A visit to Bidor~

This is a sharing that I posted up in my Catholic Society yahoo groups. And I've copied and pasted it here. Read on..

A three days exposure to Orang Asli settlement in Kg. Chang Lama, Bidor couldn't be anymore enriching experience, although I wish we could have stayed a few days more to really sit, talk, listen and mingle more with the Orang Asli, to see and understand in depth of their long struggle of letting people know their EXISTENCE and wake MALAYSIANS of their IGNORANCE.

Words can't fully express how I feel about my stay in Kg.Chang Lama- there's compassion, anger, inspired, and awe. As most of you have already known, the main struggle by the Orang Asli community is the right to their land. By putting myself in their shoes, I feel their sadness, their depression, and most of all, their hope for a better life for their community. If you were there, and listen to their woes and how they were not recognize and entitled to their rights by the Higher Power of mankind, you can feel the anger building up in you on how such cruelty, 'tindakan tak berhati perut' be done upon them...I felt the anger. I was also inspired by their fighting spirit standing firmly on their feet to not be oppressed by our ignorant Government. I was too, awed by their action - to train the younger generation, to equip them with SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE to ensure the continuous of their battle for their land and their rights as an to any MALAYSIANS here in our beautiful land.

A picture paints a thousand words they say, and I'm already out of words to fully describe my 3 days experience in Bidor. Here are among the pictures I've taken, I hope these pictures can be 'captured' into your memory and stays there to remind you the struggles of our fellow brothers and sisters, while we are living comfortably within our comfort zone.
















The lady in Pink top is Kak Tijah, our main contact person with the Orang Asli community.

Rumah Adat. This is where we stayed.

Walking around in Kg. Chang Lama.

A typical Orang Asli home.

A waterfall nearby the kampung. An elder makcik from the kampung said it takes her 20 minutes walk to get here from her house. She said ‘Kamu orang muda 10 minit sajalah…’ And we orang muda took 30 minutes to get there…tsk tsk tsk.

This is taken during sharing on our first night stay. They are youths from various kampung (they left their homes) came here in Chang Lama for 6 months training called, Training of Trainers (TOT). We want to get people to go for prayer meetings ONCE a WEEK for 2 HOURS pun susah…we have a lot to learn from them.

Kak Tijah sharing her story. She has all my respect for her fight even when she is ill, doing all she can to ensure her people is not being ‘step over’ by our selfish Government.

A visit to another Orang Asli settlement in Kg. Gesau,Ulu Slim. We were touched as they made us crown made of coconut leaves and decorated with colorful flowers. Its like welcoming kings and queens. They are a very giving and selfless community.

A makcik is teaching us how to make the crown from coconut leaves. My fingers got tangled with each other a few times before I can complete one. There’s just so much of lipatan! Behind me is aktiviti membakar ubi. Its so good that you can even eat it on its own – like Gardenia. I think this is basically what they do whenever there are visitors or kenduri or festive.

Helena and Kaitlin (MJCC) learning a few Semai words from the young ladies. They were giggling away I guess its because Kaitlin and Helena couldn’t pronounce the words correctly.

The younger generation – where the hope for a better future lies in them.

The man on the most left, he is Tok Batin of Kg. Gesau – similar to penghulu kampung. A man who has fought together with our fallen soldiers during war and also before Merdeka. He used his own retirement savings (EPF) to help setup hectares of land for growing kelapa sawit for the community as a source of income.

Kg. Pos Bersih (1)

Kg. Pos Bersih (2)

The pictures above, Kg. Pos Bersih (1) & (2). What you see is a land being robbed. A company has illegally entered Kg Pos Bersih and did their ‘perlombongan pasir’ activity without any notification to or permission from the villagers. And this land has a geran tanah! How can you do that? Don’t take something that doesn’t belong to you!

The final night of our stay. We had a reflection session with Fr. Jojo, everyone shared their thoughts and opinions, and wished that there’s more that we can do to help the Orang Asli community.

