurung top in a modern way. Don't worry, I checked with the girls to make sure it wasn't offensive and to make sure that no one would punch me on the street for wearing it like that. They liked it and said, "So modern! Yea CAN wear it like that! Except put your belt lower." Thank you personal stylists. After our guests left - including the priest, 3 of the sisters (apparently the fourth chose to stay home all night to catch up on her emails, which I found hiLARious, and understandable after also hearing that she was busily getting ready for a much deserved trip home), and 3 local volunteers (a husband, wife, and daughter combo who are actually the next door neighbors and who were so pleasant and nice to talk to) - we cleaned up and put on some Christmas cartoons, including The Smurfs and The Madagascar Penguins shorts. So happy to say that was the perfect way to end the day - laughing and hearing the other women laugh, especially staffer Jairin and pregnant J. Selamat Hari Krismas!

3. The day after Christmas, two of my friends from LMU, Allison and Estela, arrived for a vacation! It was so awesome having them for a whole week! Estela met up with Allison in Japan, where Allison is living and working, and then they flew here to Malaysia together to visit me! And of course to see the beautiful country that this is. Little did they know that their tropical holiday would turn into a high adventure expedition. I thought they were awesomely ambitious and such good sports for booking tours to: see Mt. Kinabalu and the rainforest and the world's largest flower, go parasailing, go white water rafting! I didn't get to do any of that with them, but that's okay because I got to spend quite a bit of time with them because they let me stay at their hotel room a couple nights, which was such an oasis for me. I also took them to Tenghilan by public bus/taxi, which was an adventure and during which Allison showed off her amazing sitting up sleeping skills, to show them the hostel (no one was there except the puppies, because it was still school holidays), the local waterfall, and the village rural area. We all slipped and fell on the mossy rocks at the waterfall, me being the worst with my overconfidence and cheek planting and possible mild concussion. We also got permission for them to spend New Year's Eve with us at the shelter! I really appreciated them being there so willingly and happily - they really enjoyed making the party hats with us - for dinner and the countdown because they're fun and really made it feel like a party with outside guests. The women really enjoyed hanging out with them. And having them visit, really gave me an extra boost of energy. Them being excited about visiting Malaysia, renewed my excitement for living here. It had actually been a rough time for me here at the shelter - as much as I love the women and the life I've experienced here, I had definitely been in a little rut, in a funk. Courtney was worried, I was pretty sure I was in some sort of seasonal depression. I had to accept that I just was at capacity and that I was not able to give more energy. Every moment that I had off, I was pretty much out of the shelter. So when Allison and Estela arrived, they helped me find a new perspective. For that I'm so grateful to them!

