End of a busy week…

During our Family Day meeting on Thursday night, we decided that we’d just stick to booking confirmation for 70 pax. As at the time of the meeting, a total of 98 pax had confirmed attendance (including volunteers, clients & their family members), but based on past experiences, usually only about 70% of those who confirmed their attendance would actually turn up.

Now THAT shouldn’t be too much of a problem if we’re going to a venue which doesn’t require entrance fees, like last year’s event at the National Stud Farm. But since this year we’re going to a theme park where entrance alone would take up the bulk of the cost, and then the food which we’re not supposed to bring from outside, the package price per person is not a small amount. Imagine booking for 98 people and eventually only 70 turning up, what a waste of money it would be.

So we’re sticking to booking for 70. In the event that all 98 turns up, we’ll just buy additional entrance tickets there and then. Food? Well, we can always share the food… or if not enough, we’ll just buy separately. I don’t think the amount will exceed the amount of paying for the full package for 98 pax.

Anyway, since we’re sticking to bookings for 70 pax, we decided not to pay 50% deposit. Instead we decided to pay in full immediately. Saves me the trouble of having to go to LWOT a few times. I already wasted one trip the day earlier when the 50% deposit cheque was wrongly written.

Okay, so I went yesterday to settle our booking, and then I headed back to our center. On the way, a text message came from Ifa. Remember Ifa? The young single lady who got herself into all sorts of trouble BUT unlike the other problematic young ladies I was assigned to, Ifa never got pregnant?

Well, in her text message, she asked if I was free in the afternoon and if we could meet up. She actually asked me to “ambik baby kat rumah kakak”. Whoa! Baby? Did she say BABY??! Don’t tell me she now has a BABY!! OH NO!! When did this happen?? It had been a while since she last contacted me, but nobody, not even the staff nurse at the HIV clinic ever mentioned about Ifa being pregnant!

Then, after a while, after I got myself thinking… it finally dawned on me… Ifa is known as “Baby” amongst her family members. I never call her by that name and I’m not sure why she used her nama manja to refer herself to me, but the BABY in her text message was a 20+ year old baby - HERSELF! What a relief…

I already had other plans for the afternoon, and so no, I didn’t meet her.

Later yesterday, Sofie called. Hmmm… I had just visited her the day before, what could she need now? Did someone step on Saiful’s glasses again?

Sofie had just received a call from the staff nurse at the HIV clinic. Her next appointment at the clinic is supposed to be in November, but after getting the results of her blood tests, the nurse called her up telling her that she’d need to bring forward her appointment much earlier. They’ve set the date for early August instead.

Sofie told me that the nurse mentioned something about her CD4 increasing a whole lot. CD4 increasing? That should be good news, why the need to bring forward her appointment? Then Sofie added that the results of her blood test  just came from Penang. Huh? Penang? Putting 2 and 2 together, I think the test results were her viral load tests, not CD4. And yes, if her viral load had increased a whole lot, then there’s a problem.

Sofie herself doesn’t understand all these CD4s or viral loads or whatever other medical terms. Even earlier on when she had to take some medication for some kind of brain infection, she told me that was her “ubat sakit otak”. :-)

Anyway, I told her to just make sure she goes for her next appointment so that they can figure out what went wrong. Was she not compliant in taking her ARV? Or was there something else?

Meanwhile, Sofie is back to thinking that she may be dying soon… and now she worries about her children. Whatever it is, her appointment will be after the Family Day; so come 1st August, God willing, Sofie and her children will still be joining in the fun.

Today, Saturday 17th July, I had to give another talk. This time to a group of school girls from Ave Maria Convent, Ipoh; and the topic was on HIV in general.

First, play a game…

 

Then, when they’re wide awake, I get to bore them to sleep… :-)

 

A busy week it had been. So far no plans for the coming week other than the Family Day meeting to discuss on the logistics, especially on who’s fetching who and where. I think (and I hope) I can relax a bit this coming week.

Talks…

I will be driving off to Nilai this afternoon with a fellow volunteer. We will be spending the night there as tomorrow morning I will be giving a talk to students of Nilai University College.

Unlike the usual talks which were more on HIV in general, this time the organisers are already inviting the relevant people to talk on their relevant topics – the first topic will be covered by an officer from IMR and the third topic will be a slide presentation by Malaysian Aids Council. My turn will come in second, on the topic of “Dealing with the HIV infected and affected”.

Well, usually for my talks, I’d just use the slides already prepared by MAC, but this time, since the topic is different, I had to prepare a new presentation altogether – although it is more relevant to my own experience in my voluntary work. Oh well, at least I now have a new set of powerpoint presentation, which I wouldn’t have done had I not been invited to give a talk on the topic!

