Sorry to all. Have been quite free and busy at the same time so maybe I won't morph into a potato just yet. Since the Johor floods have receded, I've been joining some of my church members in assisting a couple of families in Pagoh to get back on their feet. I've already gone twice and am looking forward to more trips.

Basically, the potato gets up at 5.30 am on a saturday, brushes her teeth, washes face and jumps straight into a car. She then sleeps for an hour and a half till the car stops at the Ayer Keroh Jejantas Restaurant. Time for breakfast and time for getting to know the other potatoes who have made the trip. Then, everybody drives on to the house which is smack right in the middle of a rubber plantation.

The first time I went, it was very disturbing, simply because all of us turned into instant ARSONISTS. There was too much mud-laden rubbish and there was no choice but to BURN
everything everywhere. I felt like crying because I'm doing nothing to stop the very thing I've spent my whole life lecturing my family about. Sigh... I won't be surprised if haze lands on Johor next.

Anyway, the second time I went which was 2 days ago, the place looked so much cleaner! Maybe open burning in certain conditions is necessary. This time, we planted flowers and repainted the house which was really fun despite the fact that I worked with an absolute perfectionist. Most of the time, my job was to hold his paint can while he scaled to the top of the house making sure every square millimeter is covered smoothly with peach paint. Even when everybody was already taking the group picture and heading to the cars, I was still there holding peach paint.

The other thing I forgot to mention about this relief operation is the food, not the lack of it which is surprising but the abundance of it. I'm not surprised if we spent half the time in Johor eating and yacking. Nasi lemak, chicken rice, tapioca, sambal tumis, sambal prawns, asam fish, fried chicken, sup kambing, mandarin oranges by the boxes and rice, rice, rice. Good thing it didn't get in the way of our mission ha ha. Now that I look back and reflect, it doesn't seem like a disaster area anymore but a giant kenduri that fell out of the sky.