I think the most interesting thing that happened during their visit, aside from the foot massages where Allison's heavy-lidded masseuse told her he can tell she likes spicy food, aside from trying on crazy wedding gowns (bride-to-be Al) and bridesmaids dresses (Estela, me, and maid-of-honor Court) on New Year's Day, aside from eating lots of delicious food, aside from going to our Malaysian artist friend Egn's fabulous art show at an art gallery in a bad-ass coffee factory/shop which served maybe the best coffee we've had here in Malaysia, aside from all that, I think the story that wins the title is The Day We Peed in Cups in Front of Cops. On the first night that I took Allison and Estela out and about here in KK, we decided to go to this area called KK Times Square, which is outside of the touristy city center, because we had heard it was super fun, lots of choices. Allison had initially wanted to go to a place called Bed, just to say we had gone, but we decided to go with Times Square instead. Had dinner there and it was awesome. Kept thinking I needed to take Courtney there because my salad and garlic bread were amazing. First place we stopped at was The Chocolate Factory. There were like 5 other people in the bar, but there was an awesome live cover band singing all the Top 40 hits, so we ordered drinks and rocked out to Katy Perry and Rihanna. And our drinks were SO good. I got a chocolate drink of course and I would go back just for that 18 ringgit sucker. After finishing our drinks, which we nursed, and meeting the whole band who came to shake our hands, we decided to move to the next place, Firefly. We arrived at that next bar and thought, okay this is more like it, because there were a bunch of people including a big group celebrating someone's birthday as well as another live band, which we later found out included a bunch of Filipinos - hollerrr. So the three of us sat down, looked around a couple minutes, Allison got up to get a menu, came back with a menu, and then a bunch of cops came through the doors (logical sequence right?). So all the band stopped immediately and all the lights went on. The head police dude got on the mic and asked for the men to go to one side of the room and the women on the other side. I was happy that I could translate his Malay for Allison and Estela, though I guess I should admit that his hand gestures and people following his directions obviously helped too. We were confused, moved to the women's side of the bar, and asked our new friends what was going on. We found out that it was a drug raid. And that it was possible that the police were going to make us take urine tests. We were flabbergasted. The police took everyone's IDs and started writing down all our names. This took about 30 minutes, during which time we asked people if this was normal (everyone said it had never happened to them, but after the whole ordeal we found out this kind of raid does normally happen during the holidays at bars/nightclubs like that) and half-joked with each other about what we should do if they really made us pee into cups. At first it seemed like a joke, but then the police started calling names and passing out cups and people started lining up for the bathroom and coming out of the bathroom with their cups and placing them on the bar counter, duh full of pee. Not a joke. Right away, it was obvious though that the police didn't really know what to do with us foreigners. And judging from the identity cards, we were the only foreigners in that bar that night. At first, a police woman, who became our translator the rest of the night, asked us for our passports because our licenses didn't have passport numbers. We told her we don't carry around our passports. She verbally said, uhhh okay, which obviously really meant, what do I do with you guys then?? So then we kind of had a hope, or at least I did, that maybe we wouldn't have to pee into the cups. But lo and behold, our names were called and we were given cups and fell into the bathroom line. By this time, all humor was gone for me, even though people around us still were joking about it, being drunk, you know. We hadn't even gotten a drink there! (Though we certainly didn't want one anymore after all that urine on the counter.) I was flipping out. Not from fear honestly. From indignation. It occurred to Allison, Estela, and I, while we were in line, that the cops might have to watch us pee into these cups. I was furious about that thought. I wanted to get all up in some cops face (yea, right). But of course, when we got into the bathroom, we had to leave the stall doors open. So I peed into the cup in front of a cop. I was a little taken aback when she asked me where I was from as I sat on the toilet. And I admit I was a little sassy with her. Asked her if I could wipe, if I could wash my hands, if I could leave. To those police people's credit, they were all very nice to Allison, Estela, and I. It could have been worse. Peeing into a cup is not the worst thing that could happen, I know. The police actually really did try to look out for the 3 foreign girls. But what infuriated me was the fact that the whole ordeal happened. I felt it was a complete disrespect of us. And a complete waste of time. I felt really bad for the birthday girl. So we set our cups on the counter, the police were dipping the test strips right there as well, and sat down to wait. They started to give people back their IDs and let them go home. But then they started calling numbers to come up to the counter - they had marked our hands and cups with big fat numbers. And of course, they called Estela's number. They told Estela that her cup had tested positive for something. Which made no absolute sense, except that some people in the bar had told us some medicines like anti-malaria pills will show up positive - so Estela told them that. The police translator told us they had to take Estela to the police station. I asked if there was room in the car for Allison and I. The police translator said, "What?" I said, "You just made us pee in front of you, you're going to arrest our friend, you don't think we're going to just leave her??? We're going to the police station with her." The police translator nodded her head in understanding and said she would talk to the head honcho police. She explained to him about how we were foreign and about Estela's anti-malaria pills (which are a different brand from mine, which might explain why mine didn't show positive). It was interesting because it seemed like the head honcho police was laughing at us. Not in a mocking way, but in an amused way. Actually it seemed like a lot of the police were laughing at us. Kind of like, what do we do with them, look at these foreigner girls having to deal with this. Which only made me more infuriated because the whole thing seemed so unprofessional and so not orderly. There just seemed to be too much room for error in those urine tests and therefore a complete waste of time and resources. The head honcho police and police translator ended up taking us down the back hallway to talk with us privately. We thought they were going to make Estela pee again, but they told us that even though her urine tested positive, they were going to "apologize" which really meant pardon her. They told us that they would be conducting these raids over the next week until the new year, so that we shouldn't go out anymore to pubs and bars til after the new year. The police called that watching out for us. I called that them telling us what to do with our freedom. So that was the end of that. We went home. Allison and Estela were relieved, I was still fuming (Allison later said she was surprised by how sassy I got - so was I, but I was angrier than I've been in a long time). I was indignant that not only did that police operation ruin our night (I felt SO bad that Allison and Estela had to go through that on our first night out! Understandably, Estela was shaken and we agreed not to go out anymore, but of course we still had tons of fun doing other things), but also EVERYONE in the bar. It was interesting because while we were waiting for a taxi afterward, a nice wine bar manager chatted with us. He said it's ridiculous that that happens, because it's so bad for tourism. We were like, uh yea. He said that he recommended we go to the hotels in the city center where all the tourists hang out because the police never raid places like that. It was nice of him to look out for us, but it also made me even more indignant, because it was like saying, yea we'll show you tourists a good time, but meanwhile we'll treat our own people otherwise.

After we got home safely, I decided to present the issue to Court's and my group of awesome Malaysian activist friends (via Facebook of course). The lawyers of the group weren't sure at first if that was completely legal, but then checked into it and said it seemed to be normal protocol. Everyone seemed amazed that had actually happened. But the lawyers also said that the police are usually so wary of foreigners/expats that next time, I should make a huge fuss and they would probably be scared of me and let me go. I was really interested to hear what this activist group of people had to say about it, because over the last 6 weeks we've been learning a lot about Malaysia's political system, about the way civil society works here, about women's rights, about human rights. So this encounter with police here, really got my brain going on human rights, on the role of the government, about police effectiveness. I'm sure there were so many things going on during that raid that I didn't even pick up on, I'm sure there were lots of conversations and lots of cultural cues that I couldn't read, but as a foreigner, it seemed to me that the police didn't know what to do with us and were almost apologetic towards us. I'm grateful that we weren't arrested, I don't think anyone was arrested, and I know I won't be throwing any hissy fits in front of Malaysian police anytime ever. But I was/am very indignant about that whole ordeal.

I think that's quite enough storytime. Thank you for reading! To end on a fun positive note, I'll end this post with something one of the women here at the shelter shared. I did an art workshop this past week where I had the women draw representations of themselves, in honor of the new year, new beginning, new you. I told them they could get creative with it and I asked them to include things like who they are, their hobbies and favorites, their new year's resolutions, their goals and dreams. So this woman V. drew herself with a rainbow behind her body. She said that the rainbow shows that she wants her life to be "full of more color and bright". I loved the way she drew it and I loved the way she said it.

Life is certainly colorful and bright as a Malaysia GSV. Cheers!