# **M&M: Malaysia and México (english)**

/*What did I do this week?
What did I enjoy?
What did I find difficult?
What has changed?*/

# Intro:

For starters, I was really nervous about this project. My writting and my reading are 8.5/10, but my listening and my speaking are not even close to being that good.
I, too, would be stepping out of my comfort zone for my interaction with foreign people has almost been non existant in my life. Furthermore, this summer has been -and will continue being- full of things to do and projects to conclude, all at the same time.

On the other side, socializing through zoom has been a challenge since the pandemic began, one I have yet to solve in most of the cases. In summary, I was nervous.

During the introductory session on Sunday, those nerves began transforming into excitement: our new partners began introducing themselves -their country of origin, what they study, and the expectatives they had- and, for me, the thing that really touched my heart was the openness towards us, their will to listen to us and to learn from us latin people.
The patience explain us the meaning of some of their words and phrases, how were they pronounced and spelled, and their warmness didn't cease to amaze me. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was better than I could have imagined.

# Week 1:

During the second day of the project, we took some time of the session to get to know each other. We shared a little about this and that, from the different way of writting between cultures (and I learned that Arab is written from right to left), we shared pictures of how our keyboards looked like (Arab and Bangla are really cool), and I discovered that the main reason we were all there was to know people and make friends form across the world.
We exchanged social media and we all joined a WhatsApp group.

From there on, I've been exchanging texts with some of whom I now consider friends -I've been learning about their cultures, countries, traditions, food, cities...-. The coolest thing for me has been that they don't seem to get tired of the never ending questions I ask them on a daily basis.
I've never been so close to another culture as I am right now, specially one so different from mine, and even though I've always been aware that knowledge prevents you from judging and allows you to understand, being so close fueled the eagerness inside of me of learning and visiting places I've never pictured myself being curious about -as Malaysia and Bangladesh-.It's something I didn't see coming, specially from someone who has never left their home, as me.

Regarding our project, we started a little slow and I feel that it was because many of us were afraid or embarassed to speak out loud or share ideas. Days later, already knowing each other, we have let our guard down: I have noticed that more people share their opinions, open up their microphones and share their point of view, which has allow the team to make decisions faster and in a better way, because we have everyone perspective.
I like to describe our progress as my grandmother would:
*> "we are going slow but steady".*

# Week 2:
I never thought I would enjoy connecting to a class on 8PM on Sundays. I guess there is always a first time for everything.

I do not consider myself an introvert, but I am not enough extrovert for starting a conversation with new people. I was decided to get out of my comfort zone though, because this was the one-of-a-kind opportunity to know people that come from a different culture. I remember being all scared when I texted Shahnaz my number through Slack, hoping we could be friends. She kindly accepted, shout out to you, ¡Shahnaz!
I'm also really grateful for the people who said 'hello' to me first, or who started the conversation with me, you guys can't even begin to imagine how much I appreciate it.

Everything is going great with our team. It is easier to share ideas without fear -fear because of the talking-in-english part-, and most of the time people keep their cameras open, which I think is a good thing.
I am geniuly enjoying this project: to listen to other's perspective is most gratifying. Besides, most of the times we end up talking about lots of things non-project-related, about our culture, our countries and even about ourselves.

I think I've said this before, but working with people who are so open-minded and kind is something I would not change nor for more ours of sleep -because sometimes it becomes midnight for us mexicans-, nor for being able to use that Sunday night time for watching movies or doing anything else for the matter!

# Week 3:
Everybody has been so kind to me. I always seem to be firing question after question, and I am really thankful for everyone's patience and will to answer them.

The fun thing is I always tell my family what I've been learning and they just look at me in a funny way while I am all excited telling them all the places I will visit on Malaysia, or how I am going to get all the ingredients to make gulab jamun, or how just by going to Malaysia we would be able to taste a lot of different foods we don't find in México.

I feel like I've made some real good friends, not only people who I'll be talking with during summer, but friends who are genuine. I have felt too as if I have new professors I can count on even after this program ends.
I sure will keep in touch with all of them and hopefuly, one day I'll be able to go visit them, and maybe they can come visit me too.

This week I was able to talk more to some friends, and even to Madam Nadirah. I have not had the chance to get to know everyone, mostly because they are on the other team and I don't get to meet them a lot -and because I'm shy to text them too-, but I am taking Madam Nadirah's advaice:
*> I just told myself to be brave, and went to introduce myself to them.*
She is totally right, they are all kind-hearted, soft and warm people. I know there is nothing to be afraid of, just me being nervous about talking to new people.

Aside of this, another thing that blew my mind this week was the class we had about the remote laboratory of the UNISA (University of South Australia), a lecture given by professor Hugh.
I have never seen those types of laboratories before, but what was more surprising to me is the fact that they did not implement them only because of COVID pandemic, but way before so the students who live far from the uni could have access to the labs without having to move all across the country.

I think that would be really helpful to implement in our Campus too, as I have friends who live really far away from cities and it is difficult for them to have access to electronics supply shops.

# Week 4:
No caption needed, just me being so happy to chat with this people <3

# Week 5:

I am really happy and proud of what we have achieved with our App.
I remember the first progress report we had a lot of feedback from our lecturers (and of course it was well welcomed with open arms), but I feel like we were a bit lost on where we wanted to go and how to were we going to get there.
Our App has taken shape and it's looking great, and the feedback we have recieved from all three, Malaysian and Mexican kids shows it.
We loved seeing the kids reaction, it was really satisfying.

We hope the organization, San José, will recieve it with open arms once they see this reaction too.






# Closing ceremony
I was really nervous as I was going to be the one presenting the slides and I'm a little clumsy, but as always, as time went by I started enjoying the experience.

Btw, I managed to understand what MC meant at last moment jajaj everyone used to be saying "the MC this" and "the MC that", and I was aware Ismali and Haikal were going to be MCs, but I didn't know what it meant until today lol.

I invited my friends and my family, and even my mentor Juan Carlos Espíndola, and they were all there. I was so happy and nervous to see them all online, but I was also proud to show them the project we worked on and the new friends I made.






Big thanks to my Malaysian-team members for bearing with most of my questions, Shahnaz, Balqis, Haikal & Izzat; I really enjoyed learning a lot from you about everything (and I loved when you let us hear you talk in bahasa Malay).
Thank you to my Mexican-team members, Angel, Diego & Caro, for bearing with my messages at ungodly hours, you guys are awesome.
Thanks to the other team members for being friendly even if we didn't get to interact a lot, Nayem, Omar, Ismali, Paúl, Aizat, Enrico & Mursalin. I've learn a lot from you too, believe it or not.

Know I consider all of you close friends. Thank you for being so open and allowing that to happen.

I wish I had more time to get to know all of you, and sorry if I didn't text some of you, I'm a bit shy sometimes.

I'll try my best to keep in touch with all of you and I will be looking forward to the day you no longer are the people of the future, but when we all are in the same place at the same time.

I wouldnt change our time together for anything (not even more time to sleep).

Lots of love,
Jaqui H.T.


Ps. I might have cried while Shahnaz was presenting the video (just a little tho); check the recording, minute 51:17. Don't laugh to hard at me.