It's a colorful time

The other day Ashley put some quinoa on to cook as we started our dinner prep. Minutes later our little pot and the whole 2-burner gas stove in our dorm kitchen was up in flames. After watching Ashley dump water on a fire fed by the loose hose connected to the gas tank I remembered we had a fire extinguisher (thank you mandatory 2AM fire drill and safety session!!). I lugged the thing across a courtyard and put out the fire. Yes! But the salty, white dust thickened the air and we still didn't know how to turn off the gas, and the smell, we found out later, had started to reach the higher floors of our block. After fumbling around we ran for help and Ashley found two courageous lelakis (men) to enter the danger zone for us. Later when I was in my room thinking, "I can't believe that just happened," I wanted to share some of my more colorful experiences living in Malaysia that probably wouldn't have happened to me living in the U.S.

Men's Underwear EVERYWHERE
In my house, girls outnumbered guys 6 to 1. Sure, take a second to pity my dad and thank God for his patience. Last July I was part of a big group of college students who traveled through Borneo together and about halfway through our trip we got to a place where we were able to do our laundry. I have never seen so much men's underwear ever. I mean even at WalMart I can speed through that section with tunnel vision but these were on lines going every which way throughout our guesthouse. Not only that but one night I went into the only open bathroom to brush my teeth, even though one of my guy friends was hand-washing some stuff in a bucket right next to the sink. I ended up helping to instruct how to effectively wash his underwear by hand. Oh my life is so interesting.

Purging Our Linens
I've written about this before but I'll bring it up again briefly. Last winter my friends and I traveled to Georgetown, Pengang - a great place rich in culture and history. Everything about the trip was great but when we got back home, Ashley and I discovered we had bed bugs. We had the apartment fumigated and boiled all of our clothes. I had to say goodbye to a couple of shirts and a flashlight in this process - sad time. Long term consequence - boiling and switching my sheets every 3-5 days through the month of JUNE. All I can say is that I'm glad to have that behind us.

The Cockroach Resurrection
This was the first to happen. The first time we found a cockroach in our bathroom Ash killed it - she REALLY smashed it, I picked it up and tossed it in our trash can. It was gross but we did it and went about our day. The following night as Ashley was getting ready for bed she suddenly came out to the living room where I was and quickly whispered, "Alejandra! The cockroach resurrected!" I couldn't believe it! Well killing it this time was a bigger job because now it was a super-roach in our minds. We used spray, yelled, woke up a housemate, Ashley almost "got sick" during the process. We learned that day to take out the trash after one of these episodes.

Indonesia

Recently my friends and I went to Indonesia. It was an amazing opportunity to have time to think about our past year in Asia. The time I had to think over the past 14 months and the lessons I've learned was extremely valuable. I know that I will never see certain things in the same way again and that I've learned things being in a different culture that I may not have learned for a long time had I not had this experience.

I'm amazed that God mercifully shows me again and again that He is devoted to me no matter my actions, shortcoming, failures. One of my biggest fears since I discovered life in Christ is that I would somehow mess it up - that I would either lose gratitude, grow tired or bored of His love, or do something terrible to lose His forgiveness.

My loving Dad has gently convinced me that it would be infinitely more challenging for me to ignore His voice in a dark place, even more so to do something to warrant His condemnation, than to abide in Him, even if at times it feels like I'm only hanging by a thread. It is impossible for Him to leave me - even if I am faithless, He remains faithful. I am touched as I realize how firmly He has gotten a hold of my heart and given me peace over the past few years.

The view of the other chalets from my room.

The beach (and home to thousands of crabs)

A man in a longboat.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139: 7-10

Free Ice Cream

It must be something college students love all around the world - we can't say no to free food! A couple of weeks ago, Ashley and I decided we wanted to get to know the girls we live with so we bought a bunch of ice cream and toppings, and knocked on every room in our dorm building to invite them over.

Personally, I was surprised when the first 2 girls showed up because as I was walking around people looked surprised, shocked, and confused. I heard girls talking in different languages and laughter so I didn't know what was going on or what to expect when I was in my room 15 minutes later.

This photo was taken at the end of the night but during those 90 minutes we kept our door open, over 30 girls came in and out of our dorm room. After asking a few girls, I found out people actually really appreciated how friendly (even though it was a little weird) we were! 

We shared favorite foods, places, words, fun facts - it was a good time filled with plenty of laughter. I just hope I get to spend more time with these girls and get to know them better, that this is the beginning of good friendships. 

4 of the girls in this photo are roommates and the same day of this ice cream social, 3 men broke into their dorm room and stole an iPhone. The girls are all physically okay, a hand was not laid on them; the news just gave us all a little scare. As you read this, would you please pray that we would be protected, safe, and at peace in our building? Thanks! 

Our 12 Day Adventure

This is overdue but about a month ago, 27 of my friends and I got back from a "12 Day Adventure Trip" in Borneo (East Malaysia).

We stayed in 3 different locales and it was awesome. This would be one long entry if I mentioned everything we did so I'll write about some of my favorite moments.


White Water Rafting! The fourth day of the trip was the most fun for me. We left the Strawberry Garden Hotel up in the cool hills of ____ and traveled 3 hours to a cite where I would enjoy white water rafting for the first time ever. With close to 30 people, we split up into 5 different groups of boy and girl teams. My team: Tina, Wen Shiow, Schumy, Chee Lum & Alejandra. My team had the lightest, fastest raft and it was my pleasure to assign myself the imaginary role of Raft Motivator. There was a lot of shouting. I'm sure they had as much fun as I did, especially when we were the first to reach the end. At one point a boy walking on a bridge about 20 feet over us (probably home from school) stopped to dangle a chocolate bar over our heads and when I put my hands out, he dropped it. Our raft fell into laughter and 4 seconds later into the hands of torrential waters. No worries, we all made it out without injuries.