On Thursday, a Masters student from American University in Washington DC, who’s in KL for 2 months this summer, will be following me around in my voluntary work as part of her research on the impact of HIV/AIDS on Muslim women for an independent study she’s doing for AU.

She will be joining me in NUC tomorrow before following me back to Ipoh for a day.

I will be giving another talk this Saturday to a school in Ipoh; so yep, I’ve got quite a tight schedule this week.

So I think you have a rough idea on what my next blog posting will be about…

The talk

Yesterday as I was on my way to the launch of the International Women's Day events at Kinta City Shopping Complex, MF (hai sayang... tee hee) called me up, asking, "Puan, esok macam mana puan?" Laaahai... dah janji nak datang, jadilah yeop! He then asked, "Pukul berapa puan?" He'eleh... your own letter stated that it's supposed to start at 9 am, follow that letter lah yeop... ish! ish! ish!

Anyway, another volunteer promised to tag along and since her office is at the same building as the college, we promised to meet up at the college lobby at 8.45 am. So this morning after making sure I had all the necessary materials in my bag, especially my external hard drive which stores all my files, off I headed to the college.

I got there quite early, and waaah, quite a few of the staff came to greet me. And oh by the way, MF is a staff, not a student as I thought! Well, quite a number of their staff are quite young, I must say. Or is it that I'm the one who's old? Hmmmm....

While waiting for my colleague to come, I was introduced to one of their senior management. The CEO conveyed his apologies for not being able to attend. Once my colleague arrived, we immediately headed to the library where the talk was to be held.

I then made sure my powerpoint presentation was ready before the function started off with one of the staff reciting the doa. The emcee then invited the senior staff to give a speech. He spoke to the students about voluntary work etc and it seemed at first to be quite a long speech, then he himself realised that it wasn't supposed to be his talk but mine... :-) so he stopped and the MC handed over the mike to me.

The talk went well, and I must say amongst the many talks I have given so far, the response this time was the best. Students and lecturers alike responded well and asked quite a lot of questions, to the extent that my throat was rather dry by the end of it. Oh yes, there was a bottle of mineral water and a glass at the rostrum, but I didn't feel comfortable about gulping the water down my throat with everybody else watching me... (I ni pemalu, jangan tak tau... hehehe...)

Questions asked range from matters pertaining to life-span of someone with HIV, what precautions to take when we have to handle someone with HIV, what sort of encouragement we should give to an HIV +ve person, etc.

So yes, I must say that the talk did in at least a small way open up their eyes and their minds to HIV/AIDS, especially with the real life examples I gave about my own clients.

Hopefully after this more colleges will organise such talks for their students. It is this age group that we need to target as more than 70% of HIV infected people in Malaysia consist of youths.

Coming up next: The discussion with the women's wing of a political party pertaining to problems faced by women. Yep, it is confirmed for 2 pm tomorrow.

Hai sayang

When a guy, MF, called me up during the CNY break, asking if we could provide a speaker for a talk on HIV/AIDS they plan to organise at their college, I told him it shouldn’t be a problem as long as he didn’t give us short notice. I made it clear that we are all volunteers, we have our own jobs, and as such it wouldn’t be easy to meet last minute requests.

At first MF mentioned 5th March, but with an option to having it on another date more convenient for us. I asked if it could be done in the afternoon, as it would be easier for me, but he insisted it would be easier to get more students to attend in the morning. So we finally agreed to have it on the morning of 9th March.

But all those arrangements were by phone calls; and so I told him to at least send us an official letter either by fax or by email, for our records. I gave him both Buddies’ fax number and email address.

I waited but the letter never came. Then last week MF called, just to confirm with me that the talk is on, but he had been busy so he asked if it’s okay for him to send me the letter this week. He didn’t ask for anything else, he just asked me if I am still okay for the 9th March talk.

Monday morning, after I came back from Kuching, I received a text message from MF (whom I believe is a student of the college), saying that the CEO at his college requires the biodata of the speaker. I was rather busy in the office then, and thinking that since the talk is next week, there’s ample time for me to write my biodata and email to MF later.

But later in the afternoon, this guy called me up, saying that his CEO wanted to see my biodata on that very day and asked if I could give my biodata there and then! I understand the CEO’s concern – surely he didn’t want to have any Tom, Dick or Harry to give the talk on such a serious topic to the students in the college. But really, MF should have asked me for my biodata earlier and not give me last minute notice. What… he thinks I have nothing better to do, is it? He’s so busy he couldn’t send me the letter I requested, yet he thinks I have all the time in the world to prepare my biodata there and then?

But I figured he must have already been scolded by his CEO for not getting all the required info ready, I just typed a very brief biodata of myself and emailed it using my personal email address. The first email bounced, so I asked MF if he could give me another email address. He did, and I think this time he gave his personal email address.

