Ukraine - last post

This last post from Ukraine is more of a reflection to myself.

I am in Kyiv (Kiev in Russian) since last Friday and will be spending the rest of my time here before I’m flying back to London on the 7th of August. There are a few plans that I have, for the moment. VIsiting the Malaysian Embassy, and Malaysian students, visiting some mosques and some museums around the city. I have made contact with 1 Malaysian student, male, who’s currently in Kyiv, and hope to meet them by Monday or Tuesday next week.

I received an email from the university this morning. Geophysics, the exam that I failed earlier in May, will be on the 11th of August. I have most of the notes in PPT, and that’ll keep me more occupied when I’m not going out of the apartment.

It has been a really challenging time for me, so far, living for nearly 6 weeks in a country where there is no one here who knew me before. People hardly ever heard about Islam, what more knowing the teaching of the religion. They also thought, in a simplistic manner, that the world has 3 main races, namely the Whites, the Blacks and the Yellows. That’s what they were told by their teachers in primary school history lessons. Asians are categorized as the Yellows, thus they expect to see a Chinese/Japanese look whenever someone claimed to be from Asia. In a continuum of colour with black on one end and yellow on the other, I guest i’m more, in fact, heavily, inclined towards th black end. But that does not mean that I’m from Africa, nor India.

Proud to be a Muslim, and a Malay!

These 2 attributes made me ‘the most exotic’ person in my group of friends (in Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv). It’s with almost everything I have or I did; my skin colour, language, Malaysian Malay-accent of English, prayer, cooking etc. It’s cool to be a STRANGER. People keep talking about you if you are a stranger. That doesn’t mean that they dislike you, but they have much to learn about you. If you think the word DIFFERENT has a negative connotation, what about the word UNIQUE? I guess that word sounds a little bit better.

With regards to challenges living in this country, I believe it is clearly and easily understood. With troublesome toilets, no mosques (so far!), language difficulties, food, women etc. Oh yes, before I go on further, to some friends whom had contacted me earlier (don’t worry, I know who you are but the readers might not know), I have not committed any irressponsible, ungodly acts such as fornication etc, thanks to the education that I received from my parents, teachers and friends. You see, hanging out with people in Usrah, discussing about religion really gives you the energy to live through challenging times. Ok, now, back to the actual discussion. We may have a lot of challenges in travelling to places like where I am now. But do give ourselves hope, and always put our high trust in God. We may have done a lot of sins throughout the diffulties that we are in, but never trade our belief in God with anything else. So as long as we believe that God exist, and admit that God’s way is THE only way (in my case, it’s Islam), then there is still hope to become a better person.

I’d also like to convey a reminder to my friends out there whom are really good in following the religion. Have faith in everyone, including those whom ‘we’ see as ’sinners’, ‘problematic’ people. We may have certain backgrounds and surroundings that may have shaped the way think, behave, thus the way we live our lives. Now, assuming we live in a condition which is a hundred and eighty degrees on the opposite direction, would we want the ‘godly’ people to treat or perceive us in a negative way? We all know the answer, that is we want to be treated as a person who treats life as it is. So friends, be nice to everyone.