Hello from Malaysia

Two Stories

1.

So this week was an interesting week.  We were given a referral from someone in the ward.  And like all referrals we are excited and ready to contact them as soon as possible.  The only information about the person we had was that he was a he, and his address.  We didn't have a name or anything.  So we took the bus to his flat and went up to the 4th floor where he lived. His door was open so we peeked in an said "apa khabar?"  as we do this, he comes rushing to the door and quickly lets us in without even asking who we are.  We were taken aback a couple of reasons.  First, the man had no idea who we were and still he ushered us into his house like he knew us.  And second, he was wearing nothing but a pair of very skimpy underwear briefs.  So, Elder Browne and I enter with a little bit of apprehension.  As we go in we recognize that there are two other people in the room, a boy and a girl, both in their teenage years.  they are all sitting and talking, so we join the conversation and tell them why we are here.  About 5 minutes into the conversation the older man (the referral) tells the girl to go make drinks and prepare of plate of crackers.  She looks at him like... ok... but goes and does it.  Once she has made the drink mix she places everything in front of us.  The older man then proceeds to tell her to pour the drink for us.  By this time she looks a little uncomfortable and maybe a little angry, but she does it anyway.  The drink mix by the way was durrian, the vilest of all fruits on the planet.  It has an initial taste of terrible and then an aftertaste of rotten eggs.  So this drink is hardly palatable and extremely difficult to finish. So as I am trying not to dry heave and politely eat the crackers, we teach about the church.  At the end of the discussion we give him a Book of Mormon and ask him to read.  He said he will but tells us that sometimes he has a difficult time reading.  so we politely ask the girl if maybe she would be willing to help him read each night. she looks at us and says yes, in fact she even opens the book to make sure she can read what’s in it.  Then after she puts the book down and proceeds to tell us that she isn't his daughter or even a relative, and that she does not live in his flat.  She and the other guy were maintenance workers checking the quality of the old guy's water.  they had been in the apartment for maybe 10 minutes longer than we had.  So... all of the strange looks from the girl and everything made sense. 

Pictures!

These are some pictures of the compongs.  They are absolutely terrible living conditions.  the houses are built in tidal pools so they have to be built on stilts.  The tide come in and washes away the garbage they throw... or that's the idea at least, what actually happens is the garbage builds up along with other stuff...  So the whole place is a network of wooden bridges to get from house to house.  The smells are something special, let me tell you.  A mixture of dead ocean smell mixed in with dying animals, raw garbage and human waste.  and people live here!  A lot of people live here!  Anyway, this isn't even the worst compong.

Pictures!

Us waiting at a restaurant.  it was super awkward because we were the first ones there and nobody else was there...

The people we ate dinner with, great family, the Tigas

my two favorite pals, Jeffery and Joshua.  Everyone in Malaysia sits like this

the study room, very luxurious, it has air conditioning!

bedroom, also has air conditioning.  My bed consists of three stacked mattresses.

the shower/toilet/sink all in one!

the wonderful toilet

the rarely used kitchen, just this morning i killed three giant cockroaches!

The dining table, also rarely used

the entry way, our sitting area and the TV.  This is all on the bottom floor of the house, which does not have air conditioning so... we spend most of our time upstairs.

Pictures!

A sample of what all the apartment style flats look like here

The Singapore district, the day before we left the MTC taken at the Provo Temple

Our house, a very nice place, good part of town, expensive for Sandakan

The view from one of our favorite places to eat, called bistro

A picture of a Rambutan, absolutely delicious!

A picture of a mango stein, also incredibly good!

Highlights

{Editors note: Micah wants to start a question and answer thing on his blog.  You can send your questions to him at mputnam@myldsmail.net and he will answer them on this blog.}

Ok, so for today's post I thought that I would rather than give a rundown of everything that happened in the week I would highlight some of the cool experiences:

So, on Monday we were visiting with a family, the Nings.  They sort of live in the jungle and their house is sort of completely enclosed.  What I mean is that the walls don’t completely go to the ceiling so birds fly in and have about three nests.  Anyway, we were at their house and they were serving us noodles when their cat comes into the house.  This is normal until we realize that the cat has mouse in its mouth and it’s still alive!  Anyway, the cat is playing with this mouse, letting it go, pawing at it and then biting it again.  So this crippled mouse is just trying to get away.  One of the kids takes that cat away so that the mouse can go free and instead of the mouse running for the door it climbs into my companion's backpack!  So we shake the backpack and the mouse falls out and starts limping over to the door, but not before one of the kids picks it up and starts playing with it!  Of course this whole ordeal is not a big deal to everyone, so I try my hardest to keep my cool.  And I think I did a good job :)

So I thought that maybe I would talk about my bathroom at my house.  So we live in a nice house, two stories, just the two of us.  We have one bathroom/ shower combo.  This room is like this:  It is a square room with a slanted floor so that water runs into the drain in one corner of the room.  In that corner is a shower head mounted on the wall.  opposite this corner is the toilet corner where we have a old, not so nice pot.  In the third corner is the sink and in the fourth is the door to get in.  It is a completely undivided room, no curtains or anything.  Also no have toilet paper.  You have one of two options, one, you use the bucket of water and splash yourself....ya, not my favorite.  Or two, there is a hose near the drain of the room where you can hose yourself down... fresh, and clean, my favorite.  The one concern is that there is no drying cloth so you put your pants back on with a bet butt.  I hope this was helpful, everyone be grateful for your toilet paper, it’s a great invention that has not caught hold here in Malaysia.

