Looking at my room for the last time, I thought “… this can’t be happening …” but the emptiness of my closet and the desolation of the house threw me into reality. We were moving. Not just down the street, not just to another neighborhood, not just another city, not even another state, no, we were moving clear across the world. Destination: Malaysia.

Arriving in the Singapore airport nauseous and jet-lagged from a twenty something hour flight, I sat trying to regain some kind of strength. The cold, hard chairs next to the baggage claim did my rear no justice. My feet, blistered form my tourist-like flip-flops felt like they would bust at any moment. Just as I laid my head back onto my suitcase propped up against the back of my char, the intercom yelled at us that our connecting flight to Brunei was boarding. Up again on our voyage we went.

The Bruneian sun shining in my eyes, I realized we had arrived at the ferry terminal, which was nothing like what I thought it would be. As my dad was fighting to get us all tickets for the ferry to Labuan, I looked around to realize all the people watching us with unforgiving stares. The locals seemed to get their kicks from first-timer. Getting down to the ferry from rusted, wobbly stairs made me think I was just as safe to jump down onto the boat. Trying to match my seat to my ticket like a fool, I simply ended yo plopping myself down into a seat all the way to the back of the ferry. I couldn’t help but notice the man sitting next to me, happily munching on his “sotong” crisps probably had not taken a bath in over a week. The smells o dried seafood mixed with the hot cluster phobic seating arrangements of the ferry will forever haunt my memory.

We finally arrived in Loabuan an hour later and I slowly dragged my overloaded suitcase to the end of the thirty-something queue, which gave me some time to exercise my patience, and also sweat in the scorching heat.

The neighborhood I was accustomed to back in the states could never have prepared me for what I saw here. Plywood boxes with square holes in them and walls made of sheets were actually homes filled with large families, most of which had up to five or six children in them. There were dogs everywhere. Many of them had mange and sores covering their bodies. When we finally got into the house we would be living in, little kids running around barefooted would sneak up to our gates and ring the doorbell to get a laugh out of someone actually coming out to answer it. After a while we all caught on and soon enough the game was over.

The first time at the mall, I was bombarded with snickers, whistles and I even got a few passing “I love yous”. It was all so strange. Some people who had cameras would walk up and ask to take pictures with me like I was some kind of celebrity. It is really amazing how much waving you do when you know absolutely no one.

Fresh fruit and veggie markets were the coolest thing I’d ever seen. All this fresh stuff, not even washed it was so fresh set right out for people to buy it. The open markets jam packed with bustling ommas, fussy women, and every now and then a man trying to do the shopping for the family that day. My first time in the markets I just roamed around, watching in amazement; half tof the veggies and fruits I had never seen or knew existed. After a few months, as I made friends and started speaking Malay, I could go into the markets with a few bucks, jew down the prices and walk out with bags full of fresh fruits and vegetables. The natives were amazed to see a white person, or “orang puti” as they would say, living among them and learning their ways.

Even though the trip was hard, and I encountered many unexpected things, I would never trade this experience for anything. It’s not just the things I gained from my two years of living among the people of Malaysia, that has made an impact on who I am, it is the things I can’t explain, the things I saw, the lessons I learned, the people I met, and the cultures I experienced that are worth so much more than anything I’ve ever had.