Food and Doing My Duty - Wednesday 5th September

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“How are you finding Malaysia?” is a question that many people ask me here and it is very nice to be asked. Well, how am I finding Malaysia? My usual reply is something vague and smiley along the lines of “It’s quite a place, isn’t it?” To be truthful the Lawrence clan haven’t really seen much of Malaysia in our three weeks ish here, but one thing we have been told to do lots of is enjoy the food.

Last night knackeredness made us eat out. We’d all arrived back from our various schools and classes shattered and no-one could really be bothered to cook. Jumping into our hired Perodua Myvi we drove the short distance to Kepong, leaving the confines of Desa Park City, and sought out a place to eat. The area was two blocks full of up- and down-market hair salons, grocery shops, internet places and, of course, restaurants. At a rate of three meals per day it would take several weeks to eat all the food sellers’ places in the area but after a stroll around we chose a Chinese restaurant based on two criteria: some of the signs were in English and the lady who ran the place smiled lots. Now the food we munched wasn’t really that adventurous, mainly due to children not being that willing to try anything new, but the fried chicken pieces, vegetables in savoury sauce and omelette plus rice did taste good. It tasted even better when we were delivered the RM48.50 bill, just a few pence under £10. There was even plenty left over for Lexi to make up a box for her lunch today.

School dinners at my place are pretty good too. I really enjoyed the sandwiches, wonderfully made by Lexi each day, at my former school but as we gave away our second-hand bread maker before leaving sandwiches are somewhat off the menu. Instead yesterday my lunch was “chicken in brown sauce” with vegetables and rice, plus a thing of orange juice (RM9.00). Today I went for fried rice with vegetables and an omelette for the vast sum of RM5.00. All good stuff and much enjoyed. However I do feel slightly guilty in that today I paid more for my daily Gloria Jeans than I did for my lunch.

Gloria Jeans, I need to make clear, is not in any way euphemistic. It is a chain of coffee shops that just happens to have opened a branch next to school and from a business point of view I can certainly see why. The shop has a huge range of coffees, teas, chais, fruit-smoothies, cakes, pastries and sandwiches. Much as I did at my previous place I have gone for a self-imposed ban on buying food at break time – that way lies broader girths, people. Instead it is a Regular “Daily-Brew” coffee for me, with 10% off the price for teachers. Like many other colleagues I am delighted to be greeted by Nuoma with a cheery “What would like today, Robin?” There is also a developing understanding between my subject colleagues and I about visits to Gloria Jean’s, and whoa-betide any one of us who goes to GJ’s without taking an order from others!

Today was my first duty day. All teachers have reasons for dreading duties. Sometimes they simply would rather be having a break time gossip or more often they really don’t want to get clobbered by low-flying footballs while wading through piles of dropped crisp bags, crushed cigarette butts and snogging couples. My first duty today was nothing like that. I spent twenty minutes in the ground level cafeteria watching well-behaved young people talking to each other, eating a variety of interesting foods and then clearing away their plates afterwards. Then I did my weekly lunchtime duty, patrolling the two staircases near my department, and again found well-behaved children chatting to each other. I can handle these sorts of duties.