The CatchUp Post

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

We meant to send this picture out for the holidays, but with our somewhat last minute trip back to the states full of too many things to do we missed getting Christmas cards out. We did have a lovely trip back to the states and it was hard to leave all of our loved ones yet again. Luckily, Abbi has come back with us so that helps ease the homesickness.

Just before we left to come to Oregon for the holidays, our church had a Christmas pageant that we had been for nearly 3 months. I was in the choir and Erik was a wise man (His audition consisted of his looking the part of a hairless sheik). The director of our pageant was a wonderful woman from Taiwan named Jodie. She is a kindergarten teacher which uniquely qualifies her to direct a bunch of adults and talk them into wearing costumes and being substantially out of their comfort zone. She would tell us to smile and be sweet and gentle and the next minute yell at everyone to QUIET DOWN for BABY JESUS.

 

I was the only female expat in the choir, so I was singing songs with other people who hadn’t grow up singing Christmas music. They didn’t know the tune to Away in a Manger or O Holy Night, and our choir director’s main goal was to help us all hit the same notes. I kept trying to sing the alto line, since that is what I have sung for years and it really threw everybody off. I had to relearn how to sing a hymn in a strong soprano to help others who didn’t know the song, so we were all “new” to the music. I’ve always loved singing in a choir, especially sacred music, as it helps me feel the Spirit of God in a way that is powerfully personal.

 

The big event was the Saturday night Christmas party. There was an expat family who was Mary & Joseph, and another expat guy was the angel (he has long silver hair, so kind of resembled an angel). He is the most mild mannered person I have known, and so when he said “Mary, be not afraid” in nearly a monotone voice it was hard not to laugh out loud at how un-scary he was.  Two little girls played the shepherds, and they relished the part where they got to take care of their sheep when the angel appeared to them, petting their fur and reassuring them. These were the sheep for the shepherds:

 

It all reminded me of the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Everyone had brought family and friends to see our nativity, and many of them took videos the entire time. As I sang in my Santa hat along with people in the choir, and watched the scene of Christ’s birth unfold with our group of actors who tried hard not to laugh (Erik was hilarious as he wandered through the audience asking them if they knew where the baby Jesus was), I was struck by a feeling of love for the people of Penang who had welcomed us into their congregation with open arms and hearts. It was a little ragtag compared to how a nativity would likely have been performed in the US, but that made it all the more special because they truly loved Jesus and were giving their all.

 

We’ve been following the snowpocalypse that we are missing in Oregon, and it sounds really really cold. I am enjoying being warm, even though I am bummed that we missed getting to see snow when we went to visit over the holiday. In Penang, I seem to be cold at only two places: in church when we sit underneath the AC unit and in a restaurant after I’ve been walking quite a bit and gotten sweaty. 

 

I’ve realized that very few people in Penang walk anywhere. My doctor’s office is in the hospital that is only three quarters of a mile away, so I walk when I have an appointment in the morning. The sidewalks are shaded from the sun, and there aren’t as many cars on the road, so it can be fairly peaceful. It takes me about 20 minutes, and by then, even at a slow pace, I’m sweating.

 

This particular time, I walked into the hospital where the AC seemed to be on full blast. As I walked toward the first checkin desk, I was looking through my bag trying to find my phone, since I was seeing a new doctor and I couldn’t remember her name. There wasn’t a line at all, so I popped right up to the desk and told the young man that I had an appointment and I just needed to find the email with the name of the doctor. 

 

I’m searching through my phone, trying to remember what to search for in my inbox, when I hear the guy ask me, “Madam, are you alright?” I look up at him and say Yes, why do you ask? He then gestures towards me and pantomimes the sweat that is dripping down both sides of my face. Embarrassingly I tell him yes, I’m just sweaty because I had walked to the appointment and that we just moved here from the US and I hadn’t adapted to the humidity yet. While I’m explaining all of this to him, he is pulling out three paper towels to hand to me so I can soak up all the sweat. As I finally find the email and hand him my phone to check me in for the appointment, I feel sweat continuing to running down my neck and back, almost as if my sweat glands declared that they will not be shamed at sweating, and in fact, show off just how much sweat my body can produce. 

