Christmas Cheers with Myanmar Refugees and Rotary

A Community Project by RC Metro KL
We were ushered in by a very friendly and hospitable Myanmar teenager.

Timetable at the learning centre

The Myanmar kids would come here daily for their lessons conducted by volunteers.

Board games and books

More books.

Always the busiest place - the kitchen

The centre is located a few blocks away from Times Square

Showing Fai where she came from.

Sophia said that she travelled for 7 days in a car with her mother and 3 siblings from Yangon.

Sound system crew

Dancing to Feliz Navidad

Singing a catchy, traditional folksong

Fashion show

Fancy moves were included

After a comic routine by a clown that had the children in stitches, it was balloon sculpting time.

Games to win a packet of sweets and chocolates.
It was organised by the older kids at the centre

Yummy traditional Myanmar food

One of the Rotarians got his friend to demonstrate ice carving.

His tools

Starting with a chain saw to slice away slabs of ice and covering the audience in ice shavings.

Playing with the ice blocks that were sawn off

Ean made a friend

They decided throwing stones into drain was a better pastime than looking at a man hacking at a block of ice

Last few touches

Done!
The Master ice craver is keen to impart his knowledge and would be setting up an ice carving society in Malaysia.

Deepavali Cheers with RC MetroKL and Sai Ananda Centre @Pulau Carey

It is always fascinating to see how community projects are carried out

About 300 families who lived in the plantation were invited to the event.

Volunteers sorting out saris and Deepavali snacks to be distributed out

Provisions such as rice and oil would also be given to each family

The families arrived in the back of tractors

Observing prayers at the entrance of the temple

Volunteers from Sai Ananda squeezing lime

A huge tub of refreshing lime juice

Preparing banana leaves for lunch

Slicing green bananas for spicy banana chips

Banana chips

Spices

Huge pots to fill up.

There were about 600 people to feed. We were all hungry smelling the aroma wafting from the kitchen

Mint leaves for chutney

A Rotarian showing off his skills with a cleaver

A huge kuali of delicious curry. Only vegetarian food was being prepared

Good Exercise

Feet apart, bend over , keep knees straight, stretch out hands, fingers out then dig in!

The volunteers came from all walks of life.
All with one common goal - to share a little Deepavali cheer with the families deep within a palm oil estate

The plight of the Orang Asal

It was supposed to be a brief talk about water issues faced by the Orang Asal (we were told they preferred being referred to as Orang Asal rather than Orang Asli), the talk went on the discuss other issues that were faced by them from contaminated water sources, sanitation issues arising from that, deforestation and encroachment and lots more...

The talk was given by a vivacious lawyer, Siti, who does pro bono work for the OAs.

JY who would usually doodle the 1 hour away during her father's Rotary meetings was all ears, mostly due to the passion that exuded from the brilliant speaker.

A series of photos were shown and some of the images evoked very strong emotions.

Suggestions from rainwater harvesting to health clinics were brought up.

In the carpark, DH was presented with a traditional headgear.

One of the OA who came along for the talk showed us his woven bracelet that cannot be removed as it was weaved directly onto his wrist. It took 2 hours.

Another bracelet, this made of seeds.

JY asked Siti for another talk, a more indepth one and was instead invited to tag along with their group of volunteers into the OA village.

Day 5 with Machika 14March2011

School holiday crowd on the ice. Try spotting JY, Machika and Am.
Machika mentioned that she was an ace on the ice and that her hobbies are singing and dancing. And hiphop was the dance she was in to.
I immediately thought of Sam. After some deft sms thumbing skills, we had a plan! I would take WL's girls ice skating and leave the boys at her house and then head to Sam's hiphop class after dinner.
Machika felt the rink was rather crowded and she wasn't used to having so many spectators. Skating rates in Tokyo is RM50/entry compared to RM13 in SPyramid.

While waiting for the girls I had my cuppa and a slice of cheesecake. Ean let me have some 'me' time by having his afternoon nap.

The boys at WL's, mothering Sam's little kittens. The kittens survived the day.

Machika in Sam's hiphop class.

The boys getting an eyeful as the ladies practiced 'Girls' Dance'
A very feminine dance with lots of swaying of hips and twirling of arms with 'Burlesque' booming in the background. The boys roared with laughter.

Han's art time

Fai, Han and Arian having an art session. Ean enticing Am to play ball with him.

Ean: What's that?
Arian: Hrmmmphhhh
Ean: Heeeeheeeeeheeee
**repeated countless times**

Arian was a great sport.

Fai and Han's first snow ice at 100Yen. They loved it and asked for seconds. Thanks for the treat WL :)

Sam and Machika showing their moves.