Another interesting story.  Everyone here thinks that my name PUTNAM is from Thailand.  Everyone.  They recognize that I’m not completely white and the first thing they say is, are you from Thailand.  I try to explain that in America Putnam is a very white person name, very white.  But it is possible that somewhere down the line of genealogy we as Putnams are Thai. The name Putnam also has some gang affiliations apparently so before I got here there was talk of me having to change my name.  But, it hasn't been much of a problem.  With the occasional snicker or laugh, my name has been accepted quite easily.  But it is pronounces Pootnam.

Day 1

Day 1, July 27 So we arrived in Singapore about noon and we got moving straight away, no time for resting!  We got our baggage and loaded it into the vans that took it to the hotel we would be staying at.  Then we all took the subway to Little India where we ate a meal that was way too big for me.  The pictures posted show you that it was eaten with hands and it was amazing!  Absolutely delicious, and I guess I will be eating this kind of stuff a lot!  After that they took us out and had us start contacting people!  I was surprised, plus they filmed us doing it!  So in the near future that should be a video sent to my parents that show how hard it is to talk to random people on the street.  Basically the rest of the night was house keeping things.  I was so tired by the end of that day but so excited because it was then that I met my Companion and I found out where I was going to be going for my first assignment.  And the place I will be is... Sandakan!  It is in East Malaysia on the northern most tip of the Borneo island!  Because I would be going to the Borneo island I had to ditch half of all my stuff and begin the life of a minimalist!

The next day was crazy.  It started out normal and then it just got crazy.  We had an orientation until about 4 in the afternoon.  It was good, stuff about how to be a better missionary and stuff like that.  Anyway, it’s about 5 and the travel people tell my companion and I that we are flying out of Singapore in two hours to get to KL!  So we rush to the airport, make it there just in time for our flight.  They didn't even give us a place to stay, so we called up some of the missionaries in KL and stayed there for a night.  The place was so trashy, someone needed to do some cleaning.  The upside of that was the amazing view from their place!  The Patronous Towers were right there, absolutely beautiful!  Anyway we get like 5 hours of sleep and then wake up really early to catch a flight to Sandakan.  The flight was about 2.5 hours and the food served on the flight was absolutely disgusting!  Anyway we get to Sandakan and the airport is pitiful. For a town of 400K people there were only like three places for airplanes to dock.  I was shocked but then I remembered, the people here are really poor. 

So we get our luggage and then walk a little bit to the side of the road where we get on the bus which is quite a piece.  They keep the door open all the time, all the windows are open, no AC and all the buses in town are about 30 years outdated.  They are however very reliable and very fast... scary how people drive here.

We are driving and driving and finally get to the house.  I have to say my first impression was this is it?  Later, after visiting with some of the people that live in Sandakan I have realized that where we live is like a royal palace.  (more on that later)  The house is 2 stories and has air conditioning in just 2 of the rooms.  Which makes the rest of the house practically uninhabitable!  We spend most of our time in the two rooms, bedroom and study room.

Well, I thought that I would get a chance to get settled and comfortable but as soon as I finished unpacking we went out and visited with people.  The first place we visited was a shack in the middle of the jungle.  They are the Ning family, they are some of the nicest people I have ever met in my entire life!  They live so humbly.  The floors are dirt and there was even a birds nest in their house.  They served us juice and cookies.  I think the people in Malaysia are going to make this two years amazing.  The next place we went to was a Compong.  This is quite possibly the most trashy place in all of Sandakan.  The people live in these wooden huts that are on stilts so that when high tide comes their houses won’t be swept away.  They throw their garbage on the ground and as a result the place smells like a dump and looks worse than it has to be.  They have no plumbing and you can tell, both smell and sight!  The stilted houses are connected by bridges that are less than comforting... I almost fell into the swampy sewage water!  Now, not all of the places are like this but I will say, I have yet to visit a house with air conditioning and I have yet to visit a house that owns a car.

Oh yea.. an before I forget, it is HOTTTTTT!! I can’t say this will enough energy and hatred.  It is like 100 percent humidity and about 90 degrees and that doesn't change...EVER that only change in the weather will be the flood season which comes in November and February!  I leave the house and almost immediately I am sweating and  am gross.  I am never dry until later in the night where I finally get to shower.  Showering has never felt so good in my life!

And, I have had my first casualties.  My arms have about 4 mosquito bites each, no matter what i do to keep them safe.  My blood is too sweet and too delicious.  I cant help it.