Volunteer work in Malaysia: Mai Dusun Retreat
24th of November to 25th of December, 2024.
As I walk in, I see Nick carrying some tools, and then I also see Nat. They are both from Switzerland, as I knew it that a couple from there was already here. After brief introductions, they start showing me the place.
Mai Dusun Retreat is huge! At least for my standards. There’s the main house, traditional style, wooden, where there are two rooms for the volunteers upstairs, and the kitchen, living room and bathroom downstairs. The bedrooms are adorable, spacious but not too much, clean, tidy and simple, with very comfortable mattress on the floor. The same for the ground area; the kitchen is perfect size, full of utensils; there’s a lot of space for chill or do whatever in the living room. The bathroom is westernized and modern. From the main house you can have a view of the whole campsite.
There’s the tree deck (or tree house), with also a great view of the campsite; a tiny house with also an outside kitchen (both were built by a volunteer, and now I am dying to build something myself one day); the camp bathrooms, made out of bamboo (built also by volunteers, a Brazilian couple), divided in women and man, plus one unisex toilet; two big tents, for three or more people, available for rent; and the covered plots, where the guests can either have their own tents, or simply spend the whole day here for a picnic. Not forgetting the most important thing: the river. There’s a small, shallow river which runs alongside the property down there. As the site is quite huge as I mentioned earlier, I think the river goes along 150 metres or so with us…
And there’s also the campfire place! A big space for a bonfire, and homemade wooden benches all around. We have plants, flowers and many trees all around, but all very contained and tidy. There are only one type of fruit trees, durian trees, the reason being to not attract the monkeys. And that’s one of our tasks: clap hands to scare the monkeys away, Whenever we see them in the campsite, we must walk all the way down to the river, clapping hands, so they will go away. They normally cross the river when we do that, and sometimes, they miss the trees and fall on the river, having to cross by walking. It’s actually quite funny.
What we have the most is bamboos, as lots of things are made out of bamboo, and the owner, MD, encourage us to build more. The bathrooms, any tables, desks, and our bedroom’s furniture are all made out of bamboo. There are also two bamboo gazeboes: one where some fake spinach grows (another Brazilian couple planted them and now they named it Brazilian spinach); while the other… well, there are some plants and benches on it. We also have one massive, gorgeous and old tree. I love her! She actually makes me think of something regarding love… Something like, not two becoming one, but one from which two become.
It’s funny how easily and fast you can fell at home in some places, while in others not so much. Here, I didn’t even feel as it was not my home. Since I first walked in, I already felt great, and as I belonged.
During my first week we get the floods. A thin, but constant rain, makes the river rise over one metre here. It’s insane how that happened in only 24 hours. Luckily, as we are in higher grounds, the campsite itself does not flood, only some ponds are formed here and there because of the rain, as the river doesn’t overflow. But other regions nearby us didn’t get so lucky, and many people have to be evacuated, and lost all their things, as the water level was higher than the cars in many places. Our host, MD, is always updating us with videos and photos of the catastrophe, as his parents-in-law’s place got flooded too. Normally, MD would come to the campsite every evening, to check on us, to chat, and to either take us out for dinner, or bring us some take away food. During this first week, some evenings he could not make it, as a lot of roads or blocked by the flood, and traffic was chaotic.
We cook our own breakfast, and for lunch we normally go to a place called AMD Resort, about 10 minutes walking from here, where the owner, Nana, a lovely woman from Borneo, helps us out with what to order. MD has an agreement with them, we eat there, and he gets the bill later. At first, the food is delicious, but suddenly and gradually, the quality starts to go down. I wonder if it has anything to do to the fact that Nana is not always there. Still, I am happy to be able to try many different Malay dishes. And for dinner, as I mentioned, MD normally takes us out, and again, we always try many different dishes. One of my favourites is called Pasembor, which is a kind of salad, made out of raw vegetables, like cucumber and turnips, but with a delicious peanut sauce, and with some deep fried corn flour crisps. It’s amazing! There’s also roti chanai, of course, which is considered the best bread in the world! You can Google it! We have one stand only a few minutes from here. There’s biryani and tandoori chicken, which is also really good.
