I had a wonderful day today!! I probably have saved lives today.
I signed up as a volunteer in a community project run by EMPOWERED and 20 other government or non government organisations, namely COLON CANCER SCREENING PROJECT. The purpose of this project is to save lives by early detection of colorectal cancer. There are 3 targeted communities, 3/4 zones in each communities. My job today as a registrar was to help the residents in INTAN BAIDURI, one of the zones in one of the communities in the Selayang area, to register them to take part in this project. I had to take very informal history of the residents who are mostly Malay-speakers in order to determine their eligibility in the screening. The doctor-in-charge of this masterpiece is Dr. Christina Ng who came back from the University of Melbourne. She guided us on how to complete the questionnaires for the residents and some important points to take note of. This was actually my second time of history-taking and it turned out that I had to speak in Malay at all! Guess what, I would say that today I got to speak the most Malay in my life! Well, truth to be told, I certainly think that my Malay sux. But luckily most of the residents whom I interviewed today were pretty illiterate and they knew nothing more about Colon cancer. So with my very limited Malay vocab and communication skills, I tried my best to communicate with them and make them understand what I was trying to tell. At least I think I've done a great job. I actually interviewed 8 residents..well, in 4 hours though, but there were more than 50 questions to ask. Imagine I got to get consent from the people and most of the 50 questions I got to explain to them before they got to give me the correct answer. So, personally I think I've achieved a lot....as in, well, this is the first time ever I took history in MALAY, TOTALLY. I mean...WOW!
Well I talked to only 8 persons today, all are residents from Intan Baiduri, which is a Malay area of the low income group. The eldest was already 79, and the youngest 54. I would say that they are very nice people although they know very little about health consciousness, and although I spoke with them in a very "bahasa paku" accent but extremely broken language. They were very patient =) I actually hope they really did understand everything I said. ha-ha.
I learnt a lot in today's event. Not only how to communicate in a very *new* language (well, to me, this is true, I've never spoken so much Malay before, not even 10% of today's achievement) with people whom I do not know, and who are from a very different background compared to mine. I asked about their personal details at first, like if you're married, what do you do and so on. Then I asked some Yes No questions that determined whether they are eligible for the screening. One lady actually happened that she lost 7 kg in the last 8 or 9 months because she's got admitted to the hospital due to stroke. I had to apologize to her trying my best to explain to her that this might affect the accuracy of the results. I guess she was pretty disappointed at that moment but luckily she was quite optimistic as well. I tried my best to tell her to take good care of herself. I was sad too ( because most of them came for the 5Kgs rice provided they are eligible for the screening).
From other perspectives, I learnt a lot when I got the chance to meet people who are so poor. One of the Indian ladies actually survives with only RM500 a month, which is the amount of her husband's pension. She has to take care of her grandchildren as well. I was pretty miserable inside when I asked her about the pay she got if there's any. Another Indian guy was working as a gardener in KL international school. I guess he could hardly understand what I was trying to tell because his daughter was there to do translation. And when I asked him how often does he eat vegetables, fruits and meats, his daughter told me that he eats only 2 meals a day, one at 12 at noon and another at 12 midnight. Gosh. And he has red meat like beef and mutton, even chicken, only a few times in a week.
When I think of myself I feel so shameful. I am living in heaven compared to them! I'm not being sympathetic but empathetic. But one very important thing that I learnt today is to appreciate everything I have. I talked to Mum and she actually kept on reminding me of how good my life is. She encouraged me to give away the things I have and to share them.
In the very near future, I'm going to keep up the pace to be a volunteer in community-based project like this one. I truly feel glad to have the chance volunteering in this project. It is definitely incomparable to sitting at home studying for 8 hours. I would never have learnt this much from books =)
Thank you so much! to whoever and whatever that brought me to this volunteering job.
I'm going to be a merrier person from today onwards!!
**One more achievement today: Good news! I actually went for a swim after coming back from Selayang!! Hurray! I'm going to swim swim swim!!