 

I now make sure to travel everywhere with my hand fan, so that at least people can see that I’m trying to stay cool and collected, no matter the humidity. I do make an extra effort to stay hydrated here, but then my body betrays me and tries to shed all of it at once through my skin. The worst part is after walking around outside and feeling the sweat trying to start up, and then I step into our elevator. Going up to our condo takes a little bit of time (its high enough that your ears pop) and there is only a tiny breeze coming through little holes in the corner of the box. Our building doesn’t air condition any of the common areas in the building, so the heat just hangs out waiting to envelope its next victim. By the time I get into our condo my clothes are completely drenched, requiring a shower and fresh set of clothes.

 

Abbi came home with us now that she has graduated with a degree in Wildlife Biology (hooray!!) and we’ve been showing her around Georgetown. We’ve seen some fun things and eaten some good food. More on that in a later blog…there are several campy “museums” here that I plan to write about, but think it will be more entertaining to have them all in one blog. I am sad that the Cat Meowseum closed before I got a chance to go through it, but have high hopes for the other tourist attractions.

 

A semi-regular feature on my blog is As Seen On A Scooter…and I have three pics to post! The first one looks fairly tame. It is two guys on a scooter, who are actually having a conversation while driving. The conversation lasted the entire length of a street, and as a result they were only driving about 15 kph and backing up all the traffic. I only got a pic of the one guy with his head turned, but the guy in the black helmet was definitely turning to share in the conversation.

 

The next guy has collected all the recycling he can possibly attach to his scooter. I was impressed that none of it was flapping about, but he was driving slower to prevent that. Recycling isn’t as big of a thing here so I’m happy to see it when it happens.

 

This guy has some ingenuity. I have seen this a few times, but the first time I was able to get a picture. He has welded his food stall to his motorcycle, and you can see his QR code to pay for whatever food it is that he cooks on top of his scooter. His umbrella is conveniently attached and this is the very definition of a food pop-up. 

 

We’re planning a trip to Pulah Weh in Indonesia in a few weeks to get scuba certified, so I’ll have more exciting pictures to share. We didn’t get Christmas cards out this year – and I’ve been remiss in keeping my blog up to date, but will try to be a little more regular. I hope all is well with you and as we celebrate the new year (it’s a big big deal here) I wish you all prosperity and good fortune!

Butterfly Pea

I admit that sometimes I have the humor of a 12-year-old boy. When we arrived at the hotel in Langkawi, they asked us if we would like some Butterfly Pee to drink...at least that's what I heard. It made more sense once I saw the sign, but the little kid in me kept giggling. It was good, although the color makes it more appealing than it actually tastes. When they first bring it to you, it is blue on the top and purple on the bottom, but it does start mixing after a drink or two.

We took a long weekend and traveled to Langkawi (a lovely island in Malaysia), stayed for a night, and then took a ferry to the even tinier Thailand island of Koh Lipe. It was my first local travel experience, and I learned a lot of things to do and some things not to do.

DON'T: Forget to pack snacks; the airports in Malaysia have different snack options than you are used to being able to pick up in a US airport. They'll either have very deluxe gift shops where you can buy a small pewter figurine of R2D2 for 1,250 RM (about $270 in USD) and alcohol in fancy bottles and boxes, a restaurant or two, a coffee shop, and randomly, a Bath & Bodyworks store (because who doesn't want to pick up some yummy smelling lotion and soap when you are traveling). There was a distinct lack of goodies on this trip...so we bought a slice of chocolate cake at Starbucks, which was ridiculously rich and gave us both a headache.

DO: Pet the monkey IF the hotel staff is petting them first, and IF they say it is okay. After drinking our Butterfly Pea drinks at the hotel in Langkawi, we walked toward the service desk to call a cart to drive us to our room. The concierge was petting a black monkey. Typically, those are shy and avoid people, so I've only seen them a few times from a distance at the botanical garden. I didn't want to frighten him, so I slowly reached out to him and was so surprised when he held my hand. It was delightful and unexpected. His hand felt papery and cool, not warm and furry as I had expected.

The hotel "rooms" all consist of bungalows that are either over the water or tucked along the shoreline. They blessedly had AC and lovely bathrooms, and I was sad that we only stayed for one night.  We did go the weekend of Deepavali (aka Diwali in the US), and the hotel lobby had created an image of two peacocks using colored rice on the floor. It was beautiful and reminded me of when I learned about that style when I used to teach Art Literacy in elementary and middle school. 

