By Tessa Lim 

I remember it vividly. As I entered the little refugee school back in 2016, the children were eager and friendly, welcoming me almost instantly.

“Teacher! Teacher! Teach me! No! I want her to teach me!”

You could tell that they were smart, excited and ready to learn. Everyone was smiling and welcoming me whole-heartedly with a sincerity I had never seen before.

I was especially captivated by the face of one little girl . She had a pretty face, and she seemed happy, but her smile did not reach her eyes. My instantaneous impression of her was that she had a kind soul, but also a painful background. It was almost as if she had seen so much in the world, despite only being six years old.

She was Huai Nu, a refugee child from Myanmar. When I first walked up to her, she was shy and afraid. She ran to her elder brother, pulling away from me, probably wary and distrusting of strangers. Either that, or she couldn’t be bothered to have a conversation with me. But I liked her.

Overtime, I got to know so many of them: San Kheh, Vung Bawi, Nuam Boih, Khai Lam. One of my student’s name was Saw Thoot, which was directly translated to “Saw Blessing”. Apparently, his family name was Saw but I guessed his parents wanted him to “see blessings”. The children also always had something interesting to say. I remembered asking them to spell the word “laugh” in a spelling test but they misunderstood it as “love”. We went on trips to the National Science Museum, the bread factory and even shopped for Rohingya traditional clothes together. We were like a family.

Huai Nu began to open up, and I realized that she was artistically inclined. One day, she grabbed me a chair and told me to sit beside her. She took out a piece of paper and started drawing a man, then a woman, then a child. She told me that was her family portrait. However, her father had left her when she and her mother relocated to Malaysia as refugees. I gently patted on her back and told her not to be sad, but she did not say a word. She looked straight into my eyes and just nodded. I felt helpless and felt that she deserved better. Slowly, Huai Nu became one of my favorite students even though she struggled academically. But the silver lining was that she was independent. Even though she struggled with English, she gave it her best effort. She was tenacious, and jovial, despite her circumstances.

My job was to teach them but they have taught me even more. They’ve taught me key life lessons. No matter what your background and circumstances may be – there is always a reason to smile and laugh. Even with all the hardship they were going through, they found time to play and be joyful. They were friendly with no judgment.

It was important to me to help nurture these children into thinkers and doers; to polish these rare gems from the underprivileged community. They also made me want to be a better medical student. They made me want to study harder to be the best doctor I could be. More than anything else, they made me want to be a better person.

Just a few months ago, Huai Nu and her mother moved to America.

“Nganinkolwante, teacher Tessa!’’

“I will miss you too, Huai Nu!’’

Even though my roots are in East Malaysia, the Christian Fellowship Centre in West Malaysia will always be home to my refugee students and my home away from home.

By Nicholas Wilkes 

With many of us off placements or back home and learning from online lectures, now is a good time to try some new healthy recipes when you need a break from studying. This week, I’d recommend trying this healthy Bolognese sauce recipe that I shamelessly stole from my mom. It’s a great meal prep item as you can easily scale up the size of batch to match your needs, and as most of the ingredients are optional, can still be readily made with the limited supplies on the supermarket shelves!

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By Monique Conibear

On a camping trip a few months ago, we had to drive over a 4WD track in 2WD cars after dark to find another site after our original campsite fell through. We were all tired and stressed, driving over sharp rocks and getting scratches all over the sides of the car. At the time it was horrible, however afterwards, I realised that through experiencing something like that we were now better equipped to deal with challenges in the future.

I still find it crazy to think that this time two months ago we had no idea this was all going to happen. We were going ahead as normal, planning out our semester and looking forward to events with no idea what was ahead of us. As usual, I was setting goals for the semester; trying to predict what sort of schedule I would have so that I could organise going to the gym more, using social media less and minimizing screen time. Goals such as this have become impossible, but instead I am growing in ways I never would have imagined.

Already I have learned a lot about dealing with uncertainty. You are never going to know exactly what your future will look like and that is okay. I don’t know whether the state will be going into lockdown tomorrow, whether I will start to develop viral symptoms or if someone I know will get sick. Usually that would make me stressed and anxious, however through this experience I have really learnt how to give it to God. I’ve learnt to acknowledge that he is in control and that I do not have to worry about what is happening. This has really helped me to remain positive and hopeful so that whenever I receive bad news I am able to remain peaceful and confident that we will all get through.

I have also learnt a lot about leadership through this time. In all of my committees we have had to brainstorm new and innovative ways to reach out to people, such as through Zoom calls, self-care videos and posts (such as this one). We have become better at thinking outside of the box, so that when everything goes back to normal we will still be able to implement some of these strategies to reach the students.

Finally, this experience is an opportunity to build resilience. Later on during that same camping trip, a friend and I found ourselves stranded at a random campsite (that needed to be booked) at 11pm with no service and no other place to stay. While our other friends went to try and book online, we were stuck there wondering whether we would need to drive another hour before we could actually get some sleep. Personally, I found that hard to deal with and if I hadn’t experienced other challenges in the past, I may not have been able to handle the stress.

This isolation experience is very similar. During this time it feels horrible and stressful and lonely. When we look back in a year or two, however, we will be able to say that it prepared us for future challenges in a way we never expected.