Journey With Deb

Twelve months in a year can easily whizz by without much thought. Hectic schedules and personal commitments get the better of me – but we, both Terence and I have made it a point to purposefully set aside some days in our allocated annual leave to go out and do something meaningful – give back, in short.

In previous years we have travelled around Malaysia, Thailand, Acheh, and Indonesia helping local communities by way of capacity building, skills enhancement, education and even physical labour. Days in our early youth we spent many hours under the hot sun digging holes for bamboo piling to build new shacks, hours in the kitchen helping women cook and time with young ladies teaching them handicraft and social skills. We organized and put together children and youth rallies for local schools and universities and witnessed the joy and excitement we brought to them.

Little did we know that the act of giving back became a lifestyle, something we cannot simply ignore. We’re made mindful of the tiniest blessings that come to us daily and of the greater call that God has entrusted us with – this is the very least we can do. It helps put life into perspective. After all, if life is a selfish journey, what a lonely road it will be.

This year we will be going to Cambodia, at the end of August for a medical mission trip. The team is made up of a doctor, 5 medical students and 9 professionals. We will be visiting a village in Battambang, Siem Riep to give medical aid to over 500 villagers. Due to the impoverish state of the village, local communities barely get medical support or attention unless a severe situation calls for it. We’ve been alerted to pack our day bags with muesli bars, munchies and bottled water as the villagers often come in throngs leaving little room for the medical team to rest or have proper lunches.

We will occupy a vacant school to set up the make shift clinic. Prepared for the most basic amenities (eg. an empty building with minimal furniture), we will have to improvise to create different stations for registration, blood & sugar test, vision test, doctor’s consultation ‘ward’ and a medicine dispenser unit.

On the Sunday we will be there, we will be visiting the local church and sharing a Sabbath with them in fellowship, singing and word. My heart thumps with anticipation for the great things we will encounter and the lives we will touch – because the Great Commission really matters to my Father and therefore it matters to me.

July seems to be a month of celebrations, festivities, homecomings and farewells. Usually what that means is that there’ll be a feast! An ongoing, perpetual feast for this month particularly. Dinner parties, tea parties and lazy weekend lunches… It’s a dinner party at ours last night and we made homemade pizzas and chicken wings. Decked with salami, ham, bell peppers, olives, onions and garlic (yes garlic!), the Italian pancakes oozed over with mozzarella cheese and filled our kitchen with tantalizing aroma!

This no-brainer recipe was shared to me by Lee Yen when I was there in June bunking over at the Singapore apartment. Since good food is for all, here’s the recipe:

The Dough
175g plain white flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
½ tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
120ml warm water

How? Mix all ingredients together and knead (with love and soft piping music in air). Leave to rise for 1 hr. Roll our dough, spread tomato base and sprinkle with anything your heart desires! 230c in the oven and Walla – you’ve made yourself an Italian chef!

Recently I was in Langkawi for work, conducting a site visit for a local resort called Frangipani Resort & Spa. They are one of the finalists for an Award scheme Wild Asia runs every year called the ‘Responsible Tourism Awards’. Only 15 accommodation operators around Asia have bagged this coveted Award since its inception in 2006. The vision of the programme is to inspire operators to change the way they do business in order to minimize the negative impacts on the environment and benefit the local communities around them. In short, we’re in the business of creating sustainable destinations for the future.

This year, I was thrilled that a Malaysian operator found its way up the ranks as one of the Award’s finalist and was even more privilege to see their efforts on site. Here’s a short snippet of my visit there. Watch the slide  show and read the full version HERE.

Self-learning and discovery is what Frangipani Resort and Spa promotes. Dispersed all over the resort are little notes, reminders and thought prodders informing guests of their green practices and encouraging them to participate in this noble effort. The green team at the resort are well trained environmental wizards with a flair for communication. Throughout our stay there, new features, ideas and innovations were revealed to us – from the way the new eco-friendly building was constructed to incorporate a garden rooftop to reduce heat transference to the guests’ rooms to the traditional sophisticated method of waste water channelling….

