Finally in (Mal)A(y)sia

As I stepped out of the aeroplane in Langkawi, an island in Malaysia, I had three thoughts: Hot, Beatiful and Exciting. This green island is going to be my home until the 13th of January.



Islam is the main religion in this country, which became obvious to me as soon as I placed my feet on Malaysian soil. Compared to Norway where it is unpopular for Muslims to wear a hijab (“tudong” in Malay) at work, in Malaysia you see women wearing this hair covering clothing everywhere. Even the policewomen carrying heavy weapons wear this under their police hats. I find it interesting that many Westerners (i.e. Norwegians) tend to think that this isn't suitable when it is so common and important for the Muslims. I'll have to reflect more upon this as I get to know the different cultures and religions better...

Our motel is situated one minute from the beach, where you find green palm trees, clear water, sail boats, restaurants etc. As we only have 3 hours of lectures every day (from 9am-12am), we have plenty of time exploring the market place, the beach and the facilities around. When we first arrived Wednesday afternoon, we had two hours before our first lecture. Jet-lagged and sweaty we got out our pens ready to learn new things. Here's a picture of half of our class during one of our first sessions.



The first thing we learned about was how important the life after death is to the Muslims. They believe that life consists of four phases: 1) life as a foster 2) life on earth 3) life in the grave (where the angels and demons find out where you belong afterwards) 4) life after the grave (Heaven/Hell). Some Malaysian Muslims believe that some people often come back as a ghost after they have passed on (Note: this is not a very common thought among all Muslims!). The chairs you can see on the following picture, are situated outside one of our motel buildings. A local person apparently said that he had seen a ghost there a couple of weeks ago. He was convinced of this, and it seems that nobody doubted his credibility...



We have a very good teacher with us, who tells these stories as if they were true, although he is a Christian himself. That makes it easier to see the religion from the inside, and not just from the outside as we often tend to see it at home. Levi (our teacher) is very committed to his job, and is an inspiring teacher with loads of enthusiasm.



He is also a kind and helpful “caretaker” when we're not feeling to good. In the middle of the night on Friday I woke up feeling nauseous. The red bucket in our bathroom became my friend from that minute on. I counted the times I vomited that day, and was up to 6. Friday is the day the Muslims have their Friday-prayers, so all the shops (including the doctor's clinic) are closed. Friday is to Muslims what Sunday is to Christians. So as I lay in my bed listening to the invitation from the Minaret (the tower in the Mosque) to come to prayer, I realized that I am far from home. This was my first time to hear this in real life, so I was quite fascinated. Sadly enough, my bucket filled up a couple of times, so I couldn't listen too carefully. Levi said that I might need to go to the doctor when it opens on Saturday, but luckily I feel a bit better today. He wasn't too worried as I didn't have a fever, which apparently is quite promising. :-)

Tomorrow (Sunday) we are going for a roundtrip on the island. We will rent cars and drive around to different places, go swimming in crystal clear water etc. Those of us who have brought our drivers licence can drive the cars. I haven't made up my mind about this, but think I'd like to try it. They drive on the left side of the road, so it can be a bit difficult. But apparently Malaysia isn't the craziest country in Asia when it comes to traffic.

I think I will leave you with this for now. Feel free to send me messages or call me (or ask me to call you back) on my Malaysian telephone number: 0060143003862. Just keep in mind that the time difference is as follows: 7 hours ahead of Norway, 8 hours ahead of England and 13 hours ahead of Florida (!). And if you would like to leave a comment, you will make my internet-experiences more exciting!! :-) To this I say: terima kasih (= thank you), which in Malay/Indonesian means, word by word; “accept love”.

Here are some pictures of an evening on the beach.