Bali trip 26th of June - by Elco
What’s behind the AIDS epidemic? - by Meri
Let’s get serious - by Elco
Let’s do one thing - by Prateek
dancing to the rhythm of Malaysia - by Kanika
new perspectives - by Meri
after 3 weeks internship... :] - by Carmen
training day by M.A.C. - by Estee
Meri’s first week over - by Meri
happy bday to Carmen!! - by Patty
The first post - by Andreas
What do you guys think is the root cause of AIDS epidemic?
Does it make sense to bring dozens of interns from around the world to work on HIV/AIDS awareness?
Would the world be a better place if there was no AIDS?
Looking forward to read your answers as comments!
This is my first post on the blog. I’ve been in Malaysia now for almost 1814400 seconds, which means that during my stay, 302400 people have been infected with HIV around the world. Which underlines the importance of our work here. With my three month stay in Malaysia, which is approximately 1/320 part of my life, hopefully I can save a few young Malaysians from doing some risky behavior they will regret for the rest of their live. Meaning that with just this small amount of effort I can save life’s. Isn’t that nice J?
Having conducted three workshops now, I noticed that the knowledge level of HIV/AIDS between institutes varies a lot. Now it doesn’t make a difference for me to conduct on either one of these institutes , because I’m equally happy when an audience regards the presented information as known as when they seem to have never heard of HIV/AIDS. In the first case I’m relieved that someone has already taught them the essentials about this growing danger. In the second case I’m happy we, as red agents, can teach them the basics of HIV/AIDS before they become sexually active or start using drugs.
Having said that I’ll start telling you about my experiences with Malaysian people. One of the keywords in describing the Malaysian society is diversity. Malayans, Chinese, Indians etc. live together in this exotic melting-pot of cultures. I’ve accompanied a group of Malayan UKM students to visit the Cameron Highlands, given a workshop to a group of Chinese students and have seen the Hindu temples at the Batucaves. The funniest experience however was when I actually had to show a Malaysian cabdriver the way in his own city. He looked quite astonished when we said we weren’t willing to pay the amount the meter indicated, very strange :P.
In a way this multicultural society reflects our Dutch population, which is also a combination of native Dutch people, Moroccans, Turks, Chinese, people from Suriname etc . It’s nice to see when so many different people can live together in harmony.
So this was my first post on the blog, a quite serious one. I’ll promise you my next one will be crazy as hell, be prepared!!!
People have said to me: "Meri, you should go for internship abroad because it will change you so much!" Now that I've been here for two weeks I still find myself pretty much the same person, but the magic of it is that I see that person in a new perspective. So I would like to tell some things about myself from this perspective:
I used to see myself as a very career-oriented person. Now I have met people who have friends who are e.g. ready to sacrifice a strong couple relationship because of a study or work opportunity in another city, which I would never do. I have also noticed that I have more guts and more ability to appreciate little things than I thought I had. Here a little breeze, staying safe and healthy for another day, sun and living without calendar seem like the greatest blessings ever.
One thing I really value is thinking before speaking and I have been quite worried about whether I am able to do it at all. Here I have been several times asked about why I am so silent. I guess that is an effect of thinking before speaking, which I just do not notice back home. These occasions made me also remember the previous times when I've been commented about being silent. That was many years ago and I remember being very insulted for many days. Now I was happy to see that I could actually take it with some pride :)
Another thing I have found out recently is how much I appreciate Asian style of striving for harmony. I don't enjoy saying negative things and I love smiling, saying many thank yous, handing business card with both hands and constantly looking for ways to help others. In Malaysia the harmony still does not seem to come at the expense of honesty, and that's why I love the style of interaction here very much. And of course I still have the interesting learning opportunities, when I don't get understood in the same way as I think.....
Hey!!!! finally it's my turn to write XDDD
(okay...please bear with me coz HK people love to use a lot of "facial expression" in their writing LOL)
soooo half of my internship had past and 20 days to go!!! ahhhh I AM SURE I WILL MISS THIS PLACE & EVERYONE :p I had a lot of fun here, everyone is very nice (haha...except the time when they bully me.... xp) and I enjoy spending everyday with my RED TEAM :]
for today....we went to midvalley for WORK lol and movie! (my 3rd movie in the 3rd week)
ahhhhh I really need to stop laughing all the time...haha
Our team has 11 interns now!!! yay!!! the more the better haha
we will work really hard for the workshopssssssssss so contact us if you are interested!
looking forward to another day in Malaysia :]
Last week we had a workshop at KLMU (27th May 2009)
Here are some pictures from the workshop!