DO: Eat at the beach at night and watched all the fishing boats staked out their locations and then turned on their bright green lights after the sun went down (at 6 pm). This picture was taken without any filters or any editing:

DON'T: Go walking through the jungle if you are squeamish. The next morning, Erik saw some crazy animals/insects/invertebrates on his walk; check out his blog to read that post...I honestly was glad I had to work that morning; it might have been too much nature for me. Abbi, you would have loved it.

DO: Get to the ferry terminal early, but not nearly as early as the books suggest. There is no where to wait in the blazing sun except outside. We were fortunate to get a little bit of a spot under cover, but we just sweltered and then we crammed into a big unorganized line to go through immigration, during which I nearly dropped my phone through a grate to the sewer. 

DON'T: Sit in the back of the ferry, or the very front, if the exit doors are mid-ship. When going to Koh Lipe, the island is too shallow for the ferry to get very close, so about 4 long-tail boats drive up to the ferry on the ocean, and then people try to lower themselves into a rocking boat, while the guy driving the boat tries to keep his boat from hitting too hard against the ferry. There is no dock or anything, just a mid-water transfer. After arriving at the island, we were probably waiting for another 40 minutes since we were at the very back of the line.   

DO: Remember to be very patient as you wait to go through Customs/Immigration once you are finally on the island. We surrendered our passports at Immigration in Malaysia just before stepping onto the ferry, and then when you land in Langkawi, a man just pulls out a stack of passports, and reads the name of the passport one by one. Everyone is standing around in the sand (luckily, it was cloudy that day, otherwise we would have a serious sunburn or heatstroke), and trying to hear your name in a very thick accent. It was a unique situation, not unlike that day in 1st-grade gym class where they weighed us, measured our height and tried to see if we could climb up a rope (clearly a lost skill). Once your name is called, you go up and get your passport and then go through Customs, which is in a little shack. The military mans the customs stations and it was funny to see the guy dressed in his fatigues but then wearing flip flops since his station was out on the beach.  

Our ferry had seats for 133 people, and every seat was full. There were only two other Americans, most of the visitors were either Australian, Mayalsian or Chinese (with a few Brits, Germans and other Europeans). After you get through Customs, you have to wait for your luggage to be unloaded from the ferry.  They unload the bags the same way that they load the people, except the tide had continued to go out and the long-tail boats couldn't come in to the shore as far, so one guy would walk out through the water up to his knees, be handed a suitcase, and would carry that to the beach. And over and over again. I think the entire ferry experience was around 6 hours by the time we arrived at the ferry terminal and then received our luggage (some of the last off the ferry). 

DON'T: Forget to wear mosquito repellant. For some reason I was thinking that this would be an island similar to the big island - long stretches of beaches with some jungle-ly parts. Instead, it was a jungle with a few strips of beaches. Our lodgings were right on the beach, in individual bungalows that were delightful. There was a ceramic vase with cool water to wash the sand off your feet before you entered, and AC inside. Our bathroom was completely outside. There was a high concrete wall, and a palm tree was growing in the middle of the area. Toilet and sinks and shower were open to the sky. It was super cool at first, then I started getting bitten by mosquitoes WHILE SITTING ON THE TOILET. Defenseless in that position! Plus these mosquitoes were like the Navy Seals of mosquitos; big tough and able to extract your blood through clothing. I found that I was happiest in the water (where they couldn't get me) or on the beach IF the wind was blowing.

This friend came to visit our bungalow the first night:

DO: Be prepared for some of the most amazing snorkeling you've seen. The next day, we got on a long-tailed boat and drove for an hour straight to our first island. When we jumped out of the boat to snorkel, it was like jumping into a bath tub...incredibly warm. The fish were incredible, the water was amazing clear and I have never seen coral like this. It was vibrant and alive, with giant clams all around and bright purple anemones and clown fish and Finding Nemo all over again. We saw a sea snake that was at least 4 feet long, and a jellyfish, as well as new color variations on fishes that I have seen while snorkeling in Hawaii. 

Look at the color of the water!

The rest of these photos were taken by the boat driver, who didn't speak any English, luckily there were other Thai/English speakers on the boat who could interpret for us.

A Normal Week - Finally!