The next morning, I received another SMS from MF – saying that his CEO requires a more detailed biodata, like a file attachment. I told MF that I’d be busy the whole day, and so if he insisted on a more detailed biodata, I’d only give it to him the next day. Actually I could get my biodata done in the afternoon, but I was getting rather pissed off. I mean… he’s the one who’s not properly organised; why is it that I, as the invited speaker, who’s getting pushed?

A few minutes later, I received a call from the college, this time not from MF, but from the student affairs officer. This officer was more professional in his approach. Anyway, based on the short biodata I gave earlier, and looking at my name, 2 of the officers at the college recognised the name. They were personal friends of my business partner and one of them even joined us during our Kuching trip. The moment the lady saw my name, she exclaimed, “Eh, I baru gi Sarawak dengan dia!”

I guess after that they didn’t worry too much about whether I was “qualified” to give the talk. The student affairs officer just asked what I needed them to prepare for my presentation. So I just told him that my presentation would be in powerpoint format and so they’d need to prepare the computer, projector etc. I will just bring along my external hard drive where all my files are kept. I took the opportunity to tell him that I was still waiting for the official letter from them inviting us for the talk. “Laaa… takde pulak dia bagitau saya pasal surat. Nanti saya tanya dia balik!” said the officer, commenting about MF.

This morning when I downloaded my emails, one email caught my attention. With an email coming from a “hai sayang” as the sender’s name, when all other emails had proper names as sender, naturally I thought it was one of those spam emails. I almost deleted the email without opening it, but suddenly I noticed the subject line of that very email - “Jemputan Ceramah AIDS”. Mak aihh! It was MF, attaching the official letter that I was waiting for!

Hai sayang??!! I bet he uses that name to communicate with his girlfriend and forgot to change the sender’s name when he wanted to send the official letter to me. I purposely replied the email just to say, “Noted, TQ” just so that he’d notice that he just “hai sayang”-ed me. Muahaha!

I betcha he’d be quite embarrassed to meet me next week!

The exhibition, the talk, the condom and the banana

I had quite a kelam-kabut time this week. Other than a few work deadlines at my office and going over in the afternoons to the private college to check on their 3-day exhibition, last night I attended a meeting at our Buddies center to discuss preparations for our coming family day. And despite remembering to get a pack of condom to bring to today's HIV talk, I completely forgot to get the bookmarks we usually distribute to students during our talks.

Luckily my house is not that far from our center, so this morning before going to my office, I had to drop by the center again to get the bookmarks. Ada boleh kerja senang, cari kerja susah...

Anyway, today's talk at the college was a study project of their marketing students. It was supposed to start at 2.30 pm and I got there at about 2.20 pm. There were just 2 or 3 of the organising committee there. Initially the organising committee panicked due to what seemed like a lack of response, but eventually one of the lecturers cancelled his class and so they finally managed to get 53 people to attend the talk. They had targetted 50 people - so they reached their target (with help from the lecturer lah).

Most of the students were either Chinese or Indians, with only one or two Malays, and I told them they could ask questions in English or Malay... but if they asked me in Chinese, then I could only come out with one answer no matter what they asked... and that's wor pu che tau... :)

And the talk was more open. The students were not the reserved type, unlike the ones I've usually given talks to before. And boy did they get excited when this mak aji took out a pack of condom from her pocket. Well, I did teach them the ABC rule - Rule A for Abstain. If they can't abstain, go to rule B - Be faithful to only one partner. And if dah gatal sangat they can't even be faithful, at least use rule C. Condom lah, what else.

I had initially wanted to show them a demo from the internet on the proper way to use and dispose a condom, but the laptop they used for the presentation did not have wireless connection. I didn't have anything around suitable enough to be used for the demo, and I jokingly told them that while I got the condom, I didn't have time to buy any bananas on my way to attend the talk.

Well guess what? Within a few minutes one of the students came in with 2 bananas he got from the mamak shop downstairs!

And initially they thought using the condom was no big deal, but when I asked them how to dispose the condom, they said, "Just take out and throw la!" Then came the demo... baru ternganga...

Those of you who may be curious on what I mean on the proper way to use and dispose a condom, you can check it out here.

And those who may want to know how a vaginal microbiocide (now also known as femidom - that's a female version of the condom) look like, you can check it out here.

Those hoping to watch something x-rated, sorry to disappoint you - the 2 videos are demos using real condoms on unreal "gadgets". :)

Anyway, I returned the banana used for the demo to the students, in case anybody wanted to eat it... that was when the girls went aiiyyeee....

2 of our trainee volunteers also came along for the talk - the same 2 trainees in my HIV clinic team. I encouraged them to come as it was a good learning process for them. Maybe later on, after more exposure, they too can handle the talks.

