English On The Beach

I'm a lucky girl, because just a couple of weeks after my parents came to visit, I got another super special visitor to Malaysia -- George! Together we visited Tioman Island, spent some time together in Kuala Terengganu, and celebrated the 4th of July with other ETAs on Kapas Island. All in all, it was magical and incredible and amazing all wrapped into one. George even got to visit my school and meet some of my fellow teachers and students. Wan Zu, a favorite teacher and friend of mine, brought her adorable kids and sweet husband (also a teacher at my school) to my apartment to meet George. Then Anis, my wonderful mentor, "kidnapped" George and me for a while to take us for tea with her and her husband. It meant a lot that people went out of their way to get to know George.

To read more about our time together on Pulau Tioman and Pulau Kapas, please read George's blog at http://www.travelpod.com/members/gajemison. He has written some great entries about our time together and also has posted pictures.

On George's last full day in Terengganu, he was sweet enough to help me with an English Pen Pal Camp that I was planning with three other ETAs: Sarah, Gwynne, and Mike. For a couple of months, students from our four schools have been writing pen pal letters to each other, and we thought it would be fun to plan a time for them all to meet. We decided to make a day of it, and so we threw an English camp on the beach near Gwynne's school last Saturday. About 150 students showed up, and the camp (despite being hot and causing sunburn) was a huge success.





























We had planned activities like the human knot, an egg relay race, learning the words and silly motions to the song "Lean On Me," and, of course, meeting pen pals face to face. This part turned out to be slightly difficult in some cases, as male and female pen pal pairs were EXTREMELY hesitant to even look at each other, much less spend time together. At one point, Ezra put a boy in a headlock in an attempt to make him turn around and say hello to a girl. I mean, I know that talking to girls is difficult in any culture, but this was a little intense.





























Needless to say, most of the day was gender-segregated (we had to be careful to separate boys and girls for the human knot activity because it involves holding hands, and that would definitely not be allowed) and even taking the group photo at the end was a struggle (the boys would not cooperate and for the longest time just stood in a clump off to the side).





























Still, the camp was full of fun and good memories, and all four of us have had wonderful feedback from our students, telling us how much fun they had. Sweet George was SUCH a help during this event (no surprise there) and the kids all loved him. At the end, we let the kids sign each other's "yearbooks" that they had decorated earlier in the day, and as you can see George was a popular guy.















Yesterday, the day after the camp, George and I took a bus up to Kota Bharu (three hours north of KT), where he would continue his journey into Thailand. We had a few precious hours together in Kota Bharu, and then had to say goodbye when I boarded the last bus back to KT. George went on to take an overnight bus to western Malaysia, and should be entering Thailand today. Saying goodbye was just as hard as ever (it just doesn't get easier) and we are looking forward to spending time together again in Hong Kong at the end of July.