I was allocated to a family with another 2 students, one Indian and one Malay. When we first arrived at the house, we were stunned, because we were totally isolated from other participants, the family stays in palm oil estate. Frankly speaking, the house condition is within my expectation, but things are just feeling so different when I really have to stay there for few days. Did not have good night sleep for the 1st night, the weather was just too damn hot and the room was really stuffy.
The 2nd morning, we were asked to help the local community to prepare a 'kenduri' or in other words to help prepare food and decoration for event. The 1st thing we saw when we reached there was a slaughtered cow laid in blood.
pity cow but nice rendang and good soup lol
After that, the cow was skinned and villagers started to cut it into smaller pieces while other foods were being cooked.
parang, axe and other very sharp weapons came in very handy
rice was cooked using this big wok
since slaughtering and cutting meat need skills, participants were assigned to do easy works like cleaning meat and utensils as well as arranging tables and seat, decoration was part of the job scope too.
Everything was completed in schedule, and the best part was the honoured guest was punctual.
Dato X (X = unknown) with his wife
Lion dance, some villagers thought this it's a cat and a little boy was scared by the Lion lol
Silat, the Malay traditional martial art
the traditional music instruments were played together with Silat performance
In the evening, we had Futsal game wearing Sarung. Technically it's not Sarung but rather known as Kain Pelikat (but for me it's the same). Frankly speaking, it doesn't restrict movement at all, I think we have pulled it too high already lol.
once again proved, girls should not play football
The night we had a 'Cultural Night' at field, 2 Universities were asked to prepare a performance to entertain crowd before the main character of the night shows up. However, the night wasn't going so well as it was raining and we had to move 2 big tents from another place to field to shelter all the participants and villagers. At first, we were all complaining about all the manual labour and the facilitators for not changing the venue for the performance. But in the end, we realized we were wrong. The show performed definitely worth some manual labours and wet clothes as well as mosquito bites.
I apologize for not able to prove accurate information about the performance. According to the emcee, this is a traditional performance passed down from Jawa and originally performed to 'catch ghosts' by letting actors to be possessed or something like that. Nowadays, the ceremony is no longer serving it's original purpose but more to entertaining crowd.
pregnant ghost
Pocong, ghost wrapped with white fabric
This ghost is very fashionable, other think it's Michael Jackson, but I personally think it's KISS
Halloween Malay version
i think this game is called 'Lagi jauh lagi sayang', throw water balloon to teammate without breaking it. The last team survived wins the game.
See how happy he is, this is pure happiness
My housemates, Kelvin Kumar on the left and Abubakar on the right
UTAR
The 3rd day, we had a very typical 'Gotong-Royong' which is working together to clean the village compound. I don't want to talk much about gotong-royong because I believe most of the people have experienced it before. In the evening we had 'Sukaneka' together with villagers and their children.
The last day of the event, we had a simple closing ceremony and spent a lot of time taking photos and exchanging contacts with each other.
I have learned from the program, the people there and the participants from UiTM. We have shared knowledge and thoughts, and finally we realized that all we want are peace and equity. We are all very open-minded rather than racist. We want a better future for all of us as Malaysian rather being selfish and only care about ourselves.
Life in kampung and life is city are totally different I can say, the pace of life and even the thinking are way too different. If we are going to achieve Wawasan 2020, there's no doubt we should provide the best education to every Malaysian regardless one's race or ethnic. Equity should be exist in everything then harmony will follow.