As for the students, they did learn new things today (besides the condom part). From my observation earlier on before the talk, many of them were not even equipped with basic knowledge of HIV.

By the end of the talk, when I asked them if they'd be afraid to buy food from someone who is known to have HIV, the answer, "Sekarang beranilah." And I asked, "Kalau dulu?" "Dulu mungkin tak berani!"

First day at the exhibition

When I was approached by a private college student during my clinic duty 2 weeks ago, seeking our help to organise an HIV awareness programme at their college, I immediately agreed to help out even without seeking approval from the Buddies board members. College students are the best targets for our awareness campaigns as youths are the ones who are most exposed to ways and means of getting infected if they don't get the proper knowledge on the matter.

All the student asked for were exhibition materials for 3 days and a speaker for the talk on the last day. We didn't have to man the exhibition so I didn't have to worry about getting any volunteers to do so. I wouldn't be able to get any as the exhibition is held on working days.

But the main reason I wasn't worried about not getting any volunteers to help out was because I knew I could use our networking with the Perak Family Health Association (PFHA). So we Buddies will handle the talk, and we sub the exhibition to PFHA. PFHA has the staff to man (oh okay, woman) the exhibition, so if there were any questions, there'd be someone able to answer.

To make life easier for the PFHA staff, they decided to seek help from their contacts at the Unit Pendidikan of the Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah to get the exhibition materials. You see, by doing that, the Pejabat Kesihatan would send their people to put up everything, so the PFHA staff didn't have to worry about sweating it out to put up the materials.

So guess what? The students just had to approach one party (that's us Buddies) and end up having 3 different parties networking together. Buddies sub to PFHA, PFHA sub to Pejabat Kesihatan, finally everything sub sub soi!!

The exhibition started today. I did go over in the afternoon to check it out. Other than the exhibition, PFHA is also providing blood tests at cheaper rates for those who may want to do so. There are a few options offered, they can go for the full blood test, or HIV test, or Lipid test, or just to find out their blood type. Today we were trying to get the students to sign up for the blood tests which will be done on Thursday morning. I'm helping out the PFHA staff to give pre-test counseling to those who signed up just for the HIV test. Surely they have their own reasons for wanting to do just the HIV test, so they'd need to know more details. Quite a number of those whom I met today didn't know what window period meant. "Window oso got period ah?" Haiya...

I signed up for a full blood test. It's been 2 years since my last blood test, let's see if my cholesterol level is still a borderline case. Some of the students approached, girls and boys, are so so afraid of needles! Probably in future we need to think of other ways to get their blood samples instead of using needles... like using a parang, maybe? Hehehe...

Other than that, a blood donation drive will also be held tomorrow. Forget the takut jarum people lah to volunteer for that one. Anyway, since I usually only donate blood whenever I bump into a blood donation drive, and it has been 3 months since my last blood donation, I think I will probably let them suck my blood another round. :)

As for the talk on the last day, a fellow buddy had actually earlier on agreed to do the talk, but this morning when I called her, she was down with flu and sore throat and cough, and so she asked me to get a standby speaker. Well, since she just came back from Singapore, almost everybody she spoke to told her to quarantine herself at home! I wouldn't want to take the risk either. So very likely I will have to deliver the talk myself.

Now to get the presentation materials ready... it's already in my thumb drive, I'm using the powerpoint presentation prepared by MAC, but the statistics had not been updated yet. I'd better look through and update the statistics pages before I go for the talk on Thursday.

The talk to foreign workers

My effort to come up with a very simple website (using blogspot) here for my NGO is already showing results. You see, despite getting a hotline number for ourselves (usually we use our center phone number on our brochures and letterheads but most of the time there is no one at the center), the number is only displayed on our brochures, given only to a small group of people. What about those who want to know more about HIV/AIDS or those who are looking for HIV related organisations in or around Ipoh but have never heard of the Buddies of Ipoh? How do they search for us?

Nowadays, people always use the internet to look for information. So, if we Buddies don't make our information available on the internet, it will be very difficult for people to find us unless they have contacts who already know about us. It doesn't matter if the info displayed on internet is on a very simple blog site with very basic facts. At least now when people google up "HIV Ipoh", they will find Buddies of Ipoh.

That was how the HR personnel of a factory near Ipoh found us. Their Company has quite a large number of female foreign workers (mostly Indonesian and Vietnamese) and apparently of late there had been quite a few cases of social problems when their staff became pregnant and had to be sent back to their country. The HR personnel thought it would be a good idea to get their workers to learn more of HIV/AIDS, how it spreads, the stigma and discrimination that comes with it, etc, with the hope that the workers will be more careful with their social life.