I am so grateful today that I didn't know what to write about. Nothing traumatic or ridiculous or earth-shattering. It was just a nice, normal week. It's interesting to be living in a place with just a single season. It feels like a vacation every day.  I'm writing this during a lovely thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and loud thunder. It still seems so exciting to me: nature making itself known, and probably because I'm dry and cozy.

Two thoughts come to mind tonight. The first is that Malaysia keeps its clocks on the same schedule all year long. I am so grateful. My news feed is all about how people can try to adjust and whether they will continue to utilize daylight savings time. It throws me off every time it changes, and I don't feel right for the first three days, so I'm glad to skip that.

The other thing that I wanted to share was that today, after church, we stayed afterward to practice our parts in the nativity play. I am in the choir (now that I can breathe again!), and it was my first opportunity to work with other women in our congregation who are not expats. It was so lovely to bond over the same things (I'm the only female expat who sings, apparently), and it reminded me of how much we really have in common. We were all starving, and our choir director (bless his heart, he's 20 and trying very hard - he's another expat) just kept wanting to keep rehearsing, and it was so good to laugh with other women about how our singing voices were faltering because we were feeling faint with the desire for food.

I've kept myself a little apart socially, especially at church. I have felt very sensitive about this small congregation; I didn't want them to feel like the expats were coming to "fix" anything or make it more like it is in America. There are so many expats now - three families with 4+ children each, two families with young adults/teens, and two families whose children are grown. On some Sundays, we make up 40-50% of the congregation, and nearly all of us have been lifelong members. Probably 80% of the local members have been converted to the gospel within the last few years. 

I love that my Sunday experience is completely unpredictable, week to week. I love that they do things differently here because those differences reflect the local culture. I wanted the local members to feel comfortable around me, and as a result, I have been a little quieter than I typically am. I can be irreverent and bossy, and I certainly didn't want them to think of me as another loud, well-fed American. 

Being able to let down my hair (so to speak - it's too hot to let down my hair) and just be a little silly today while we worked on hitting the right notes of Joy to the World helped me remember that it's okay to be myself here. I get to teach Relief Society (our women's group) in a few weeks, and I'm excited to be able to engage with and hear from so many sisters with different experiences. Ultimately, though, we all are united in our love for Jesus Christ, and I can feel the same truth here as I did at home, and it brings me peace.

There is a lack of pictures this week because A) I continue to think I am recording video but am not starting it until I think I'm stopping it, so I had 9 minutes of black pockets with a lot of sounds of the food market around us and B) I find that if I'm worried about getting a picture, that I miss part of the experience itself. 

I leave you with a few pictures of things we saw this week: A cute robot who brought us our appetizer at a Japanese restaurant (but didn't bring us our soup; it must not be trusted for that yet). Some cows in a random empty lot in a residential neighborhood (they are all HUGE here). A cat sleeping in the middle of the chaos of the wet market. A woman on a scooter wearing her jacket in the US way instead of the Penang way (they put it on with the zipper in the back). The cool food center (hawker market) called Coco Island by our house. The lighting at the top of Tower B at night (we live in Tower A).

Nothing exciting happens when you are sick

I’m happy to have time today to write. It seems like our two last weekends were spent shopping, building furniture, fighting with our credit cards to work in Malaysia, and disposing of cardboard. Somehow I picked up another bug and have spent the week with coughing and chills, body aches and congestion. Made an appointment to see a doctor, which turned out not to be an actual appointment, it was first-come first-serve between the hours of 9-12. The hospital/clinic area was filled with people, who all brought family members for the appointments. You drop off your paperwork in a box on the doctor’s door, and then wait for them to call you in.  

After getting labs and a chest X-ray I finally saw the doctor and she was lovely and gave me all sorts of meds to manage my reactive airway issues. I will go back to see her in two weeks for a lung function test to see if my asthma needs to be regularly treated again.  At least as of today I can say that I’m starting to improve. I’ve spent both days this weekend getting 6 additional hours of naps in and I can tell that has made a big difference.

Enough of the health issues! I’m ready to start exploring again. Since I haven’t left the house much this week, I am going to sprinkle in a bunch of random pictures taken over the last 7 weeks…and hopefully next week I’ll have something interesting to write about.

The view from our home is stunning - here is a sunrise pic taken our third day here. They are building a park area along the waterfront that should be completed within the next 6-9 months. You can see all the construction occurring at the bottom of this picture, and they do seem to work pretty quickly.

