Today I had the great honour of receiving a Certificate of Appreciation from the Queen of Johor (Raja Zarith Sofia binti Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah, Permaisuri Johor) for my ‘Contribution to the National Committee for Community Services, Malaysian Red Crescent’.
When Lekha Nandey invited Lawrence and myself to a tea party for Deepavali, I didn’t expect that this would be the reason. Over this last year I have been accompanying Lekha on her work for the Malaysian Red Crescent. I take photos and talk to people then write this up for my website. I have a page here on my website devoted to the Malaysian Red Crescent so that Lekha can direct people here if they want to know what the Malaysian Red Crescent has been doing. I also publisize her work to the expat community here in Johor Bahru via various Facebook groups. Through this activity, I have been able to see the lives of different communities in Malaysia which otherwise would have been off limits, and for this I am very grateful to Lekha.
This Deepavali celebration was co-hosted with the Holiday Villa in Johor Bahru, so we were treated to some delicious food. And we were entertained by some remarkable musicians and dancers. There were drummers, and a sitar and tabla combo, but the seating arrangement meant that only the high table guests could really see the musicians.
In between the Indian dancing were a couple of performances of Malay dances by some very young and enthusiastic children.
In addition to presenting certificates to donors and contributors, the Queen also handed out goody bags to needy children. Much of the audience was made up of children, and we were stopped on the way out to have our photo taken with two young children from a local orphanage. Some of the children had their photo taken with the dancers and drummers who were far more colourful!
And as Lekha says “You won’t get anything quite like this when you go back to the UK”. She is so right. Every day here in Malaysia is a delightful surprise and nothing is predictable.
Click here to return to Travels in Malaysia 2019.
Click here to return to Helen Gray’s homepage.