On Saturdays, there’s a night market nearby, and MD takes me there twice. There’s a lot of different food, plus some fruits and other things. Among my favourites are some delicious pancakes, filled with grounded peanuts, chocolate powder, sugar, butter and sweet corn. I also love the fried noodles they have there, kind of a phad thai. And then there’s Murtabak mini, which are basically roti chanai filled with either a potatoes curry sauce, or chicken, and then stir fried on a grill plate. All of these are to die for it. Still, nothing compares to Riza’s bread pudding. Riza is MD’s wife, and she is a lovely, calm and super kind woman, who makes the best bread pudding in the world! And she insist that it is very simple to make it, even though it taste so delicious. On our second go to the night market, Riza also asked MD to buy some durians, as she loves it and wanted us to try it. Well, they say that people are divided between the ones who love durian, and the one who cannot take it. I am the latter. This is the second time I tried, the first one being in Thailand, over one year ago, and still, the despite remains the same. Sorry! Actually, there are very few things I cannot stand in terms of taste, one is licorice, another is durian.
When I first came, one of MD’s cats (not really, as Stevie it actually belongs to the neighbours) gave birth to four kittens. They are all girls and they are adorable! I know, I am a dog person, but these cute little things won my heart. They are priceless sweet! We also have two other adult cats, Bubu and Oyen, also daughters of Stevie, who is blind, by the way, poor thing; and that’s how she got her name. Yep! Because of Stevie Wonder… Bubu is extremely cute and fluffy, with the most adorable paws. But she is a bitch. Then Oyen is the opposite, very social and lovely. We look after the three cats and the kittens. We must be very careful with our walking, as we can step on them easily, and just as easy, one step could be fatal. Soon enough they start climbing everything, mostly us, and jump all around. Whenever I am in a chair writing on my laptop, they come and climb to my lap. Sometimes one, two or even three of them. They are adorable but the place starts to get messy as well, like always dirty, no matter how many times we clean the floor; and also flies multiply around here out of nowhere, due to their poops all over the place; which, no need to say, starts to smell as well. As since the beginning MD had no plans of keeping them, he uses some of my posts on Facebook, which have many photos of the kittens, to advertise for their adoption. One day, one of MD’s friends come and take the four of them, all together with Stevie, to his home. He will keep the four kittens, and Stevie will be staying with him for a few months, just until the kittens stop drinking milk.
On my first week here, due to the constant rain, there wasn’t much which Nat, Nick and I could do, being most of the tasks do be done outside. But we worked hard, even under the rain, in order to finish some stuff for the guest which were supposed to come. In the end they didn’t. We moved a lot of sand from the river to make one of the camping spots flatter. We had to come up with a plan to optimize our time and effort, as the access to the river is quite bad and dangerously slippery. We come up with a line, with one person standing by the river, one in the steps, and another dropping the sand at the wheelbarrow, and bringing it to the spot. We would switch spots once in a while, and I believe this was the best method. After that, we also fixed some good and new steps to the river, just as well a strong new banister. All made out of bamboo. We also cleaned the bathrooms under the rain. On the day which the guests should come, the rain actually stopped, and we raked the whole camp. It took us about three hours to do it, and we were three people.
The funniest and most complicated task of all is to clean one of the tents. Due to the previous flood, as the river came all the way up to the campsite, both tents got super dirty, but the precious volunteers already cleaned one. Our host, MD, tells us to take it to the river and clean it there, to save water. It’s an adventure! The river, even though being so shallow, has a strong current, and we must hold the tent still in order to not loose it to the river. At some point, we must turn the tent around, so the water doesn’t go inside from the front, which makes the tent lighter, as less water gets in. We clean it off the mud from inside and scrape the outsides as well, and then we bring back to the camp (another funny moment), so we can finish it with the hose, and let it to dry.
The week and a half which Nat and Nick were here was actually very funny. Nick is actually very sarcastic, which is a relief for me, as I don’t find many people like that during my travels in Asia. But in general, we all always make fun of something, some situation or whatever, and always ended up laughing a lot. We did two campfires together, and they made some snake bread with garlic oil on top, which we cooked by the fire and it was delicious. They also bought me a wonderful treat: a broccoli! Knowing that it is my favourite vegetable. How thoughtful and sweet, isn’t it? We had it in the fried rice. They also bough some heart shaped marshmallows for us to cook by the fire. Sweet!
After they leave, I have the whole place for myself for two weeks. It’s heaven! My little paradise! Laugh. I have no problem on sharing the place with other volunteers, and working together, many times it was a great experience. It’s just that it’s so much easier when you are alone and can make all the decisions by yourself. Anything regarding the work, working hours, food, eating hours; there’s no need to ask anything, or arrange anything together, you just go with the flow and do whatever suits you better. I guess I’m just so used to be by myself and I love it!