I seem to take a lot of pictures of squid. Some are wearing Christmas hats (IKEA), others are served as food or waiting to be picked for dinner.

I do enjoy calamari, but probably because they are fried and sometimes have a yummy aioli sauce to dip…Erik ate both of these squid tapas because it was a little too realistic looking for me.

My candidate for As Seen On A Scooter this week is unfortunately lacking a picture. The scooter was understandably driving very slowly and we couldn’t lag far enough behind by the time I had my camera ready. You know those pallets of eggs that you can buy with about 30 eggs in them? This person had two of those pallets on the back of their scooter, about 4-5 levels high…about this many eggs:

Watching them go over speed bumps was comical. Would have made for a great pic if I had been prepared. Next time.

Modern Coffin Trading - who knew this was a commodity to trade? The Malaysia Casket Company probably doesn’t do much in futures trading.

I do love some gummy candies, like the gummy peaches, but this was mostly just creepy. Reminded me of the wax lips that we had as kids (although I remember only getting them once and thinking that they weren’t as great as I expected).

I bought a few puzzles here online, and didn’t realize until this one arrived that something was off with the name. I did develop a hankering for pastries while working on this puzzle…but had my Dounts about how good any of these would taste.

There is a shopping center that caters to expats here, called Straits Quay. They have a grocery store there and the section for pets was larger than the section for personal care items. This pic was taken in September, you should see it now that they have Halloween costumes in.

Also at Straits Quay this creature: 

And a restaurant that we ate at that specializes in Taiwanese Chicken - they cook it in a giant urn and bring it out attached to a rack. Then someone has the great honor of donning two pairs of gloves and deboning the chicken. Erik’s employee took us out to eat there, so he insisted that Erik be honored:

Lastly, for my nephew Henry: a snack machine full of his favorite things: Matchbox Cars

I’ve actually seen two of these in Malaysia so far, one at the airport and this one was in the Ikea mall.

This is Why We Don’t Swim in the Ocean

Had a big rainstorm a few days ago, and during it, I happened to glance out the window and saw a mushroom cloud in the ocean. I went to the other window and took this video. The black water is all the runoff from the streets plus three dubious looking culverts that just dump onto the sand, and flow into the ocean. Seeing that has made it easy to not go into the water now. We have found some amazing shells while walking on the beach, but will happily wait to go snorkeling and swimming somewhere else.

In better news, we finally closed on a deal with the landlord and will get to move into our permanent housing on Sunday Oct 15. We’ve been in this lovely beach front place (the 22nd floor) for a month now, and I am ready to live someplace where we will have a King-size bed so Erik doesn’t have to sleep diagonally to fit and I can finally stretch my legs out. Also to have a real desk with real internet! That’s been a significant issue since the internet cuts out about every 90 seconds some days, and I can’t seem to get anything done.

We’ve booked our first off island trip - to a little Thai island called Koh Lipe that is billed as a snorkelers paradise! Booking our travel was tricky, since we take a 40 min flight to Langkawi Island (which is a vacation spot on its own) then take a ferry out to the island, which also involves a boat transfer since the island’s dock is too shallow for the ferry? Maybe something is lost in translation but I’m excited to see how it all works out.

We had a fun hike through the Penang Botanical Gardens yesterday. It was the first weekend that I have actually had enough energy to go exploring, so it was fun to be out of the house. There was such a variety of plants and flowers that I had never seen and it was beautiful in a jungle-type of way. Whoever started the Botanical Garden had a very expansive scope, and I’m not sure whether they didn’t anticipate the amount of upkeep such a huge park would entail or whether funding dried up, as many parts of it are overgrown. There was even a desert area where they had built a roof to keep the water off of the cacti and agave plants (some of which were definitely thriving).

Monkeys are common in this part of Penang, and there are two types…the naughty monkeys (macaques) are generally considered a nuisance, and can actually be aggressive in their attempts to steal food and shiny things. These are the brown ones and we’ve been cautioned not to make eye contact. We saw one yesterday climb down from the roof where we were drinking coconut shakes, look around for people, climb up onto the seat of a scooter, keep checking for people, then steal a bag of food and race onto the roof. He promptly dropped the plastic bag the food was in, then climbed back down to sit on the scooter again and rifle around in the basket to see if there was anything else it liked, before the scooter driver came back and shooed the monkey away. Another one kept waiting for the guy who was making coconut drinks (by hacking on the top of a coconut and putting in a straw) to deliver them, and he would jump in and take any coconut pieces that had been left or that were in the bin where the tops of the coconuts went. My video isn’t awesome, but it will give you the idea.

