This month we are working on a farm in
the jungle about an hour outside Kuala-Lumpur. The farm is owned by
several pastors in the city and the profits are used to fund their
churches.
Much like farms in the US, farms in
Malaysia use immigrants to do most of the hard work. The people we
spend most of our time with are from Bangladesh. By this point I am
kind of burned out on learning languages, but it is especially hard
as we have 2 different languages to learn. Luckly, most people here
speak at least a bit of English, and its not too difficult to
communicate.
Another kind of odd thing is that the
farm is right next door to a elegant resort. While we were waiting
to get our van’s clutch fixed, we walked over and it was like we were
in a totally different world. We sat on a balcony overlooking the
valley and a few people took a dip in the infinity pool. I suppose
this is pretty common in many resorts, but it is weird to think that
poverty and lavish accommodations are so close together.
As for the work itself we have been
moving bamboo out of the jungle and stacking it on the slopes to make
poles for the green beans to climb up. For me, this has mostly
involved driving the tractor, which is awesome. The jungle is
interesting though, especially after a good rain.
The first night we were there it rained
pretty hard and the next morning we were heading to the bamboo and
were assaulted by an army of leaches. They were everywhere and 3 or
4 of them were even chasing after us. They can grab on to you so fast. One got my finger as I tried to flick him off a shoe. They were so bad we had to
work in another part of the farm until the sun came out and scared
them off.
