Sophie, Hollie and I at work
We are often just told half an hour a before that we will be teaching a class so it is hard to prepare something worthwhile to do with the students. We often end up playing games which I do feel is not enough for them to properly develop their English language but after the holidays we will be given specific, timetabled lessons in which we can truly get into teaching and hopefully see some improvements with the students' abilities.
Life in the hostel has been especially stressful over the past few days as a number of things started to go wrong. Ever since we have been here it has been a constant struggle with the washing machines, who steal your money and clothes, so we have now resorted to hand washing all our clothes. It is safe to say I was not very keen on this idea at first- it takes so much time and effort!!- but now I am put up with it for the good of my clothes! Early last week we lost all water completely in the bathroom of our flat, which lasted for 8 days, so had to use the girls showers in the hostel. It took a while but after plenty of visits to the technician, someone going up on the roof and a shower filled with brown water it is working again- with clean water!! Not long after we woke up to our toilet gushing out water from the back so we had to place two buckets under it and keep emptying them every 5 minutes, which in turn made us late for school because if we had left it the bathroom would have flooded. The technician came to our rescue again with a new part for the toilet so we can now pee in peace once again!
The school has a host of different activities for the students to participate in so we have been going out in the afternoon, after our daily nap, to try a few. Basketball is my favourite as I am so much taller than all the kids so can stop their balls form going in, however I still can't get the ball in the basket myself, but they have found new ways to stop me such as tickling my under arms haha! Sophie and I also tried out archery this week which was good fun but I definitely won't be making the Olympic team anytime soon...
Playing Basketball
It was a pretty chilled weekend as we were asked to participate in an English camp the school was holding on Friday (our weekends are Friday and Saturday here). This was for the form 3s who have a big exam in a months time and all 3 schools from around Mersing came and participated. We only helped the students with their grammar and sentence order as their English was very good but it was still nice to be involved none the less. On Saturday Mr Nizar took us on a spur of the moment trip into Mersing where we saw monkeys by the side of the road. This was so cool and exciting as in Scotland the only thing we see at the side of the road are sheep. Mr Nizar suggested we fed the monkeys with a biscuit I had lying in my bag, however this was much scarier than anticipated as the monkey launched itself at our hands and the car- it's safe to say I definitely won't be feeding more monkeys anytime soon.
All in all its been an enjoyable week and I definitely feel at home here now, I am even starting to learn some of the Malay names and making friends with the lovely students and teachers. We were even given henna by some form 5 girls last night which was lovely of them. This week I also revived a parcel from home- including salt and vinegar Pringles whoop whoop- which was so lovely and exciting to open and great to read a letter from my parents. Tomorrow we go off on our travels to some Malaysian Islands- Penang and Langkawi- which I am super excited about and means the next update should be an exciting one!
Henna done by a Form 5 Girl
Loving all the updates. Been laughing at your 'pee-gate' situation...lol
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