The black monkeys generally avoid people and spent most of their time up in the trees or climbing on wires…they are black and are Dusky Leaf monkeys. We saw several in a very high tree in the park that had no branches until half way up. To get down from the tree, one monkey slid down, like you would on a fire pole, another monkey leapt from the tree to another, ala Tarzan, and a third one kind of combined those two tricks and leapt half off to swing from a not very thick branch. 

We discovered a little path off the main trail that went up into the woods, so we decided to explore a little. There were sets of stairs, and we’d go around a corner, and there would be another set and another. It started being comical. I started taking pictures of each new set. At a certain point, we realized that we wouldn’t make our lunch appt with some of Erik’s coworkers without turning around. I took some video of the sounds of the insects and birds on the hike.

I’m going to start a new feature I’m going to call “Seen on a Scooter This Week” where I hopefully get a picture to post of the sometimes bizarre, unsafe, and unique ways people transport items or other people.

Our winner this week is a kid we called Power Ranger when we saw him from behind. He’s holding onto his dad who is driving, presumably to or from karate. As we get up close and eventually pass the scooter, we see not only the kid in the back (which is not unusual) but discover a smaller child up front (also in karate attire) with his arms draped over the handlebars, watching a video on a phone. Unfortunately, we were going to fast to get a picture of the boy with his phone, but you’ll get an idea from his seating position:

Oh, and Erik’s blog is awesome, and he’s taken some pictures I haven’t - check it out - and have a great week!

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If you are bored, and a glutton for punishment, you can read about the disheartening experiences I’ve had this week too. It’s just generally depressing, but as I want to keep it honest, I’m keeping it in the blog. I can laugh about it now, but it was a fairly traumatic day.

This is my third attempt at writing my blog in the last 2 weeks. Each time I’ve been stymied by a combination of factors: screen fatigue primarily, but also overwhelm, exhaustion (haven’t been sleeping great) and mental blahs. I’m still fighting remnants of the virus Erik shared with me the week before we moved and Penang’s air quality hasn’t helped. Apparently Indonesia burns its forests this time of the year to prepare for planting so we get a lot of their smoke. I went to the doctor (all by myself, took a Grab (taxi)) and she prescribed and provided (no separate trip to the pharmacy) antihistamines, prescription cough suppressant, a mucinex-type medicine and refilled my thyroid meds for a grand total of $40.92.

It’s been over a week and I can tell that I’m getting better, but I still have some days that my lungs feel tight. I needed refills on my depression meds as well, but learned that Malaysia doesn’t have the same meds, so she recommended I go to a psychiatrist to figure out the right meds to replace what I’ve been on. 

There are three private hospitals in Penang, which our international insurance recommends over the public hospitals, so I picked the one that will be closest to our permanent condo (its called Gleneagles). For each trip out by myself, I’ve preplanned excessively - getting everything out that I need to bring with me, scheduling time on the calendar to call the Grab with enough time to get down to the lobby and adjust for traffic and the wait time for the Grab to arrive.

The email confirmation from the hospital noted that the doctor’s office was in Block B, so I typed in Gleneagles Block B. I couldn’t find an established location for Block B, just the Main entrance. Thinking that the hospital could be the size of St Vincents or Portland Providence and that if I ended up at the wrong drop off location I could spend a lot of time walking around trying to find the right spot. After more searches, I saw hospital and Blok B and chose that one. The drive was beautiful as we drove through a super ritzy neighborhood which jived with the private hospital vibe I was expecting. I was so proud of myself for doing another hard thing on my own.

The first thing I noticed is that there was no air conditioning, and it was an open air campus, kind of like the Kona or Lihue airport, and all the signs were in Bahasa . I finally found an elevator, but was extremely puzzled to see that there were only two buttons: G and 1.  There had been signs to Blok A and C, so I wondered if I maybe had been walking into the wrong wing. The place was like a maze, and I soon started seeing patients in beds in the breezeways, and old equipment or furniture laying in stairwells. I even saw a hand made sign that said “Keep out: SPORES” on one door. 