But the HR personnel did not know anyone in or around Ipoh who'd be able to give the talk and never thought that such an organisation such as ours exists in Ipoh. So she googled up "HIV Ipoh" and that was how she got hold of our contact number. It just so happened that she called when it was my turn to take care of the phone, so the call came straight to me.

So this morning, after putting all the necessary stuff (my laptop, posters and brochures on HIV/AIDS) into my car, before 8 am I was already out of my house. I even had to forgo my Saturday morning pasar tani routine as the management of the factory wanted to start the talk at 8.30 am. Met up with a colleague of mine who agreed to come along with me and off we went. We got to the factory's canteen (where the talk was held) ngam ngam 8.30 am. The factory workers who were "forced" to listen to the talk just finished their shift at 8 am. Probably all they had in mind was to go home and sleep. The only consolation was that, to get them to stay back and listen to the talk, the Company sponsored breakfast for them.

While I set up the necessary equipments (I brought my own laptop but the projector was the Company's), my colleague helped to put up the posters on the wall. Usually if I go alone for talks, I don't put up the posters as there'd be nobody to help me out. Another advantage of having a colleague come along was that I finally had someone to take pictures while I gave the talk. At least our reports later will look more lively with pictures attached, no?

Usually for students, I'd have the slides in English and my explanation in both Malay and English. This time the talk was fully in Malay, both the slides and the explanation. For the benefit of the few Vietnamese workers who may not be too fluent in Malay language, they had one of their colleagues doing the translation for them.

Well, despite the workers all longing to go home and rest, at least some of them were attentive enough. They did respond to my questions and at the end of the talk, a few of them did ask questions. As a matter of fact, one Indonesian worker, came over to get additional pamphlets and brochures from us. Apparently before she came to Malaysia to work, she did get herself involved in an NGO in Indonesia carrying out similar activities. I did ask her if she may be interested to join us, but ahh... as a factory worker with 12 hour shifts, where got time to do voluntary work.

Anyway, after the talk ended and their HR personnel said, "OK, sekarang boleh balik", in less than a minute they were all out of the canteen. They already had a tiring 12 hour shift, I bet they couldn't wait to go home. In fact, maybe a few of them were already cursing this makcik... bilalah nak habis bercakap ni...

It was our first time giving a talk to factory workers. Hopefully this is a start to having more Companies interested in creating awareness amongst their staff.

Calls and more calls...

I've been getting quite a few calls for the past few days relating to my NGO work - a few came in through our hotline number while a few direct on my personal hand phone.

As mentioned in my previous posting, last Tuesday, a university student called, asking for info on HIV/AIDS and TS. I passed her the number of our vice-chairman who's involved with outreach work as I thought he'd have more info on TS, but after talking to the student, he figured she'd get more reliable info from other NGO's dealing direct with TS. So he gave her their contact particulars.

On Thursday morning, another call came in through our hotline number. It was from a lady who called on behalf of her employers. They were planning to hold a talk for their foreign employees on the topic of HIV/AIDS, safe sex etc. They have quite a number of Indonesians and Vietnamese in their workforce. I guess this talk will have to be held in Manglish. I told the lady to inform us in black and white, either by fax or email, so that we can make the necessary arrangements. At the same time I also told her not to give us short notice as we may not be able to get any of the volunteers to do the talk.

On my way home from work the same day, a call came in on my personal hand phone. The call was from a member of the Perak Women for Women Association (PWW). I gave a talk last year to members of PWW - explaining to them on what we Buddies do, and since at that time we didn't have our hotline number yet, I gave them my personal number. PWW focuses on empowering women, and they wanted to organize a talk for women particularly those with problem marriages, so she wanted to find out if any of our HIV clients may be interested to join. Well, some of the HIV women under my charge who are still married, have problems getting the necessary "visa" from their husbands to attend any functions - even for our family day, so it'll be a tough task for me to coax them to join. And while the talk would also be suitable for single mothers, it was rather short notice. She called me on Thursday and the talk was on Saturday. The PWW lady had actually wanted to meet up with me to discuss things further - so maybe we can make arrangements to hold similar talks later; but that Thursday afternoon I had to drive to KL. And Friday was out too because I wasn't sure what time I'd be back from KL. Next week she won't be around - so I just told her to call me when she's free later.

On Friday morning I brought my mother to Putrajaya Hospital for her follow-up appointment (after her knee surgery last year). While waiting for my mother's supply of medication at the pharmacy, a call came in from a Penang number. A guy introduced himself from Community AIDS Services Penang (CASP) and he wanted to discuss about holding a joint event amongst northern partner organisations of the Malaysian AIDS Council to commemorate this year's International AIDS Memorial Day (IAMD) in May. The line wasn't so clear - and in addition to that people around me were talking, so it wasn't really convenient for me to talk then, so I asked him to call me later in the afternoon.

