The Unexpected Guest, Gua Musang, Malaysia // 2015

11 January

On the third day of our flood relief mission, everything was going pretty well. We were sitting under the trees, waiting for the helicopter to return to load up supplies and continue delivering to the villages.

Suddenly, we had an unexpected guest.

Equipped with only a small backpack and a machete, Nordin made his way to find food for his family and fellow villagers.

This pair of legs has trekked 2 days and 2 nights to come seek help because they have no food in his village. Their crops were all swept away by the flood. No vehicles on ground can reach his village due to massive landslides and collapsed bridges. To reach his village from our base camp would normally take about 5 hours drive in a decent road condition. Of course he didn't use the same route, he trekked across the jungle, but imagine the distance..... His name is Nordin, from Kg.Temaga. He is of Temiar tribe.

Nordin explaining to us that this is a fang of a 3-year old wild boar.

Spending 3 days there, I can conclude that the Orang Asli are very humble and shy people. They won't come ask for help if they're not really desperate. They are tougher and much more resilient than any of us. Even the kids are very shy. When we gave out sweets to them, you can see they were excited to see the sweets, but dare not come near us until we call them to come a few times, and then they queue up. I gave 2 kaya buns to a kid, immediately he went towards the other kids and start breaking up the buns to share with everyone... without anyone telling him to do so. He could have had the buns to himself, but everyone gets a bite instead.

We immediately arranged for extra delivery to send food supply to Nordin's village. Thankfully, Captain Shamsul was very accommodating. We also ended up stranded for another night in Gua Musang because by the end of all deliveries, it was too late for us to fly back to Subang. School reopens the next day which means Capt. Shamsul and Azlan didn't get to personally send their kids to school. Dr.Kwok had to get his son to replace him for duty. But we all knew we did what we had to do, and there were all smiles on everyone's face. 

Nordin had smiles on his face too, knowing that we had sent food to his village. We didn't carry him back in the helicopter because there's weight limit and we wanted to ferry as much food as possible. Now, he had to spend another 2 days and 2 nights going home.