The Amazing Race! I let my competitive side out a little when my team went up against the 4 other teams in a scavenger hunt during our stay at the Tambatuon village. I had to shampoo my friend Wen Shiow's hair in the river. I carried a really heavy rock across a really questionable bridge. We made a makeshift scarecrow and checked dozens of locals' clotheslines for our team leader's missing shirt. Oh it was as fun as it sounds.



Discussion Time. On 8 of our evenings in Borneo we had team discussions on real-life issues like friendship, the meaning of success, the purpose of life... it was a privilege to hear different thoughts and opinions shared about some of life's biggest questions for all of us. There was a moment of apprehension for me before each discussion that someone might offend someone else on the team but we all listened to one another and even felt the freedom and curiosity to ask questions. My favorite discussion was the one on friendships; people were surprisingly real, open and honest about the ways we've been hurt in friendships - this set the tone for the trip and allowed us to connect in a way I've been waiting for since I got to Malaysia...

Favorite sight of the trip: The Tip of Borneo.
I fell in love with that amazing sandstone!
#GeologyRocks

First Semester of Masters: Completed.

Linguistic Theory Class

A couple of years ago I would NOT have imagined myself going on towards a masters, especially not in Malaysia. Now that I'm here, I truly appreciate being able to learn something I'm interested in alongside people from Nigeria, China, The Philippines, Iran, to name a few...

It's been difficult to adapt to the expectations of my lecturers, who are much different than my professors at the University of Arizona.  Oh, and you know how some students complain about having trouble understanding professors with an accent? I never did. But it is REALLY strenuous getting together with a group of people all speaking Malaysian English (comparable to Spanglish) for hours and collaborating ideas to write a paper together. They were all lovely, intelligent ladies but oh the headaches! I was humbled by my dad when talking to him about it when he encouraged me by saying "Study hard. You only have a year to learn there and then you have to come home." My dad is awesome.

Things aren't always what they seem.

I can't say much for what has happened and changed the last couple of months because I've spent so much of this time in my head. The best way I can think to describe it is to compare it to driving through a tunnel and in the darkness I couldn't see anything around me but was left to my thoughts.  Thankfully, I'm coming up on the other side. Sorry I can't provide a more fun description of my adventures in Malaysia!

I've had to think a lot lately about my interactions with people because of some rough sailing and have found myself surprised at how such an agreeable, young lady could ever have any trouble getting along smoothly with others. I did think too highly of myself but the bigger problem was thinking too highly of humans in general. It's taken my Malaysian experience to realize that when people spend this much time together, people are bound to make mistakes no matter who they are.  I only wondered why it took me so long to figure that out. I think that before now I've refused to see my sin, I mean unless it was really obvious but I'm a pretty well-behaved girl so that didn't happen too often. Having friends that always understood and saw things from my point of view whenever situations did arise made me less inclined to think any further on it.

I can only consider it a good thing to be "convinced of the depravity of man", as a friend of mine put it. Unrealistically high expectations of what man can be and a denial of my own sin got me into a mess, into a tunnel of anger and confusion.  Thankfully, I'm a little more rational now and I can see things from a better perspective.

The way I feel doesn't mean as much about reality as I used to think. I feel like someone is insulting me but that doesn't mean they are insulting me. I feel attacked but it doesn't mean they are attacking me. I feel someone is hinting that they don't want to spend time with me but it doesn't really mean they are hinting so. I feel someone made a remark in anger but it doesn't mean they did. I hope that whenever I'm disappointed by someone's actions I remember to ask myself, "Did they really mean that?" and "What am I really expecting from them?" because sometimes it's impossible.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

For those of you who don't know, Chinese New Year is an event that goes for 15 days. YEAH. The Eastern Hemisphere knows how to celebrate. The way it was explained to me was, "Chinese New Year is what Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve is to Americans, all in one." This year it started February 10th and ended February 24th.

Doug, Alex, Ashley and I traveled to 4 different cities, first south and then north of KL to visit different friends and their families. On that trip we got to participate in the tradition of Lao Sheng, where a special kind of salad (it looked like confetti but tasted like sesame) is brought to the dinner table and everyone helps toss it, lifting as high as possible and simultaneously shouting what you want that coming year - WEALTH, SUCCESS, PROSPERITY! We got to see embarrassing baby pictures of a couple of our friends; that's always a good time. Mostly, we ate huge meals. To me it felt like Thanksgiving 4 days in a row, and seafood instead of turkey.

The Riverfront In Ipoh, Perah

Lao Sheng!

It is an old tradition in Malaysia for the last day of the Chinese New Year to be a sort of Valentines Day. A much more fun Valentines Day, in my opinion. We got a group of about 20 University of Malaya students, and 5 visiting Americans, together to participate in a community celebration. As part of the tradition, single ladies write their name and contact number on an orange and throw it into the lake everyone is gathered around. Guys stand around with nets and try to fish for these oranges in hopes of finding their soulmate. For the more proactive gentlemen, there is the option of writing their name and phone number on a banana to hand to that one, special girl they've admired from afar. Oh, it happens. A girl standing near me got two.

Some of you may recognize our visiting friends!
It was so good to see them all. Margaret in the center is a fellow
U of A alumn!

Hopeful girls! ....
Kidding. But we did have fun :)

After the orange tossing and banana receiving, people wrote wishes on lanterns and let them float up into the night sky. Even though it made me a little nervous every time one bumped a tree branch, I was overwhelmed with the gratitude of being there. It was beautiful.

Photography by Poh Kai Sin