It was sunny, hot and a boring day, so I took out my ‘The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks’ novel from the bottom of my desk and read it, ignoring a stack of homework on my desk. Suddenly, my batch leader came into my class with a list of names in her hand. I don’t know what I had done, Alya called out my name. There are 20 of us who are being chosen to make a visit to the indigenous settlements somewhere in the rural area of the state which is located at the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. Not really the settlements actually, but it is more to visit the primary school for the indigenous children.

So yeah, cliché mindset when it comes to indigenous settlement: interior, dirty, no interesting things and whatsoever. I’m like urghh.. I don’t want to join this nonsense activity. But when my teacher gave a short breathing about the school that have been developed and have the basic facilities I felt a bit relieved. I’ve been imagined to take a bath in the river and wake up early in the morning to take a turn to shower.
The day finally came. Singing, joking with all my friends makes a four hours journey feels like four minutes. Upon reaching the destination, everyone was like Woww!!! It’s so beautiful, heyy!! There’s no haze here, look!!! what a pretty scenery. They celebrated us with a rousing ceremony. The children were so cutes and the school was new and beautiful, seriously people will not think it is the indigenous school when they see it. Hurmmm.. it looks like all the mindset was wrong.
For the first activity, the children were distributed to their adopted sister who is us. So we will get two adopted sister or brother. I got both of them girls who were so cute and pretty. Their names were Natiqa and Masni. I was so glad to meet with them. I asked them where’s their home, their face expression turned to be sad, homesick I thought. Then, I asked them how can they be here, what their parents doing and they just quiet. Awkward silence for a while, I change the topic, asking them where they want to further their studies, guess what? When all of us want to be in Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard. Be in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur is enough for them. Looking at their independences and passion to gain a knowledge and their willingly to leave their parents and family at home at the young age make me feels that although we are wearing a pair of NIKE ,Reebok, Adidas sport shoes than them that just wearing an old flip flop, but their dignity are higher than us.
A short speech from the headmaster of the school, Abek Entoi makes me feel grateful for what I have today, being a student at the best school in Malaysia, best teachers and good custody. A speech from Abek Entoi keeps rolling in my mind. “Its hard to change them into what you had seen now, going school with a barefoot, without bathing, smelly is normal for them. Maybe in this school all of them are in good custody but when they go to the secondary school, no one care about them. They will quit the school when they are in form 3 or form 2 and start to work.” The 3 days experience really taught me about gratitude, the humanity and passion that never end if we want to success.
They just need attention from us that are capable and we should give our hands to them. They can stand together with us if we give them a chance. They are human like us. There is no differently between them and us.