Missing me fwens~

How I miss my St.Anne friends...non-stop chit chatting...non-stop laughing...Era si forgetful, Janu hates Physics, Nana don't eat canteen food, Carmen the tallest and May May teary eyes when she yawns =) oh and the only guy - Mathew, the listener-- terpaksa cos when the girls starts talking..that's it!!! talk..talk..talk....no one listens. So he is our listener =p

My CUS family!!!! Wah rindu time Uni this!!!!!! really love the hang outs, the Shuang Shing and Cintan mee, OLS on Sundays, choir practice, Pesta Kamatan Gawai, Malam Borneo, St.Anne's feast, clubbing (ini ma si Joan lah,hehe), naik Bukit Jambul with my juniors2, picnic at Youth Park, this was only once but oh I had so much fun!!! =) and CUS nites (^+^)...ambooii~~~

Sigh~.~.~.~.....

Excel dummy!! T.O.I.D.I

Why I don't know how to use the freakin' microsft excel waaaaannnn???!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IDIOTZ!!!! !^%#@*$@!

Hell at work and the week before it began

Wow, ever since I swap task with a colleague 3 weeks ago, my work load has doubled, and in some days tripled. The workload that I have right now, I can safely say that it is a workload for 3 person, and I'm handling it all, plus a temp staff who is in for about 3 months. But during the Deepavali week, she took the whole week off and I was all alone doing EVERYTHING!! Gosh, I've been going home late, like 9.30pm onwards for the last 3 weeks, and during the Deepavali week, it was like 10pm onwards..towards the end of the week, I was sleep deprived (cos I wake up early the next morning) and feeling really really tired. My body was aching everywhere. Last Friday at around 4pm, I was literally holding my head up with one hand, and the other hand resting on a mouse clicking on my un-read emails....dragging them all to my 'To Action' folders. HUH!! I was just can't wait for weekend...I need the rest, I need the outing, and most of all...I need the SLEEP. And while I'm writting this, its already evening on a Sunday..time flies so fast! Huaaaaa~~~

Anyway, before that busy and hectic life began, I sempat go enjoy enjoy first. During the Raya week, I followed Greg to Klang. I was hoping he'll go and visit some friends and I can tag along and makan rendang, kuih and all the delicious stuff, but too bad he didn't. He was spending his time meeting up old friends and play poker..bugger (nothing worng, just that my harapan tinggi untuk makan kecundang..hehe). But we did go for a movie at AEON Bkt Tinggi, we watched MAMMA MIA! Story line so-so, but I LUURRVVEE the song-singing-dancing! Minus Pierce Brosnan singing lah..rosak lah the whole song. Luckily he has that I'm-old-but-still-HHOOOTT look, so that saved him from my further blaaaah comments =) After the movie, we went to isi our perut in a cafe called Penang Nonya something something..sorry yer, my brain is at its worse when it comes to re-calling name of places, unless I've been there more than once.

Penang Nyonya x.x. (the place, not the two creatures)

Yes I know...come all the way to Klang from Penang, and eat Penang food. Haha. Nway, I ordered Nasi Briyani something something (brain is not working here). It was not bad, quite tasty. But don't take my word, I'm not a good eater and I really dunno how to comment on food. All I know to do is to nggaaaaaaaaammmmm-kunyah-telan! Here's how it looked like:

Looks neat and nice, tasty?

Besides Aeon, we went to Republic at Sunway to meet up with Greg's cousin...jejak kasih punya cerita lah, they meet up and chit chat and drink...while I listen and drink....ORANGE JUICE =p hahaha....

This is what they were drinking, my O.J. not in pic, potong stim lah..

On our way back to Penang (we drove to Klang), we heard on the radio saying that it's bottleneck from tol towards the Penang bridge, and so we menyimpang sikit to Juru Autocity to have dinner and take our sweet time until the jam clears up a bit. It's our first time in Autocity and it is quite a nice place to hang out. We had our dinner in Japanese Ramen & Rice restaurant, called Takehana. (Surprise surprise! Cynthia remembers the name of this place!!)

Cos I took the pic mah....

And I ordered this Japanese dish called...erm, by now you should now that I'm suck at remembering the name of things. It is tasty, although the taste is a bit foreign to me as I have never had Japanese dishes before, sushi pun satu kali saja...itu pun terpaksa.

The dish...

After dinner, with heavier bum we got back to our car and continued our journey...and the jam didn't cleared up a bit..and it was close to 11pm..sigh. But its okay, our tummies were smiling and we just had to bersabar..hati hati di jalan raya =)