Alright after a bout a week recovering from NS, i think I'm ready to talk about it. (ceh, macam go to war jak) I was sent to Kem Bukit Saban, Betong, Sarawak. But i don't know why in the offer letter, the word Saban is spelled as Seban. We were supposed to leave for the camp at 9.30 a.m. from Stadium Perpaduan, Kuching but we only left after 10.30 a.m. In the bus I sat next to a girl, Rahmah. But we barely spoke during the next 4 hour ride to the camp. After reaching there around 3pm, we had our meal at the Dewan Makan. I was willing to eat anything they had to offer cos we didn't stop for lunch. The place and the food didn't surprise me one bit cos i have seen pictures of the camp in youtube. The food was okay except for the fact that something i ate or drank or breathe in gave me and a few others diarrhoea. So you see, I wasn't kidding when i said i was recovering from NS, diarrhoea to be exact, but I'll spare you the details.
For the next couple of days, we didn't do nothing much but stare into space at the dewan makan or fall asleep. The activities haven't started yet but we had to wake up early. On Monday and the following days, the routine was roughly like this:
4.30am: Wake up and bathe.
6.00am: Line up and march to the Perbarisan place which is actually in front of the resort where we have assembly
7.00am: Breakfast
8.30am: after resting in the room for awhile, line up again and march to the resort place where
we have classes.
10.0am: break
1030am: classes resume
1200: Lunch (as you can see i started using the 24 hour notation to state the time cos it sounds more military like)
1400: Outdoor activities like marching and marching (marching was all my outside activity cos i got out before the fun activities started
1630: Can play games like volleyball, football but mostly the girls do nothing but pocho-pocho.
1800: Dinner
2030: Go to class
2300: Bedtime
As you can see the schedule is really tight with hardly enough time to rest which will need a lot of time to get use. The few days that I was there, my legs well lets just said if my legs were given mouth to speak they would be crying out desperately for rest or maybe even chewing themselves off..eee scary thought. Anyways i met new friends and quite interesting ones too. There were only about 180 trainees. And some of them are school dropouts, some have trouble reading, writing, etc. A small number are already MARRIED!!! Gosh, i can't imagine being married at this age. Btw, my ex-tutorial mate, Nickelson, from Kapit got hitched a couple weeks ago, apparently it's an arranged marriage. I was placed in Alpha company and got to know 3 Bidayuh girls, Rafinnah aka Ai Yui, Joanne aka Nini and Illolita. All of them are from Serian. I was also quite close with Dayang aka Daydek from Kuching. I learnt how to converse in Sarawak Malay with Daydek but often I get tired of thinking about what to say i just speak in Melayu Baku which i have almost perfected in Labuan. Im wanndering what they are all doing right now...hmm...
I didn't like quite a few things. First, was the wolf-whistling by the boys. Honestly, they wolf-whistle at almost everything that the girls do. Like getting up from the chair or going back to the room. tsk tsk tsk macam got no girls where they came from. Then, there was the toilet. We can't use the showers cos the water pressure was so low or the pipe was broken or there was no door. So we had to berkemban and mandi beramai-ramai in kain batik.
But i also liked some stuff too. I like the classes cos the coaches are well trained and the stuff that we learn are well planned and can benefit the trainees a lot in terms of confidence and yadee yadee yada. I got out of the camp on Thursday(19 June) evening and rushed home cos Im starting uni next week!!! Gosh, wander what awaits me there.
