Arrived!

Well I made it. 
Weeks of preparations. Extra hours of working at both of my per diem hospital jobs to try to compensate for the anticipated extended period of time without gainful employment.  Lots of 'to do' lists.  Too much worrying about how David (husband) will cope at home while I am away for 7 weeks.  Packing late into the night, weighing and reweighing of my suitcase to try to keep it within the 50 lb limit, and ultimately I ended up having to take out the 2 textbooks I was planning on bringing in order to lighten the bag enough to be accepted without extra charge.
First flight was 7 hrs, then 3 hr layover in London.  Next flight was 13 hrs, followed by a 4 hr layover in Singapore.  Final flight was 1 1/2 hrs, and my feet stepped out onto Malaysian soil.  Life was suddently sunny -  hot and humid.


My first view of Penang

One of the staff members of WABA, Jennifer, met me at the airport and brought me to my living quarters, a very spacious (3 bedroom, 2 bath - the folks of WABA thought that another volunteer lactation consultant would possibly be coming to assist with the work and thought that we could room together - alas, she is not able to come at this time) flat on the 7th floor of a modern apartment complex.

Jennifer tells me that the Chinese New Years is a big holiday here – many folks celebrate for the entire 15 day  festival.  As we drove here from the airport, there were Chinese New Year paper lanterns everywhere.

My apartment - Desa Pelangi

I fell into bed - bone tired - at 6:30p.m.  Then, all of a sudden it was 11:45pm and I awoke to the boom boom boom of fireworks which ended up lasting 15 minutes - in honor of the Chinese New Year, I presume.  Luckily I was still so overtired that I went back to sleep without  much trouble. The sun doesn’t rise here until 7am (or maybe even a little after that), so it was still dark when I got up at 6am.  I feel pretty rested, although I’m sure I’ll get really tired again later today as I try to adjust to this time zone.
The Management of the apartment complex is providing housekeeping services once a week – basic sweeping and dusting, I think, plus will wash my sheets.  The kitchen is sparsely furnished – 2 pots with lids, 1 frypan, without cover.  I am going to try to pick up a lid, plus a measuring cup, a large pitcher (to store boiled drinking water),plus basic cooking supplies such as oil, and seasonings.  I have a washing machine – one of those British models that supposedly spin dry the clothes 80% dry.  I’ll be hanging them out on the porch. 

I have T.V and a DVD player.  It’s satellite service and I get several dozen channels, although not much American T.V. (which, of course, is O.K. with me, although I wish I could get the general BBC stations – I do get BBC World News.

Of course, I wish I had brought a 2^nd suitcase so I could have brought those textbooks, - plus some other things like a shortwave radio, and a clip-on lamp for my bed.  The lighting here is terrible – no table lamps – just ceiling ones which are difficult to read by.  Maybe it’s just as well that I didn’t bring a lot of reading material, - although right now I feel pretty isolated and lonely and wish I had a bunch of stuff to read.

I was told that I should boil my drinking water, although Jennifer (the consultant who met me at the airport) did not seem to know how long a boil (?).  I will look for a timer so that I know when I’ve boiled it 5 minutes, as that's the length of time we were told to boil our water way back when we lived in Sierra Leone.  I don’t have an electric pot – just the gas stove and a whistling kettle.


Like I said - I've made it.  And now the real adventure begins!


The view from my apartment balcony