the drop out kids...

For the last two days, I was stuck in Kem Putra- Putri Alor Gajah, In Taboh naming, Alor Gajah for the Literature and Culture Module, which is a part of the National Service program. The worst part was not it was in Alor Gajah, but the kids this time most of them are school drop outs, some of them didn’t even go to high school. The Chinese can’t understand any other languages other than mandarin. The only thing in malay thet they know is their name in Bahasa Melayu, some even nama sendiri spell salah. This is the 1st time me teaching this kids, seriously they really suck the life out of you. It was exhausting. Really, really, really exhausting.

There’s this girl in my class, a Chinese girl, she was very pretty, but she drop out from school by standard 3 and now she’s working as a GRO in one of the clubs in JB. I pity her, she stop school because her dad was an abusive drunk and the mom had to raise her and her siblings. 2 orang lagi budak perempuan habis sekolah darjah 6, lepas tu terus tak sekolah dah. Sekarang ni kerja kat salon. Dalam class tu, Cuma ada 3 orang je yang habis sekolah sampai form 5, and all 3 of them are Malay, and yes there’s this one Indian girl, Rageswary, she finish her high school as well. And she was nice, very nice.

Yang lain-lain dalam kelas tu rata-rata dah kerja, ada kerja kilang, kerja bawak lori, kerja bengkel motor, kereta. ada yang kerja jadi Along( tak tau lah along ke macai along ke, tapi not really something that you would wanna do for the rest of your life…) ada yang kerja GRO, kerja salon…macam-macam… I asked them what they will do after this, all of them replied in more or lest the same answer. “kerja la balik cikgu, nak buat apa lagi, nak belajar, sekolah pun tak habis.” “carik kerja kot, saya spm amik sastera, itu pun kantoi, tengok la, JB banyak kerja sikit. Kalau dapat Poli saya pergi la,itu pun kalau dapat, rasanya memang tak dapat (laugh).” And that laugh really struck me… “tak tau la cikgu, saya ikut abang saya jadi along ma, carik orang kutip hutang. Malam-malam pergi minum, nanti cukup duit saya ingat mau jadi tokey kedai lor…” “saya habis ni balik la kelang, kerja kat kilang balik, sini diorang bagi 300 je,baik saya duduk luar, kerja. Pastu tunggu la orang ajak kahwin.”

On the last day we did a short sketch, and won 1st prize. A little hamper. But they were really happy. The joy was like winning a 10,000 dollar prize. My lead actor, the Chinese boy was really good, though he didn’t want to participate in anything in the 1st place, but by the evening of the 1st day, he volunteered himself to play the cacat boy. He was so happy. Before I left last night, he and the other girl who left school when she was standard 3 came to me and said, “ cikgu, terima kasih. Orang tak pernah cakap elok-elok sama saya. Bapak saya selalu marah, saya punya abang tak balik rumah. cikgu macam abang, suka bagi saya ketawa.” “ cikgu, saya tak pernah menang apa-apa tau, saya sekolah cikgu tak suka sama saya, itu pasal saya tak pergi sekolah. Cikgu suka gelak-gelak sama kami. Saya suka lor… mula saya tak mau ikut sebab pikir nanti cikgu tak suka sama saya. Nanti cikgu datang JB kita pergi yam cha.”

I came back with tears in my eyes, and smile on my face. It was very bad of me to hate to go there and teach them in the 1st place. But in the end, I felt like I wanted to be there longer so that I can just be with them. They were fun, a lot of fun. Though they are drop outs, they’re good kids. They’re not problematic, they’re just misunderstood and were not given any chance… they were left out…alone.

enough said.