This month my team and I lived in Penang, a state in northern Malaysia. We volunteered at St. Nicholas Home For The Blind in Georgetown. I complied a list (with pictures) of my favorite memories from this month – hope you enjoy!
These two ladies, Joy and Elizabeth, have been a part of St. Nicholas since they were young. They live together and we got to know them pretty well during our stay! They are both so sweet. We took them down the street to get local food for dinner a couple times, and also to the mall to walk around. They enjoy going to McDonald’s for breakfast muffins and coffee!
Street food – The local food in Malaysia is delicious and cheap! I tried lots of local dishes like Wantan Mee Soup and Bee Hoon noodles. Also the drinks are amazing – iced coffee and watermelon juice were my go-to choices. If you get a drink to go they give it to you in a plastic bag with a straw, which is pretty cool!
We were here during the Chinese New Year, which lasts 15 days. This is a big holiday in Malaysia because of the Chinese population that lives here. Everywhere we went we saw red lanterns and other decorations. There were also firecrackers that went off at all times of day and night! One of their traditions for the holiday is to give red envelopes with money in them…. Lucky for us! I got 3 red envelopes, with a total of 36 Ringgit (about 9 USD).
We discovered there is a International House of Prayer in Penang! It’s called PenHOP, and I went twice for worship and prayer. The presence of God was definitely there, and it is so awesome to see a house of prayer established like this in a Muslim country.
Every afternoon I had the privilege of working in Braille production with Samantha and Seiw Lee. My job was to type books into the computer, so they could then be turned into Braille for the blind to read. I got through three and a half books during the four weeks I was there. I always looked forward to spending time with these two sweet ladies – I will definitely miss them!
Downtown Georgetown is a very historical city. It was quite fun to wander up and down the old streets and look at the little shops and street art. There are paintings on the walls all throughout the downtown area, so we would search for them and take pictures. We also went to some fun places like Love Lane (the central area for street art), the Purrfect Cat Café (yes, they have real cats that you can pet!), and Selfie Coffee.
We went to the beach every weekend! It was about an hour away by bus, and we would spend the day there. It was too hot for me to enjoy laying out on the beach, so I faced my fear of jellyfish and got in the water (no one got stung, thankfully)!
Lice checks with my teammates – Yes, this happened…. Almost every night one of my teammates took an hour or two to check my head and pick out the bugs and eggs. Talk about team bonding and a memory I’ll never forget! 🙂
This is Robert. Everyday, morning, lunch-time, and evening, he was always sitting at the same table in the cafeteria eating plain white rice. He has been blind from birth. It was fun talking with him, although half the time he didn’t understand what we were saying. We would repeat the same thing multiple times, and then we would both start laughing!
There were two malls within walking distance of St. Nicholas, and we went there a few too many times I think.…! They had everything you could need between the two malls, including clothes, American food, Starbucks, Daiso (a Japanese dollar store) and Asian food courts with many local options.
For one of our team times we had a tea party at a shop in the mall! The best part is that Matt (our squad leader) came with us! He’s a trooper for spending the entire month with the all-girls team.
In the mornings I worked in Taska, which is like a preschool. There are four children who come to this school, and they are all vision-impaired (some have multiple disabilities). There are also four teachers, which means each child gets one-on-one care. It is very well-scheduled and focused on teaching the children daily living skills and allowing them to learn. I enjoyed getting to know the teachers as well!
There is also a program for the older children who live at St. Nicholas. Some of these kids are now 15 or 16, and have been there since they were young. I saw them everyday in the dining room and would always say hi!
When we arrived in Penang, we saw signs for the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, so Jess and I went to check it out. Even though we didn’t get to go up in a balloon (they sold the last ticket to the person in front of us in line), it was still so much fun to see all the balloons and be a part of the festivities!
One evening we had the opportunity to take three of the St. Nicholas home residents to a drum event. It was great to see how they interacted and listened to the music and drumbeats even though they couldn’t see what was going on. This is Samantha playing the tambourine along with the beat.
Jess and I went parasailing together one day at the beach, and this was one of my favorite adventures so far! The view was perfect, and twice they actually let the parasail glide down to the water and dipped our feet in! Also we took off and landed from the beach – coming down, I had to land the parasail! I have no previous experience in this but we landed safely….thank God!