I paint the camping bathroom outside and inside. It takes me many days, as I must pay one bamboo at a time, and being very careful to not paint the back wall behind them. And then the second coat! I also fix and pain two small “tables” which stay inside the bathrooms. I fix and rearrange the multiple plants outside the bathroom. They look lovely now! I also apply varnish in the benches around the campfire.
I meet Eva, a volunteer from the U.S., but who has been living in Spain, for studies. She volunteers with our neighbour, Man, who actually introduced Workaway to MD. He has plants and vegetables, green houses and a big property too, with which he needs help to maintain. He also has kids. Eva is twenty years old only, and from time to time we have some nice chats, as she normally comes here to swim in the river, and to read by it. I just don’t have much time to do my personal things, so I used it all what is left out of my working hours, and interaction with my host hours, to do my own stuff; and that means that there’s very little left for human interaction. I still have to look after the cats! Anyway, it’s a shame though, because Eva is a nice girl, and I like chatting with her.
These two weeks alone were great for me to finish all my writings. I’ve been struggling with it since I left India, as I couldn’t coop with start writing right away after everything happened. Slowly I managed to start all over again, but after three months travelling, a lot accumulated. Besides, I still must do a lot of travel planing, finding new hosts, answering family and friends, posting on the blog, and have some fun, doing something just to entertain myself, like reading and watching films, or learning Hindi. At some point, I just couldn’t keep waking up at six in the morning to go for my walks and do my work out because I’m so freaking tired. And a bit demotivated, I admit.
A few days before lots of guest start coming (school holidays), Jesse, from the U.S.A. joins us. He is just 19 years old, and he is passionate about snakes. Back home he has around 20 now, as he had to give some away before start travelling. He knows a lot about them, and I’m constantly bombarding him with questions, so I can learn more about something which I know so little. We are both animal lovers in general, and we talk about how so many wild animals are mistreated and misjudged, for absolutely no reason. Sharks and snakes, animals which we both love, are just some of them.
Jesse is travelling in South East Asia in order to find some snakes. Every night he goes herpeting, a term which he says is a kind of slang for going looking for snakes in the wild. Herpetology being the studies of reptiles and amphibians; and ophiology the specific study of snakes. He goes walking on the river at night, when the snakes come out for hunting. He has proper long boots and light equipment. Plus, he has the knowledge, which is very important. At first I am surprised to know someone who goes wandering like that at night, looking for snakes, but then I realize that is just another thing which you can do, when you know what you are doing. He always finds some snakes, and even a huge piton one night. The reason why it’s not dangerous is because snakes, just like most wild animals, will not attack you for no reason. We are not their source of food, and if you are not threatening them, they will just carry on with their lives, most likely just running away from you.
During the first three weeks we had no guests at all. In only a few days of school holidays we already have many families coming over. Sometimes they stay only for the day, for a pic-nic, but most of them stay overnight, either in our tent or they bring their own. There are some people who rent the tiny house too. There’s not much we must do apart of raking the whole campsite once more before they all arrived. And then I did a second time a few days after. I also show some people around when they come and MD is not here.
I’ve seen so many exotic animals while here. Apart from the regular size monitor lizards, one day I see a massive, gigantic one. I even thought it could be a Komodo dragon briefly. Laugh. And it was so kind to allow me to admire it for some time. I’ve also seen, for the first time, the flying squirrel, which looks a lot like a bat. We also had two adorable Brown Hawk Owls staying around for about two days. So many interesting lizards. And the snakes which either I saw it, or Jesse caught it and I could even touch it. Let’s not forget about the monkeys!
I was supposed to stay here for three weeks only. Because I couldn’t finish my writings, I decide to stay longer, another week, in order to finish it all before start travelling again, and having more things to write about it again. Also, my travel plans are a mess, and I can’t come up with a solution. Besides, it’s lovely here, it’s so easy to just… stay. MD said many times that I could extend my stay for as long as I wanted / needed, which is very kind of him and makes everything much easier.
I’m finally coming up with a plan now. The biggest problem is Singapore, and the fact that I couldn’t find a volunteer work there. The complication is that I have to find a volunteer work in my next next destination from here already, even before being to my next country, which sucks! But I will manage it. I now it!
10 Years Around the World 