Masa yang sempit

salam,

maaf dah lama tak update. Memang sibuk. Essay banyak perlu disubmit. Baru balik dari progrm yang sangat best last weeken. Sekrang buat blok paediatrics. Kene attend clinics. At the same time kene pass driving test, siapkan SSC essay, organisekan elektif, organisekan clinical SSC, conduct 4th year study and belajar utk exam lagi 4 bulan…

hurmm… ada sape nak tolong saya? Silakan…. ni baru sempat buatkan report tentang pemergian saya ke egypt. Rasa tak best buat dalam English, tapi selagi tak buat selagi tu akan lemah menulis dalam englishkan? Nampaknya membaca buku medic hari2 kurang membantu dalam memperkasakan bahasa Inggeris…huhhhuu…

ni dia reportnya. Kalau nak tengok gambar saya boleh click pada section’ From My Lense’..

PS: Baru jumpa akhawat Jepun, tetiba rasa rindu pada adik2 Rusia dan Mesir. RIndu pada akhawat semua..

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assalamualaikum wrht

Dear drs and fellow colleagues,

my sincere apology for not writing up the report about the medical student congress in Egypt earlier. I was muddled up with a few essays, study and at the same time keep up with the tarbiyah and dakwah work that I was involved in.

Alhamdulillah, the journey to the land of Moses and Pharaoh indeed was a fruitful one. I am grateful to Allah, Alhamdulillah for making it easy for me from the start of the journey until the end of it. The doctors were really supportive and ensure that I have got enough fund to make the trip. I promise myself to bring something back and may Allah delivers the rewards that I may have from this journey to them. For the money that they have shared to support this little endeavour to show to the world how capable Malaysian and muslim is.

Travel alone is synonym to me. I did that most of the time. But it seems a bit awkward for the other 150 delegates. In addition, for some part of the world, for a girl to travel alone across many countries, is quite unacceptable. I did not see any troubles until I couldn’t find anyone to share the room with me. They didn’t provide any single room for the delagate and at the end I got a double room which had to be shared with two others. That means, I only got to sleep on the extra bed, rather than on a proper bed. And I still need to pay the same as the others.
. I arrived at the same time with a Romanian couple. One of them is a doctor, another is final year medical student. I only found them with 5 Egyptians after half an hour looking for the signs of ‘medical student congress‘ or the likes.When I did not see the signs I was panicked, did not know who to contact and then I called the number that was stated on the invitation letter, without acknowledged that it was 3 oc’lock in the morning.

Finally we ended up in a three star hotel, and had to pay extra 60 euro to stay there for a couple of nights.
One of the interesting that happened was we were not told when was the exact date and time of the congress. We were then told that the conference started on Sunday, then only we will stay at the actual hotel or the place where the congress is held..I tried to argue with President of the Congress to get a discount for the fees. Since I stayed there only for a night and the fees were actually for 3 nights stay in the hotels plus the fees for conference. And at the end the argument was pointless. The Egyptian blamed me for not contacting them 3 weeks previously, for not checking the ‘not-updated’ version of their websites. The experience with the egyptian really sank my heart. It’s not about what they said to me, it was about the way they said to me, ‘ It is not my problem. You just have to pay the full amount of the fees.’ I paid them and I left. My heart embedded with the hurtful feeling about the attitudes of a muslim people that lives on the land of the prophets.

The history has spoken how well Islam developed and emerged in Cairo. From Moses, Harun , Amru bin Al-Asr, Salahuddin AlAyubi and then the birth of the new era of dakwah by Hasan Al-Bana, Egypt is a fertile ground for Islam. And it still is. Most of the taxi drivers have the small Quran that they bring with them in the taxi. Even people that was sitting in the subway, beg people for money, instead of sing the Amr Diyab latest hit song, they recite beautiful recitation of Quran. You will be amazed by just listening to peaceful recitation.

I was also touched by a moment in the train that was called ‘metro’ when I was brought to see Cairo by the malaysian students who are studying there. Alhamdulillah, with them, I was brought to see the real life in Egypt and saw parts of Cairo that was not shown when I traveled with the delegates. I have got a day off a day before the conference since I thought the congress started on Friday.In Egypt, the train is segregated between male and female. In the female compartment, there was one lady, same age as me, stood and then recite the doa of the travelling. And the rest of the people in the train followed her and recite the doa together. After that, she gave a 5 minute reminders( tazkirah) in the train. It was just amazing. I am not amazed by the content of her speech, I dont even have a clue what was she talking about. All I heard was the name of the prophet Muhammad, and something about behaviours of Muslim? ( maybe). But the scene was just wowed me, and it made me realized how coward we are, the people who knows about Islam, from share what we know in the public. In my minds, I was picturing Imam Hassan Al-Bana was giving reminders to his people in the coffee shops and in the public. The phenomena was normal in Egypt, but seems very awkward in our own country.Well maybe I can be the one who start it first .

The congress then went very well. I was a bit disappointing for not being able to stay there until the end of the conference. I thought that the travel part will be on Friday, and the Congress will start on Saturday and Sunday. But to my disappointment, we traveled to see the pyramid, the sphinx and cairo city on Saturday and only started the congress on Sunday. The actual closing ceremony was on Tuesday and my flight was on Monday morning. I have teaching to attend on Tuesday which I cannot miss or else I will fail the block.

It was an eye-opening by meeting the malaysian sisters in Egypt. They told me there were 120 of them in the University of Cairo and all of them are in one class. Yes, that means, all Malaysian in one class. Before I left them I gave them a challenge to master the Arabic, as fluent as their seniors before I see them again in the future. It is hard though when you learn in English but talks malay in your class. But nothing it impossible if you try. The sisters really amazed me with their generosity.

