Hi! part 3

It’s another 3 days ahead of us (Kak Nora, Aida and me) to come back to Malaysia, but we’ve been already excitingly talking about it since last week. To tell the truth, I’m homesick... a lot! I know that some people out there especially in Malaysia really missing my presence at this time since the first day I’ve been here. Among them that I really missed is obviously my wife and my family in Kota Tinggi. Previously, Leila and I have already made promise with them to come back and celebrate Alif, my little nephew’s 1st birthday but things went upside down after I’ve been given an immediate task to be here in Lesotho.

As mentioned by Leila, yes this indeed a great opportunity or might be one and only chance to be able travel abroad extremely far away from Malaysia since last December I was in Thailand. But things would be better if she was here. It’s Lesotho anyway, a neighbour of South Africa; in fact it’s located inside of it and of course millions mile away from Malaysia that took us exactly 18 hours to pass through.

There are difficulties concerning to phone connection, internet, ATM cards, halal food, weather, bills etc. But things must go on as we’re already here. It’s like semi-survivor series, where you have to fit in the certain situation within limited times and the important part is: To survive. But, for us it’s not only to survive, we also have to complete related tasks that what made us here. The real task, not something that being made up and clearly no cameras follow us to documenting what ever happened during our ‘visit’.

We took a lot of pictures like nobody business and I even make friends with some of the locals. It was always a good experience in having random conversations with them, no matter whoever they are, be it shopkeepers, security guards, passersby, beggars, sex workers, direct sellers, waiter/waitress, homeless, intellectuals and even drug addicts. The experiences and stories that differ among others are what I always wanted to know and forever a good reference for me to be able to understand about their lives and culture.

Thanks a bunch to Leila though, because no matter how hard she has to admit that I have to go, she is actually the one who prepared my luggage, loaded it with clothes, food supplies, medicines and anything that might be useful while I’m here. Therefore I’m plainly well prepared since the first day I was here and well equipped with stuffs that I always needed. If it wasn’t her that prepares it for me, I guess things would be messy by now.

It’s another 3 days and at the moment I wrote this it’s already 5:30 in the afternoon. I’ll be going back to hotel in anytime and plan to soak myself in bath tub while listening to “Imagine” by the late John Lennon.

To Leila, I miss you.

Thank you.