I just got home (yes, back in Ipoh) when he called me again. I asked him what they had in mind for the northern region IAMD, but according to him they don't have plans yet. They intend to call the various partner organisations from the northern region for a first meeting next Sunday, and from then on they will set up a steering committee to get things going. He also told me that someone from MAC suggested that maybe for logistics purposes, we may want to join KL's event; and that it's up to us to decide.

I am not too sure yet myself if we're joining either group. Last year we joined forces with the Perak Family Health Association to hold an exhibition at Ipoh Parade. It's easier because both organisations operate in Ipoh. Joining either the central group or the northern group means we will need to travel outstation. Any decision we make will have to be discussed in our Board meeting, and the next Board meeting will be the last Tuesday of this month - and that's after our AGM.

Whatever it is, getting all these calls is a good thing. Those who called for info or wanting us to give talks on HIV/AIDS means awareness is indeed spreading. And the calls from PWW and CASP show that our networking is also expanding. That, to me, is a good sign for better things ahead. At least I hope so...

Delivered...

...the talk... and the bikes... finally!

Yes, the talk to a group of UTP students who just registered this week. It's their Minggu Aluan Siswa, and the talk on HIV/AIDS was included in their programme, thanks to one of our volunteers who happen to be a staff of UTP.

When we were first informed about the programme, the talk was supposed to start at 9 am. So my initial plan was to go direct to UTP in the morning, and after the talk I'd drop by Lin's place on the way back to Ipoh to deliver the bicycles, and then go to my office as it is peak period in the office right now.

Then I was informed that our talk was rescheduled to 11 am. Alamak... kena tukar program. So I figured I might as well go to the office first, do some work first before heading to UTP, then on the way, I'd drop by Lin's place to drop off the bikes so when I go to UTP my car wouldn't look like a delivery van.

Suddenly yesterday evening, my colleague (the fellow volunteer who works in UTP) called me up and asked if it was okay with me if they changed the time to 10 am instead. Aduuuh... kena tukar program lagi! Thank goodness I do have flexi working hours, so okay, I agreed.

There were still some matters I needed to settle at the office, so I went to the office first and left the necessary instructions to the staff at the office. I left my office slightly before 9 am, although I knew it would take just slightly more than half an hour to reach UTP. I was afraid that if I had waited a bit longer, some business clients may drop by to see me, making it difficult for me to leave the office on time.

Just as I was leaving my office, I got a text message from my colleague, saying that the speakers who were supposed to give the talk before mine were running late, so I'd have to expect some delay. Whaddaheck I thought... I was about to leave my office anyway, I might as well just go ahead. Besides, I always prefer to be early when I have any appointments anywhere (unless I know for sure the person/s I have an appointment with are regulars at not being punctual!) so I'd have time for a breather before I start with whatever I'm supposed to do.

I didn't want to drop by Lin's place first as she did mention that usually in the mornings she'd help out her brother at his food stall. Besides, I had a tough time yesterday getting the bicycles into my car and arranging them so that I could close the back door! I didn't want to be struggling to get the bikes out of the car as fast as possible to rush to UTP, so might as well deliver them after the talk.

And so yes, I was early. While waiting for the 2nd talk (yes, mine was the 3rd talk for the day - why lah I always get to speak only when the students' brains are already filled with facts from too many talks... the last time that happened, the students (form 4 students) were sooo rowdy they didn't even bother to listen anymore!), I had a chat with my fellow volunteer and a few senior students who were in the Minggu Aluan Siswa organising committee. So I didn't really feel like I had to wait. To me it was just nice timing for me to relax first before the talk.

Then the time came for my talk, and as I entered the hall, I heard the emcee mention something like, "Announcing the arrival of ........" and then all the students stood up and they sat only after I sat on stage. Muahaha! Like VIP like that.... aiyo, we Buddies are soooo used to being so low profile and so casual, I must admit I did feel rather awkward. Luckily I was not wearing slippers... hehehe...

Despite that being the 3rd talk for the day and after a week of hectic activities for the newly registered students, and in addition to that, the students had to prepare for their freshie talent night this very night, I must commend the students for still paying attention when this makcik was up on stage presenting her facts. There were questions asked in relation to my presentation... which means they were indeed listening. It did amaze me though, when I asked them if anyone knew what vaginal microbiocides were, the girls were shaking their heads not knowing the answer but the "yes" answer came from the boys. Waaa... it's the female version of the condom and the boys knew better?? :)

During the Q&A, the questions came more from the boys. However, some of the questions were more medically/scientifically inclined, I definitely was not the right person to answer. I could only mention the findings of researches so far, no further then that. When finally one girl stood up to ask, she was given a round of applause. And she ended up as the only girl asking a question during the Q&A. The girls were shy I guess. I did tell them that they were welcomed to ask me questions personally outside the hall after the talk, and yes, a few of the girls did.

