Program Bakti Siswa Perdana (Homestay in Kg. Panggas Besar)

(Another group photo)
(Group photo)
Last weekend on the 25-27 July 2008, I went to a 7 Pillars programme which is actually 7 activities made complusory by the university for us to attend. The 1st one was the BTN camp and this programme is the second one. Guess what this programme is all about??

(Me, My foster parents and Nadia)

This programme is called Program Bakti Siswa Perdana in BM or Program Anak Angkat which is Community Service cum Homestay with foster parents. It is actually some sort like a homestay programme as we are put into village homes for 3 days. I went to Kampung Panggas Besar for this programme. The 1st thing that I saw when I stepped out of the bus is paddy field. My first thought was....'Great....I'll be bitten by insects and live in old wooden house and probably ask to get down to the paddy field.' But it was not at all like that. Hahaha...I underestimate kampung people....it turns out I stayed in a quite nice house....I admit it is a bit old and flawed but they have television, washing machine like us town people and even Astro....so it wasn't at all as ulu as I thought it was...haha I didn't even stepped into the paddy field or get bitten by mosquitoes. I was put into a house with a Malay girl called Nadia from Kelantan. Most houses took in 2 of us and some richer villagers housed in 4 students from our uni. One of my friend lived in a really nice house newly build and she stayed with another girl in a bedroom with television. Very lucky...Loo Wen is also very lucky as she went to Padang Besar for this programme. She was even more lucky as she get to stay in Chinese house. Not that mine was bad. Mine are very nice old folks with there old mom. Their kids have grown up and don't live with them anymore.

(The house)

( The food I ate...or tried too)
I frankly felt I gained weight after coming back from this programme. My foster parents which I called Pak Long and Mak Long and grandma which I called Tuk keeping asking us to eat and eat and eat. I ate lots of things in those 3 days. The food I ate the most all the time I was there was cempedak goreng (fried jackfruit). Mak Long really knows how to fry it....it was super yummy!!! I also ate rambutan and durian. Ate all kinds of malay food that she bought or cooked. I think they are afraid we haven't have enough to eat and bought more food just for us. They were really nice people. Living in the house felt like living in Tanjung Bungah when I was little. My house looked a bit like that when I was small. I got a bedroom with Nadia too and we have our own bathroom...haha. It wasn't like our new kind of bathroom with tiles or good lighting but the old one with cemented floor and light bulb light. It was okay. As long as it was not dirty or open air, I'm okay with it. Some of my friends have open air toilet where the toilet is actually just 4 sides covered and without a roof. One of my friends even said she can see cars passing by the road while taking a bath. Scary....
(Tuk and me) (Tuk frying cempedak)
The uni together with the villagers organised several activities for us in the kampung to do. One of it was fishing!!! My first time fishing.....ended with no fish caught. I was unlucky. The fishes fooled me not once but thrice. They ate the worms I put as bait yet I didn't caught any fishes. All the fishes got away....I had fun fishing for nothing but it was tiring to hold a traditional fishing pole made from bamboo and just a strand of string with a hook.

(Gone fishing...failed though)

That was the first day. The second day, we woke up early to do some gotong royong (clean-up) for the village. I din do much...hahaha....I plucked unwanted plants from the soil and raised the flag. I was a little lazy and so were most of the girls as we were just standing there letting the boys do most of the work. After that we had a netball and football competition. Of course I wouldn't miss a chance to play so I volunteered to play netball. The netball match was in a primary school nearby so you have to either walk, ride a motorcycle, go by car or cycle there. Waking would take more than 15 minutes. I longed to ride a bicycle for so long so I took this chance to ride around the kampung and ride to the school. I went around the kampung to explore and breath in some clean air. I rode to the school too. It was tiring as the road out of the kampung to the main road is quite a distance and I even ride to the school but it was really fun. Hahaha....I'm such a kid....I rode a bicycle meant for kids as there was only the bicycle in the house. Some of the kampung children were laughing at me as I sat on a small bike while they rode on a bigger bicycle than me even if there were younger than me. Sadly, I don't know how to ride a motorcycle or I could ride that out as Pak Long has a motorcycle. We played netball against aunties and younger kids. I think you can imagine the situation. We lost 13-3 to aunties and little kids. So embarassing. At least I got a t-shirt and a box of herbal soap as consolation. At night we had a malam kebudayaan where we listen to dikir barat from the villagers and we did the chicken dance in front of everyone. The Vice Cancellor came to our village. I must say that our school of material engineering is very lucky as we get to see the VC a lot of times already. UniMAP's VC is a very hands-on person and he would attend many functions and he is very friendly.
(The kiddie bicycle I rode)

(The Unimap Kg Panggas Besar Netball Team who lost to aunties and kids)
Staying in a kampung was fun and we didn't have any worries about our studies. I think most Chinese enjoyed it too even if it was a bit ulu for some of them. The last day, we had a UPSR workshop held by UniMAP to the Standard 5 and 6 students of Sek. Kebangsaan Panggas Besar. The teachers who came and taught are students from the Masters programme in UniMAP and we went to help out in guiding the children on doing maths and English. I helped a Thai girl named Nirawan. I felt we had more fun than the small students. We were laughing and kidding around more than the kids. Staying in the kampung was fun. I really enjoyed my stay there. Thank you to Pak Long, Mak Long and Tuk for providing me a place to stay and lots of food to eat. They even gave me some pressie and money which I felt really touched that they were so nice to people they known only for 3 days. These are the values we should teach to children these days.....to be kind, helpful and generous to people.....so that's all from me this time
(The house my friend stayed in)
UniMAP really have a lot of programme. Sometimes it is good as we can learn a lot from this programmes. But sometimes when it clashes with the time i want to go back to Penang the it is really bad. I'm probably back for PC fair...and of course the August holidays. I can't wait to see all of you guys. Haha....miss you guys and see ya.
I'll update soon hopefully......tata

(from left: Nadia, Mai, Siew Yin and Me)