Note the words ECG are spelled out on the wall using electrical tape

I kept asking people where the doctor’s office might be, showing them the confirmation email I received, and being told to ask at a desk up ahead, or someone else. Then its 3:30, my appointment time, and I finally spot a sign for Dept Psikiatri. I go up to the window and ask the guard about the address (again showing the confirmation email), and tell him that I had an appt but I can’t find the dr’s room. He stares at it for a long time, then points to the hospital name Gleneagles and says “this is Penang General Hospital, not Gleneagles.” I was late and at the wrong hospital, and sweating from all my walking. It was 3:45 and I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to see if maybe the doctor would still see me. I called another Grab, and he drove super fast, and I made it to Gleneagles within 5 minutes. 

This hospital has A/C and signs in English and I race up to the second floor and find my doctors office and burst in, expecting to have  another window where I showed my insurance card and a waiting area. Instead, it's just the doctor sitting at his desk in his office that is also an exam room. He is startled by my appearance, and I explain quickly that I was late and had a 3:30 appointment. He asks me if I’ve been to registration already, that I should have a white sheet of paper.

I go back downstairs, find the registration desk where a very patient woman helps me get registered. There was a whole thing about me not having my passport, and not being able to find the picture on my phone and not being able to remember how to attach it in all my discombobulation. It was excruciating and I won’t make you read it. Finally, she makes me a file and sends me upstairs with it. I knock this time, embarrassed by just bursting in earlier. I learned that the common practice here is to wait in the general waiting area outside the doctor’s offices and that registration will send the doctor a message, and then when they are ready they will open their door and call your name.

The doctor is very kind, very soft-spoken and I have to change gears completely and start talking about when I was diagnosed with depression, how I’ve felt since I’ve been in Penang, what the family history of mental illness is, etc. I learn that, in fact, this hospital was just barely approved to prescribe Wellbutrin (one of two places on the entire island), and another one of my meds (Trazodone) isn’t available in Malaysia. It’s unclear to me whether its not allowed due to government regulation or just not easily accessible, but “we just don’t have it” so we have to talk through some replacement options.

After a 45 min appointment where I mostly talked and he mostly listened, he sends me to the in-hospital pharmacy/cashier where I watch a video board with numbers on it to see when my prescriptions will be ready or when I can take my turn to pay. It looks a little like Bingo, but you end up giving the prize money to the cashier instead of getting any yourself. I get called up to the pharmacy once for them to tell me that they don’t have the same dosage pill that I was taking, so I’ll need to take four of theirs to make the right dosage. I will need 335 pills total for my 3 month supply. They don’t have that many in stock, and am I okay with taking the equivalent of a rain check and picking up the rest when they receive their new stock?

I was #2078…it took a long time for them to count out all my pills

Finally I finish and pay (not cheap this time - my medications are still expensive even over here). I go outside to call a Grab and click Gleneagles hospital as my pick up location.  The app tells me to walk to the pick up point, which seems extraordinarily far from where my blue dot shows on the map. I walk across the entire length of the hospital parking lot, and my dot still hasn’t changed. Thinking that I’ve entered the wrong location again, I cancel that Grab, and try to schedule a new one using the  “Use my location as the pickup point.”  I’m watching the grab driver on the screen and he isn’t coming close to my spot, and then it says that he’s arrived, and I’m looking everywhere and not seeing his car or his license plate, and calls me and asks where I am, and when I tell him he starts yelling at me because I’ve chosen the wrong pick up location and need to learn how to use the app. I hang up and start crying and text Erik that its not working and I’m never going to be able to get home. He calls and tries to offer words of encouragement, but he still has no idea about my other fiasco trying to get to the right hospital. I call a third grab, and in a miracle, when I select use my location, the pick up point and my blue dot match. In fact, the Grab had just pulled up to drop someone off, and I was in the car about 2 minutes after I made the request.

I think the driver had seen that I had been crying as he picked me up, so he put on some soothing piano music and I felt so much better by the end of the ride. I am glad that I was being watched over, because I generally felt like I was lost and never going to be found…the Mother’s Day Massacre Part II. If you don’t know that story, just ask when you have 15 minutes to hear about how I got separated from my family on Mothers Day in Tiananmen Square. 

Till next week!