(Countdown: 4 days) The journey home

Location: Gate F15 in Miami International Airport
Mood: Jittery
Music: Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan

So I'm ready to begin my 28 hour trip back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - my first time home in a year. I'm pretty excited to be going home; KL is such a fast-growing city that it feels like everything changes each time I leave, and its such a different place from when I left it to come to school in America four years ago. The "in" places from my teenage years have become "out," and new and hipper areas have emerged to replace the ones I grew up with. Heritage Row, The Gardens, The Curve, that new mall on Bukit Bintang whose name I can never remember.... my local friends are constantly having to tell me about the newest places to go and things to do (which means that I usually feel like a bit of a tourist in my own city!). It also feels like the crime rate is constantly going up; each time I go home I'm greeted with stories about the latest scams and scandals about the city and warned that things have gotten "more dangerous" from when I left. Or perhaps its just my mother being paranoid!

Going home this time its a little different though, because I'm going to be spending two of my four weeks there leading the SEALNet (South East Asian Service Leadership Network) Project Malaysia 2009 (PM09). The project is going to be held in Kuala Selangor, a small seaside town about an hour and a half north of KL. Kuala Selangor, or KS for short, is a town that relies heavily on eco-tourism for its livelihood, and its pretty famous for its fireflies and its bird watching. My co-leaders (Tian and Kellie) and I have been planning the project all semester, and we'll be working with the the Kuala Selangor Nature Park (KSNP) and the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) to address the growing environmental issues in Malaysia by inspiring local Malaysian youths to step up as service leaders in their communities. We'll be running some leadership workshops and helping the high school students plan their own environmental projects and a large scale community event, in addition to doing hands-on environmental volunteer work such as mangrove planting and water pollution monitoring. Community service is not really part of Malaysian culture (or encouraged in youths the way it is in the US), so I think the project has the potential to have a huge impact on the students we work with. Its going to be epic.

Just in case you haven't heard about SEALNet, here's a little background info. Its a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Stanford, and its mission is to bring service to Southeast Asia and to promote the spirit of service leadership in the region. Striving for sustainability in its projects, SEALNet accomplishes its mission by building and nurturing a community of service leaders who are passionate about social development in Southeast Asia. Every year, teams of college students (usually pairs) submit proposals for projects and undergo a vigorous leadership training process (including a retreat in January). In the summer, teams of 20 college students are then sent on these projects to various countries in South East Asia, each working on a different project and a different issue.

So we've picked a team of 17 college students from all over the world, 2 professional mentors, and 19 local high school students. Honestly, I cannot even begin to describe how strange it was to be on the other end of the application process! Kellie, Tian and I spent so long agonizing over those essays, reading and rereading those applications, discussing and arguing over them into the early hours of the morning. It was a painstaking process; you really get irrationally attached to some of the applications and it almost becomes a little painful when everyone else votes against someone whose application you really like. That having been said, I'm really happy with the team we ended up with, and I can't wait to put some faces to those essays we read.


Now... pictures! Not too interesting. Mainly of Miami airport. I'm sure things will get more interesting during the actual project.


I picked up a cafe cubano and a guava/cheese pastry from Cafe Versailles at the airport - a must-do if you're passing through. I was introduced to Cafe Versailles by Diego, a fellow Swarthmore sophomore from Miami who is part of the PM09 Team. Its amazing. Everything is so tasty.


Mmmmmm.


The plane!

Okay, well, they're calling my flight number, so its time to go. Adios for now - and more updates to come!