Next, I’d be flying to Cambodia to meet the people who run Pepy Tours, a reformed tour operator that offers travelers the best methods of exploring the country – on two wheels, a bicycle.

Then, in September a trip to Sri Lanka to roam with the elephants at Heritance Kandalama, a unique hotel built to blend in with the surrounding natural ecosystems.

So I’ve realized that busyness has swept me by like a thin layer of haze, hoping that it’ll be blown away one fine day by a great gush of fresh air. But I’ve somehow grown accustomed to it; at times I’m even comfortable in its presence. My task list is never empty, fresh scribbles on post-it-notes overlaps another and my phone reminders are chalk-a-block! This is becoming absurd I think…

A snap back to reality shakes me up. Busyness should never be a constant – I’ve always fought hard for that ideal work life balance and thought I was pretty good at juggling it, up until now. When a few friends (individually) told me, “You’re always so busy, I have to tell you way in advance if we want to meet up.” When picking up a book to read seems more like luxury than leisure, when technology grows on me like a parasite and when my journal has more empty than scribbled pages…

This has got to change. Soon.

Believe it or not, since the introduction of recycling bins in our kitchen, we have just been constantly surprise (and appalled) at the mounting recyclable waste accumulated over time. Almost every product we buy off-the-shelf has an element that can be recycled.  Everything from plastic wrappers, plastic bottles or cups, old newspapers, cereal boxes, juice cartons, tin cans – the list seems endless!

As if that’s not enough of a waste shocker, according to statistics from the Department of Environment (DOE), an average Malaysian produces 0.8kg -1.2kg of waste per day. That’s an average of 30kg of waste a month! Statistics also show that the biggest waste contributors come from urban areas. Yes! Urbanites like you and I who thrive happily on convenience and spend blithely without thinking twice.

The horror does not end here. If waste is not separated at disposal point, EVERYTHING (literally everything) ends up in the landfill. No waste collector will care enough to rummage through our garbage and pick out what can be recycled and what can’t. Hence, all of us need to play our part, and it all starts at home.

We’ve tried to minimize our waste by bringing Tupperware containers when ordering take-out, declining plastic bags at the supermarket and refusing to take plastic cutlery instead using our ‘SPORKS’ when on the move. Still there are products we can’t avoid buying despite realizing how laden it is with excessive packaging.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by rubbish (literally), especially when information is sparse even in a thriving city like KL. So here are a few tips to help make recycling easier for you!

How to start? While fancy colour-coded recycling bins would be a nice inclusion at home, a simple box or garbage bag is really all you need to sort and hold your recyclables. We bought ours from IKEA (although not the wisest decision since we’re adding up on plastic purchase – however esthetic elements and durability won us over). You will need at least 3 bins/boxes/containers, for; paper, plastic and aluminum.  Another for glass if necessary.

What to recycle? Virtually all newspapers, magazines, junk mail, cardboard, cereal & juice boxes, glass bottles, plastic wrappers, aluminum and tin cans are recyclable. Remember to flatten boxes and aluminum cans before dumping it into separate bins. As for plastic bottles, remember to remove the cap and rinse the bottle. Both the cap and the bottle go into the same bin but will be sorted again at the recycling center.

Where to bring your recyclables? At certain locales, DBKL, MPPJ or Alam Flora will have designated days to pick up recyclable waste. Ask your neighbours if you are not sure. Another option is to bring your recyclable waste to recycling centers around your area.

Alam Flora has made life simpler for all of us by listing down recycling centers within Klang Valley. It’s best to identify a center near your home or office for added convenience. Click HERE to see the list.

Alternatively, if you feel like doing a good deed, you can send recyclables to a disabled home in SS2, PJ. They collect recyclables to sell in order to earn money to run the home. There are drop-off boxes at their centre.

Lovely Disabled Home
No 1, Jalan SS 2/5, (opposite Taman Bahagia LRT station)
47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
Contact person: K.K Lum (Director) @ 03 78739622 / 013-3409622