I didn't stay long after the talk. I did try to call a friend of mine who's also a UTP staff but her phone was off. So, I headed off for my next mission - to deliver the bicycles to Lin's house. It was about time I cleared the inside of my car which all the time while parked in UTP looked like this...

The inside of my Kenari... as seen from the back...

When I got to Lin's house, her 14 year old son, for whom one of the bikes was for, was outside. Great, I thought... there's someone to help me get the bikes out of my car!

When I told Lin earlier that I was going to deliver 2 bicycles, Lin was thinking I wouldn't be driving my Kenari. So when I got to her house and she saw my Kenari, she must have thought I brought only one bicycle. Then I opened the back door and she exclaimed, "Eh, MUAT??!"

Yes, the car may look rather compact, but I have been using this very same loyal old car to deliver lots of goodies, big and small, to the poor PLHIV families.

Of course, this morning when the bikes were in there, had I met with anyone who needed a ride, I wouldn't have been able to offer them the ride... not even at the front passenger seat.

I Got The Bikes!

No, not motorbikes. I bought the school bikes for Lin's 2 younger children...

 

2 readers responded to my earlier posting on my visit to Lin's house, where I mentioned that I'd need to find sponsors to buy bicycles for Lin's 2 school-going children. Not only were they quick in pledging to sponsor the bicycles, they were also quick to bank in the money. By Sunday, I had RM350 in my bank account - for me to buy the bikes.

And so yesterday, I went to buy them... and the 2 bikes in the pic above cost RM340. Got extra RM10 some more... so I think I'll include that in the funds that I usually use to buy groceries for the poor families.

Thank you very much to the 2 donors.

My task is not over yet, though. The above bikes are now temporarily placed in my NGO center. I will need to deliver them to Lin's house.

Buddies were invited to give a talk to a group of university students this coming Friday. Initially, another volunteer was supposed to give the talk as this month I am pretty tied up with office work. But he has some family matters to attend to, or more specifically, his elderly parents need more attention. Family comes first, so he's out. Another of our speakers has to be in KL on that day, again for some family matters, so she's out too. No choice, I had to reschedule my time-table to include the talk. Luckily the materials (slides in powerpoint) are readily available, courtesy of Malaysian Aids Council, all stored in my thumb drive; so at least I don't really have to prepare anything. Of course, I still need to go through the slides again before this Friday to make sure the powerpoint presentation still works fine. Who knows, the file may have been infected with viruses (not HIV of course - this one only infects humans!).

Anyway, I'm thinking of delivering the bicycles on my way back after the talk. Which means I will need to stack both bicycles into my Kenari, bring them all the way to the university, leave them in my car during the talk, and then go over to Lin's house after the talk to deliver them to the rightful recipients. Why not deliver the bicycles on the way TO the university, before the talk? You see, the talk is rather early in the morning, and I don't want to be late...

Introducing Buddies...

Yesterday we were invited by the Perak Women for Women Society (PWW) to give a talk to their members and some of their guests. The talk was an informal one, more to introduce Buddies to them and to form some sort of networking.

What's PWW? It is an independent voluntary organisation [like us Buddies] committed to improving the lives of women in Perak. Their vision is to create a just and equitable society where women are treated with respect and free from all forms of violence and discrimination. The society is affiliated to the All Women's Action Society (AWAM) [while Buddies is affiliated to Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC)].

3 representatives from Buddies attended the talk - our honorary secretary, the assistant secretary and yours truly. As for the audience, other than members of PWW, we had also a few foreign students under AFS (locally known as Antarabudaya Malaysia). We had students from US, Australia, Germany, Japan and Egypt.

Since this event was meant for networking, Dr Sharifah started off the talk by giving a brief introduction of PWW to us Buddies and to the AFS representatives.

Our honorary secretary then introduced Buddies to the audience - explaining about how we started off back then just as a project under the Perak Family Planning Association, and then later we decided to move on our own, as an independent organisation registered under the Registrar of Societies. She also highlighted our various services/activities other than providing support services to PLWHAs - HIV clinic, Children Education Fund, Sponsorship for Children, Outreach, Buddy Bears, Welfare, etc.

After the brief introduction to Buddies by our honorary secretary, I then took over from her. Since the event was organised by PWW, a society for women, I thought it would be good to talk a bit about Women and HIV. To talk in depth about the issue would actually need a whole session by itself, so I just talked a bit about the problems faced by HIV positive women in general. Dr Sharifah had after all, mentioned about the empowerment of women in her earlier introduction speech, which I found to be very related to our HIV positive clients.

