Thursday
I noticed that most of the people who went for holiday managed to come back before 6.30am. Ben told me that the disciplinary teacher left Ben in his house and left for town (he guessed) for quite a long time before he was sent back to camp again. He arrived at the camp at 11.45pm and they reported to KJ about that matter using walkie-talkie. Anyway, I was almost late for the bus that morning, it was a long ride to Kampung Selanyau Siputi. This was when even more surprises going to start. Almost ALL the residents of the village actually line up and waited for our arrival, just to shake hand with ALL of us! We’re lead by this drum (small) player and the head of village, I believe! It may sound like nothing, but shaking hand with more than 100 people actually make me felt like I wasn’t me anymore. I was stunned by their warm welcome ceremony. That’s not all, there’s more traditional music performance and traditional weapon demonstration show by and old resident. ALL of them are wearing their traditional malay outfit, and looking their best to greet us! Then we had a tea break and served by delicious kueh! And tasty Milo! They actually got ready all the food for all 107 of us! Impressive! We then went into the hall, just on top of where we had our break. It was hot inside, and we’re given a speech by the head of village, it was an introduction of the village. We were separated to different family guardian, one wira and one wirawati for each “parents”. So the parents had to take care of us, giving us jobs to do. Some group were asked to learn how to cook, some cleaned the kindergarden, some got ready the lunch tables and chairs, and we were asked to do gotong royong. The gotong royong (community service) lasted for less than 30 minutes, and all we did was more on walking around and a little on picking rubbish. I felt like they didn’t really had the intention of letting us pick those rubbish. Anyway, Ben found an empty shotgun shell. We’d also visited a special durian tree which the durians grow near the root of the tree. But it was just the flower when we visited it, and we’re told not to touch them. I took a few pics. We’re told that the durian only comes out once a year and taste much better than the other species of durian. We walked back to the village hall after that for lunch.
We’re actually served by the food the villagers had prepared, not the food prepared by the canteen and brought to the place! Wow! So it was quite a delicious lunch we hadn’t had in a while. After the lunch, Jing Yi and I (we’re in the same “family”, btw) followed our “parents” to visit their house. We went to their house by motorcycle, I was following my “dad” while Jing Yi’s with the “mum”. Jing Yi told me that it was quite an experience for her as she hadn’t been riding a motorcycle for a long time. We reach their house, and it was a normal village high legged house. Almost everything was so different from our modern house, especially the toilet, Man. Oh, at least they still got electricity and television at house. They served us with cold lime drinks and even gave us gifts! I didn’t like the idea of accepting those gifts, because it already cost a lot for them for serving us with those delicious food, and now they’re giving gifts? We’re told that everyone would get a gift from their “parents”, so I just accept it. They got this little son that Jing Yi kept on telling me how cute he is. Then we had a quick visit around the house, and their paddy field. It is a beautiful paddy field, reminds me one of Jay Chou’s song. They sent us back to the village hall using motorcycle. Back at the village hall, we’re asked to go up into the hall again, and they started playing this traditional malay music, then they started this “Joget” dance by asking people to come up and dance! What the? This is far from my expectation of doing more community service! Even though it was hot inside the hall, but everyone enjoyed, everyone was happy! After the dance, there a closing speech by the head of village, and then we’re given some more gifts! This time around it’s kueh and some other food, packed inside a custom made plastic bag by the villagers. Neat! Guess what? After the closing ceremony, we got another tea break similar to the morning one. More kueh, more milo, YES! I just like the food! Then we had a little marching demonstration for the villagers. I felt that this is they only way I can repay them back, by marching for them to watch, so I relentlessly joined the marching (Yes, not all were asked to march). IMHO, that day we did the most perfect marching ever! It was our pride and honour to march for the villagers. We all lined up again after that, and all the villagers would come and shake hand with us again! The feeling of shaking hands with almost all the people in the village cannot be describe, our little smile on our face kind of describe everything, I guess. We had some photo taking with our “family” (using our own camera, and the camera they brought), then our parents would bring us to the bus. I saw some of the parents actually sob, that we had to leave so soon, I know mine did just that. It didn’t just stop there, when we’re up inside the bus, and the bus starting to roll, the villagers were all standing at the side, waving their hand as a sign of good bye. It was a really touching feeling! I cannot believe how warm the villagers are! The village was just an average one, but the people who live there really had made a darn large difference! I guess, this was also the climax of Community Service program, and still the best of the bunch! We reached camp pretty late. After dinner, and the usual, we watch Constatine using the Karaoke TV. My friend bought the VCD, and a lot of people were watching it.
Friday
I’m so sorry that I’d forgotten to write down what’d happen that day, but I’ll find out.
Saturday
We’re asked to wear our PT uniform for the morning march, and then change to classroom uniform after our breakfast. We waited in the hall at 8am, and an hour later, there’s a speech on about education. We started to see some booths being set up by colleges and university. We then have an educational fair at our canteen. All of the colleges were from Sarawak, so I wasn’t interested in any of them. Swinburne University College, IBMS, NIIT, Informatics, Inti College were some of the colleges that came. People walking around in the canteen asking questions about the courses the colleges provide. I’m happy that the program let these colleges come to the camp to advertise, it let us trainees know more on what we wanted to study after we left the camp. I left the canteen at 11 something, went back to sleep. Come down to the canteen again at 12.30 for lunch, and back to my room for some more sleep.
However, at around 1pm, I was awoken by the head of management officer! He was in my room, this never happen to the other trainee before. He told me to go to the office right away, my dad was there. My dad!? What was he doing there at this kind of time? I followed his car to the office (Yes, it is THAT far to walk from my room to the office) and my dad was really there! I then repack a bag of unused stuff and asked my dad to bring it back to Kuching for me. I managed to go back to the hall at 2pm, and the lucky draw was just about to start. Yes, lucky draw organized by Systematics college. Someone got t-shirt, angpao, and even tuition fee waiver for some course! We then move into the hall to listen to some speech by Nilai College, a college from west M’sia, but the speaker is from CT Academics Miri (I went to their centre two weeks before I join NS). Halfway, I was asked to go outside to take group photos of the trainers and the Systematics college representatives, wow, what an honour. I had a little talk with Crystal, one of the people from CT, asking them some more on the course that I was interested.
Later in the afternoon, we’re allowed to go up hill to make phone calls. I’d bought some fried mee, so I can skip canteen’s dinner. After finishing my dinner earlier than the rest, I went inside the hall. Kevin was watching Matrix Revolution, so I joined! I watched for about an hour, then I quickly went and took a bath and thank goodness I wasn’t late for trash talking of the night. We’re told that we were able to go to town until 2pm the next day. I was hoping for until 5pm, so it was a disappointment. I was surprised that there were a lot of people who didn’t want to go to town when asked. Seem like the reason for it was that they didn’t have anymore money, and waiting for their allowance. Went to sleep at around 11pm.
