Two or three days ago, I went to a camp named as Keindahan BersamaMu. It was held for 2 days 1 night at Tabung Haji. The participants consist of my ex-school students, SMKA (P) Al-Mashoor. I met my old friend, Asma' Adnan of whom I really missed. I was so astonished and I found it hard to believe that it when I first saw her. But it was her, of course. Hehe.. I arrived at 7.30 in the morning.
View at the front of Tabung Haji from our room.
We can see mountain from here.
At the parking lot at Tabung Haji from our room
At first, I thought that the number of students would be small, but the amount of students that greeted me, again, surprised me. It was around 170; such a big number. I went there without really knowing what we as facilitators should do. I found out about this programme through my friend, Sumaiyah Abdullah. She told me that there will be a programme, handled by JIM which is in inadequateness state of facilitator. So, I think I want to get the experience, seeing that this is my holiday after a very tiring month of studying. I also asked my close friend, ddrop, but she refused. I tried convincing her again, but she kept her ground. (good for her!haha!)But it's ok. I know her.
We, the facilitator were then given a vest each one. Wah,, I felt like, hoo, how was I supposed to be like that?? I had never been a facilitator and this is my first time.
I saw that Asma' was very active, matured, and such an expert in everything (giving talk, handling a slot).
We stayed at a hotel in tabung haji, free of charge!!... Even the food was scrumptious. We ate like VIPs.. Every single thing is free...... I will go to such programme if it the condition is as such.
Our room are bigger that other room. Actually the size of the is differ with each other
First slot:
The students need to divide themselves into groups and choose the facilitator that they prefer. There are about 17 female facilitators and we need to introduce ourselves but we made sure of not mentioning our age. He.. This is because I am about the same age with the students which consist of form 3, form 4 and form 5.
As usual, we will feel nervous to talk in front of many people. But I think I didn’t get too scared because the participants were all girls. The only small thing that made me nervous was the presence of my old teachers, sitting at the back, watching their students silently. Most of the teachers that we met found it hard to believe that we were there to perform our duties as facilitators. They would keep on asking, how on earth we happened to be there. The facilitators also consist of I4P students, some of them were working, and some were studying in colleges.
After introducing ourselves, the leader of the each group needed to choose the facilitator that they wanted. In my mind I thought, "Would they choose me? I have low confidence a little bit. But I will try." But amazingly and surprisingly, I had been chosen by the form 5 group when the speaker told them to run and chase the faci that they want.3 of my friends, dayah, shafiqah and pau have been chosen by form 3. I never thought of that in my mind.
When I was in my groups, some of them already knew me because they knew my sister. Then each of the groups had been assigned to do an Army Yell or some sort of cheers and then decide on a group name and motto. So, I needed to help them. I have a lot of idea in doing army yell and how to do the moves. But I think they couldn’t really do it because it required speed and high cooperation. If you can picture how the Koreans dance, then you’d understand. I’m talking about the advanced ones.. However I still think that my group’s is the best because the army yell is not boring since it included a lot of different moves and not the same with other groups where most of them would lift their hands, making a room for a person to walk through.
At night: Meniti Angin Malam programme.
(MAM was held until 2.30am!!.. I was really tired + sleepy + terribly starving.. So, after the programme was finished, we had a supper and rested in peace through the night.)
A slot in the KBM
The purpose of MAM was to make the students cry a lot. In that slot, some
of the facilitators needed to sprinkle camphor water onto the students. They were instructed to shut their eyes in the dark. Most of the students wondered of what smell it was, and what were they being sprinkled with. They probably didn’t recognise or even know the smell of air kapur barus.. (For your information, The camphor is used for bathing a corpse). It was utterly scary and saddening plus solemn. They made the slot into a reminder that we should always reflect ourselves and never forget death. Nevertheless, probably because of absolute tiredness, I couldn’t really feel the sadness...