As I mentioned, somehow people tend to look down more on HIV positive women as compared to HIV positive men. People tend to get the impression that HIV positive women are the "itchy-itchy" or gedik kind. Whereas in actual fact, at least in the Malaysian context, 90% of the women were infected by their own husbands! Now, how fair is that?!

I highlighted too my own personal experiences in dealing with the HIV positive women - those who were not given the right to make their own decisions, those who didn't get family support, those who didn't have anyone to talk to - all because of the stigma and discrimination they had to face.

The audience also shared some of their own experiences. One talked about a good friend of his who had AIDS... how when this friend died the family didn't want to touch him. Only one sister-in-law was willing to handle the body; but after that, the family insisted she goes for blood tests every 3 months! And oh, they also had the house sprayed!!

Another lady suggested that the awareness should start at the hospitals first! She mentioned about a friend of hers, suspected to be HIV positive (it was false alarm actually), and was isolated in a separate room at the maternity ward. That reminded me of Maria, a client of mine - while warded at the maternity ward, after one of her meals when one of the hospital staff came over to her bed wanted to clear her fork and spoon, the staff didn't dare touch the fork and spoon with her bare hands! How do you think Maria felt then?!

Some of the audience including foreign students.

Anyway, overall it was a good event. Not only did we manage to get to network with other societies, we also managed to share our experiences. We all agreed that more should be done to create awareness amongst the public.

Before the whole thing ended, Dr Sharifah on behalf of PWW handed over a token of appreciation, which I accepted on behalf of Buddies.

The token - this basket was actually made from recycled paper!

While we were having some refreshments prepared by PWW, a few of the PWW members came over to personally ask further about our support services and our experiences.

Hopefully this will be a start to a better networking and cooperation between the different NGOs.

Giving talks...

I was going through the Buddies’ Annual Report for 2007 and as I was reading the diary of events for the year, I noticed… hey, the first activity for last year was a talk on HIV/AIDS which I gave to students of a secondary school here in Ipoh.

Oooh… I remember that talk alright. It was a co-ed school and it was only the second day of school after the long holidays. The students were still in holiday mood, proper classes had not started yet (otherwise I’m sure the students would be glad to get a break from their classes) and even worse, the whole week the students had to endure talks, talks, and more talks organized by their teachers.

My talk was supposed to start at 10.30am. Before mine, there was another talk which started at 8.30 am. The talks were held at classes on the 2nd floor of the school building. I was still at the ground floor when I heard the noise coming from the classes where the first talk was held. Oh dear, I thought… what was I getting myself into?!

When I got to the classes (they opened up a few classes for the talks), it was obvious the students were not listening at all. The poor speaker and her colleagues were having a hard time getting their attention. And to think that the speakers were actually trained for this sort of things while for me, it was only my second time at giving such a talk, particularly on the topic of HIV/AIDS. I had been involved in debates waaaay back during my school days, but that was it. Nothing more.

The first talk I gave was in 2006 and it went smoothly as it was held some time in the middle of the year and the girls actually welcomed the break from their usual classes. And since it was an all-girls school, they were not shy to ask questions. The interaction was great despite it being quite a big crowd.

But for this second talk, I knew I was in for a hard time. If the more experienced speakers for the talk on the earlier topic were having problems, it would even be harder for me as I was alone without anyone to assist me. And the students were... ROWDY!!

By the time the microphone was handed to me for the talk on HIV/AIDS, the students were totally restless. Even the presence of their stern looking headmaster couldn’t shut them up. I had no choice but to just continue with the talk even though I knew only those who purposely sat at the front row were interested enough to listen. I actually had to shout to be heard even with the microphone. Otherwise even those at the front row wouldn’t be able to hear my voice – the students were making so much noise. They were not only talking, some were even shouting to each other (otherwise they couldn’t hear themselves too I guess!).

The teacher in charge and the headmaster apologized to me after the talk as they themselves were not able to control their students.

Thank goodness it wasn’t my first time giving a talk. If it was, then I probably would not want to give another talk again, ever!

I was not prepared to deal with a rowdy and restless bunch of about 200 - 300 students, really. If they were just bored and yawning away, I probably could have still come up with something to wake them up a bit. But when they were not even bothered to listen at all and the noise was just like at a pasar malam, I simply didn’t know what else to do. I think I’d need more training to equip myself with “ammunitions” to get the attention of rowdy students. Like an M16 maybe? ;)

But having said that, I do hope that any schools wishing to organize talks, would consider NOT making it compulsory for the students to listen to one talk after another – unless it’s for a small group which is easier to control. Having to listen to too many talks in a day, I would be bored too if I were them – although I would only be yawning away without making any disturbing noise lah… I good girl… not rowdy one… :)