sooooo. this week.
first things first, something a bit important. sister loreen and her family are very long time strong members and they all hold tons of leadership positions in the church. their son, gabriel, is 20 years old, with a brand new little baby. he just got diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma and isn't doing very well. they are trying to treat him now, but you can't get chemo in miri and they have to find a way to pay for him to go to kuching. he has trouble breathing and eating and everything. we go see him quite often, and every time we go he has a big smile and starts cracking jokes. but on the inside he is scared to death. so, what I was hoping everyone who reads this to please do, please remember gabriel and his family in your prayers? if you guys love me, you're very much connected to gabriel, so it could be even a favor for me. I know that if everyone prays, all over the world, it will make a difference for him and his family. thanks so much.
so the two highlights, first being that masir's brother in law died the other day. he was a lifetime smoker and drinker and every organ of his body was shutting down. we went to see him in the hospital a few times and stuff, (we were at the hospital seeing soooo many people lately) and he just didn't look good. he also wasn't peeing, which i knew was not a good sign. anyway. he dies. I'm not sure if i've mentioned before, but dead people and funerals here are kindof intense. they take the body back, lay it in the middle of the room in their house, and people come and sit around him. toooooons of people. about 100. and they eat, sit, talk, candles everywhere, and there is just this dead body in the middle of the room. you are literally yelling over a dead body to talk to people. I was trying to politely walk through the circle of sitting people (you have to crouch all the way down and drag your hand on the floor to be polite) and in doing so my hand accidentally touched the body. in which i immediately replied, "oh, maaf!" like excuse me. i said excuse me to the dead body. haha i don't know, i think this is not normal. but i've been in malaysia so long now, i can't even tell anymore! geeze. anyway. since there is hundreds of people that come to eat, there are also hundreds of dishes to wash. they don't have nice dishwashers or even sinks for that matter, they wash everything with a hose outside their house. and they like squat while they do it. both feet firmly planted on the floor, and you're basically sitting on your butt cause you're low to the ground. anyway. that's their stance for everything, especially while doing dishes. we have a family of almost investigators, and the 18 year old daughter was alone doing all the dishes in the back. so i decided i'd take the opportunity to try to get to know her a little better and help her out. also, i love any kind of straight authentic iban experience. so i mimicked everything she was doing. it was really funny, it was raining, plus she kept accidentally spraying me with the hose so I was dripping wet in about 15 minutes, and we were laughing and talking and stuff, it was good. however. my legs held up without noticing any pain for about 30 minutes. after that, the dirty dishes grew, and my legs were like, cramped. i don't even know. they were in bad shape. so i kept trying to stand up fast and shake them out and squat back down. this got harder and harder and harder. seriously, one hour later, we were still doing dishes, my legs were quivering like they used to do after pilates, and i was almost going to cry because there were still more dishes!!! i looked at nancy and she was just fine! not even phased! and my heart felt so bad for these iban women that have to do that so often it doesn't even phase them! geeze. so spoiled with our sinks and dishwashers! but it was really fun. everyone kept coming out and going whoa!!! look there is a white person squatting and washing the dishes!! and then i'd reply back in iban and every single time they would like freak out. what!!! a white person can speak iban!!!!!! it was awesome. a fun night. also funny little sidenote, there was a drunk man that wandered out for a second, and he goes, in iban, "hey beautiful, i love you. where do you live?" and i reply, back in iban, "i live in space." and also in iban, he goes, "wow! how do you get up there?" and I go, still in iban, "didn't you know white people can fly?" after which he kindof has this look of astonishment, like a kid at disneyland, and then he kindof pauses....about thirty seconds later, he jumps, almost falls on his butt and goes "how can you speak iban???!" and I look at him and reply, still in iban, "I can't speak iban. I'm white. how would a white person know iban?" and then he goes stiiiilll in iban. "oh yeah, true. okay have a good night" and stumbles away. hahahahahaha. I felt kindof bad giving him a hard time, but nancy and sister merara were seriously rolling over they were laughing so hard. fun night.
also same night, i ate two more things i can add to my list of exotic foods: chicken heart (it still had an aorta and everything! very rubbery....) and snake. the snake was actually not too bad. kindof good. i don't really like chewing meat off of bones, but i'm getting used to it being in malaysia now. it'll be weird to go back home one day and not have to worry about that.
oh! and a personal triumph, that i'm trying not to let get to my head because if i get prideful i will of course immediately get struck with a humbling experience, but this member, brother stimba, has always given me a hard time. he's nice, but he teases and mocks me soooooo bad. anyway, last night he goes, "jensen, you have two voices now. it's weird." and i was like what? what do you mean two voices. and he tells me I have a white person voice when I speak english, and I have a malaysian voice when I speak malay and iban. haha! success. my head immediately started to expand. haha. it might still be a bit swollen. but man! after a year of working on it and someone tells you you can speak and sound pretty good? I'll take it! especially cause more times than not they tell you they don't understand you haha.
anyway I have rambled. love you all. have a good week!
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