The speaker said that, what if our parents died today, and we didn’t get the chance to ask for forgiveness? And what if in the grave, we were tortured because of our littleness in good deeds. We live in this world only on self enjoyment, breaking Allah’s rules, doing what Allah has forbad as if we weren’t going to die, as if we’d live forever. This life is only a short stop of what the real thing is, so it’s best if we take the chances to live well in the real life. At all times, at all seconds, at all places, our deeds were being recorded, and will be judged. We could die anytime, the chances are too big, who knows in what state. What if we sleep, and died the next day, when we had done so many sins before we slept and not being able to repair them by asking for tawbah?? This is an addition, only as reminder.
Wait, I’d like to go on about the camphor. The smell was so strong and it was as if it poked through my nose. It wouldn’t go away, even when I had washed my hands for a long while.
Facing their close friends.
NEXT DAY
because of hitting the sack so late, I woke up late. I set the alarm at 5.45 am but woke up at 6am instead, due to the extreme laziness. We actually had to assemble and pray congregationally at the seminar hall around 6.20am, but it looked as if...not going to happen. Then when everyone was ready, around 7.10am, the four of us; 'kak' zahroh, pqah, dayah and I went down and took a look around tabung haji. Next, we had breakfast and prepared for the arrivals of parents because we were going to have a slot with parents. Pqah, pau, dayah and I needed to handle the arrival of parents in front of the tabung haji and usher them accordingly. Ya Allah, it sent chill down my spine; I was scared+afraid+not knowing what to do. It was only because I had no experience, and this was my first time too. Pqah and I took care of things at the front; showing ways to the place of the programme while dayah and pau guarded the front door of that leads to the hall. Actually, there was also a HPA programme being held nearby. So, there was a probability that any of the visitors were heading for the HPA talk. Thus we had to use our brains.. At first I hadn’t so much nerve to greet people. But we watched and learned. A HPA woman used the question; “HPA or Mashoor?”
Yikes!
So we copied how she approached visitors.
On the first visitor, we asked “Mashoor?”
Unfortunately the auntie’s response was by looking weird and replied with a “Huh?”
Owh. When we learned that, we changed our question to “HPA?”
Her answer would definitely be yes. Then we showed her the way to the HPA talk.
I earned a new skill. I wouldn’t dream of being able to this before. It wouldn’t be so hard anymore after this. We did this work for nearly one hour. My feet were sore from the long standing. So many kinds of faces could be seen when I did this ushering job. Some of them were:
1. Some looked surprised
2. Some said “no, no..” and waving his/her hands as if refusing something (he/her eventually went into the wrong place)
3. Some answered our question without even looking at our faces
4. Some stopped to ask, smiled and shook hands with us
5. Some walked on, waiting for us to greet them
6. Some gave us salam, and was the one who asked us where to go (because at that time we weren’t brave enough to start the greetings)
7. Some never asked anything, and they ended up going around in circles because they couldn’t find the venue
There were so much more kinds of reactions that we met. BY the way, it was kind of fun to greet people like that, except that it was a little tiring due to the fact that we had to stand all the time, and kept a happy face. Hehe.. It was not a fake happy face, but because I was sleepy+exhausted, so I felt like it was a teeny-weeny bit fake.
I didn't do any taaruf with my groups so, I don’t know their names. But I do know one name; Amira A. She’s the only one I remembered.
CLIMAX OF THE PROGRAMME
The meeting of the students with their parents. All of the students lined up in front of the hall and when they were told to go to their own parents, they cried harder and harder. For ones that the parents didn’t come, they were patted at the backs by the facilitators. Adus~~ This is what I couldn’t hold.. They all cried so hard.. But never mind. At least they had the consciousness in their own selves. Hopefully they would make a change within themselves to become a better person.
Lesson: for the ones who still have their parents with them, be good to them, before one of them, or even yourself, shut our eyes from this world forever.
=======credited to my friends, ddrop.========
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