going native?

First external CAS visit today! Ambition, and enthusiasm at an all time high. 
My first chance to actually give back some Service  to the community after 18 years of living.


So our CAS group was assigned SK Bukit Tadom (A), an Orang Asli school so close to KMB that we didn't even get to say more than 10 sentences in the van before we reached.


Our first glimpse of the kids: PJ time! They were running around the field, kids of all shapes and sizes and ages. Note that this school has only a 103 kids so PJ time is the same for all standards.


First impression: OH MY HOLY MOLY.


Exposure numero uno,


1. Orang Asli kids have no / limited interest in school.
2. Don't speak Malay well.
3. Don't see the point in ambition.
4. Are very polite and gel with you almost instantly. 
5. Pretty much like most kids, only with a less heightened sense of future and the vastness of opportunities to be found anywhere


Got my first marriage proposal by an 11 year old named Yusri. =P He apparently finds it weird that I'm 18, (he thinks of 18 year olds as old and wrinkled his face to depict how I should look like) and the fact that I'm not married and still want to go to school VERY ODD. These kids are advanced! 


But you can see their family structures aren't so rock solid, and it really affects them. Like a kid whispered to me that he hadn't seen his dad and mum in months. Or their dads spend time looking at for the end of their drink bottles and their mums have to shoulder the load of work. Picture you as a 10 year old, waking up to find your parents gone, no food, your clothes unwashed. Even you'd not want to go to school.


New mission: Give them hope, even if its just a little. Broaden their horizons, even if its just to get them to set foot in secondary school. 


For everyone out there, you should know that you're LUCKY.
I think the External CAS did more good to my soul than to the kids.