Jing @ SEALNet: Project Malaysia 2009: (Countdown: 1 day): Logistical nightmare

Location: Hostel 3, Kuala Selangor Nature Park
Mood: My brain is fried
Music: None - everybody's sleeping

Today has been the longest day ever. It started out at 12 am, when Kellie and Tian made the first airport run to pick up Klarizze, one of our team members arriving from the Philippines. I stayed at home and slept, seeing as I needed to wake up to make another airport run; at 10am, I picked up our professional mentors, Kevin and Kathryn, as well as another team member, Ha. I realize that the names are probably starting to get pretty confusing, but I promise I'll introduce the entire team up here soon, probably in tomorrow's post. The last group of people (Kraig, Han Hsien and Wei Jian), brought in by Sam and Keng, were our last to arrive at about 10pm, after which we just played a bunch of icebreakers and went over a few things.

We got to the Kuala Selangor Nature Park (KSNP) at about 1, and basically spent the entire day chillin', making runs to Tesco's (which is sort of like Walmart), eating (Intro to Malaysian Food 101) and scouting around the area. We also picked out some good restaurants to take our team to, located the hospital and the clinic, an internet cafe and a laundromat. I've been driving, which is a little scary seeing as a) I'm not used to driving on the left side of the road, and b) I usually drive a small car on big American roads, but now I'm driving a tank (a van, actually) on narrower roads, and c) Malaysia has some scary drivers. I'm glad Kuala Selangor is not a big city. But I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I'm doing pretty well. This is good for me!

The PM08 leaders also made a video for us, which was really really sweet. I haven't actually gotten the chance to see it, seeing as the internet at the park is iffy and I need to sit outside the office to steal the wireless. I'll watch it tomorrow though, and put the link for it up. (Its http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooV6UGvzXsY).

But the most important thing we've done today was probably meet with Raj, the person in the Malaysian Nature Society we're working with. He's a pretty awesome guy, and really knows what he's doing. He's a mine of information about the environment and the park, is completely passionate about what he does, is full of ideas and is proactive. Inspiring. I really enjoyed the meeting. He works a lot with environmental education, and works with a lot of local programs dealing with the youths in the area. The detail at which the kids work at is really impressive, I looked at some of their reports and its pretty top notch. He's not actually going to be here for the two weeks, so we're dealing directly with Ashok, his "right hand man." He also managed to get the member of Parliament from around here to agree to open our final day event, so we're meeting him (the MP) on Monday. That should be really interesting too - I'm pretty psyched! Also a little nervous.

Talking to Raj definitely gave me a better idea of what I want for the project, the stake I have in it, and (realistically) what I think the team can achieve in two weeks. We're going to be talking about all that tomorrow though, and the team collectively will be coming up with a single stake - so I'll tell you how that goes. That should be a really interesting discussion to moderate, because its where all the idealism/pessimism/realism emerges. What do we all hope to achieve in our two weeks here? What have we come all the way here for? Discussing the stake/impact/outcome of the project is actually something every SEALNet project does, and if done right, its actually very worthwhile and effective. The way it works is that project leaders start out with a vision; once they get on ground, the team redefines this vision and "buys into" the project. This makes them accountable for the project, which then belongs to the whole team as opposed to just the leaders.

Tomorrow's schedule looks a little crazy. We're taking a tour of KSNP, checking out the mangroves and the watchtower where we'll be painting a mural, I'm waking up in 5 hours, so I really should sleep! Just one funny thing I wanted to add though. Today Kellie had to open the gate for the car, and she spent like 10 minutes tugging on the gate (everyone who worked at KSNP who saw her started laughing) until someone eventually came over and told her it was a sliding gate. Hilarious. I thought it was so funny and was laughing so hard that I forgot about her and started driving away - Tian had to remind me about her. Diego also broke the door handle to the guys' hostel - there's a pretty sweet picture of the door lock without the handle. Oh, Diego.