Another eye opener was when I met with the rest of the congress delegates. To my excitement, 50% are muslims and 89% of them came from the developing country. Unfortunately there was no other malaysian student came. I was reading the abstract book and saw Farhana’s name from Dublin in the book. She was supposed to present about IMAMUKEIRE activities during the congress. I was a bit eager to meet her, but then I realized not only her but 50 other people who are supposed to present their paper did not turn up.

The delegates were students from Pakistan, India, USA, Australia, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Turkey,Poland,Palestine, Dubai, Rusia, Czech and others. Most of the delegates are from Pakistan, Romania and Serbia. Plus they all also sponsored too.

‘ Why are you eager to present a lot of papers? And yet you have 2 poster presentation too?‘ I asked a blog from Poland.

The presentation was divided into two; oral and poster presentation. I had an oral one, and that guy from Poland did 2 oral presentation and 2 others poster presentation. Another guy from USA, had to present 2 oral presentation and one poster presentation. And in my mind I kept thinking, where do they have time to do all those things?

‘ In my country it was very difficult to find jobs. Very competitive. So we need to have this in order to get the jobs’
His name is Nazarewski Lukasz and he also had problems to put English words in his mouth. For the first time in many years, the inferiority was diminished in myself and now I felt a bit more confident to speak in front of the public in English. All of us are equal. If I have problems to communicate in English, I believe many others felt the same way too. Suddenly I gained a wind of strength and the sense of confidence.

‘ We were not competing each other. We are just here to gain the experience and to get the certificate. Just present your paper and then you can leave,’ Vetridelta Ramar, a guy from India told me when we felt nervous before the presentation.

To my surprise, all the presentations were very brilliant. I was awed by a lot of delegates that studied in the developing country when they presented their papers. There were study on ‘ST segment resolution post MI as predictior for the better outcomes, application of gas sensors in the diagnosis and treatment of renal stones and other surgical studies that really amazed me. Most of the students involved in the study that was conducted hugely in their hospital. That indicates that their papers are much more intelligent than mine. I even felt I wanted to run to the toilet, not wanting to present my papers. I felt inferior not because of my weakness in conversing in English but because my paper was not so scientific to present.

Who cares? Even if I was not impressing everyone at least I feel relief by fulfilling the responsibility that was put on my shoulder.

I only finished my last slide the night before the presentation. I literally started to practice an hour before I slept on that night.

Feeling confident enough, the 5 minutes presentation seems to passed by like a flash of light. Alhamdulillah the judge was a psychiatrist and my presentation is about psychiatry. I received a lot of questions from the audiences, most of them appraised me for doing the paper. The judge was also asked me more questions than he asked other presenters. At the end of the session he saw me and said,

‘ That was a very good presentation. Well done.’

My heart thanks Allah for that moment. A couple of friends from Pakistan who became my companions during the congress shook my hand and congratulated me for the presentation. I felt like I was winning an award or something like that. I felt so blissful. Alhamdulillah wallahuakbar.

‘ Are you going back tonight?‘ Emina and Amra from Bosnia asked me. I’m afraid I have to my dear friends. The Bosnian girls were really lovely to me. They know I came just by myself and everywhere they go they will ask me to go with them.So I can have someone to take my pictures too..

‘How about your country at the moment Emina?’

‘ The situation is ok, people live normal. But the hatred is still there.’

I am amazed there about 10 people sponsored from Bosnia to attend the congress.I guess things are getting better now overthere. But I will keep my promise to my new friend Emina, I will soon come to her place. One fine day….everywhere where the Muslims are, I shall pay a visit insyaallah.

‘ It is very nice knowing you..’ my roommate for a night told me before I left ( and it was only the second day since I met her). It is very simple sentence but I could feel it touched my heart.

Alexandra Put, a girl from Romania had a very long and hard way before she arrived to the congress. She travelled 12 hours without eating. She took the connecting flight and wasted 5 hours before got the actual flight to Cairo. She then reached Cairo without anyone pick her up. Luckily she met with 4 Polish student who arrived at the same time. Maybe because of the miscommuncation the organiser did not come to pick them up. In the airport they did not know where to go and there was no telephone number to call. To cut the story short, she arrived at the hotel, missed the trip to pyramid and sphinx, and was not given any room stay since it was not the time to check in yet. Hungry and tired she was arguing with receptionist in the language that she was not really mastered in. Of course she cannot speak a single word of Arabic.

When we met in our room, she burst out her story and I tried to encourage her to look at the positive side of it.Our other flatmate was from UAE. Ironically as we discussed , at the place where the Arabs live, we were unite by English language. Alexandra try to put her feeling into words, and I know how hard it is to express self in the different language, but she did manage to make me understand. And I feel sad to leave Cairo without spending more time with these people that I would maybe not possibly see again in the future.

I would encourage all of you to go to this international meeting and congress if you can, where you will meet a lot of people from different background, languages, cultures, religions and the way of thinking. Another part of the congress that I really enjoyed was discussing about the medical curriculum in each country. Totally different from each other. Another important bits that I learned was the determination that shown by the delegates. They were all brilliant students and very keen to show that they are capable in doing medicine. No doubt they will be a good doctor.Although most of them are from developing country that doesn’t mean that they are left behind in terms of medical achievement and knowledge. For us as Malaysians, we always look high at the West, it is time to look at the East and see what can they bring to the world.

Many thanks again to those people who have made this trip successful for me. My apology to IMAM UK member for not being able to setup the table for IMAM nor I have time present about IMAM, the schedule was tight and there was no free time for me to at least make a donation drive for IMAM. My apology again.

Hope this informal report will sparks some motivations for the juniors to study harder, involve in any study or project at uni and also be brave to submit your paper. You never know when can you present your paper and gain splendid experience like mine.