Meeting and maintaining friendships with locals is an amazing way to feel like you're part of the community and to get great advice on life here.
Step Three is maintaining a routine. For me, this means running in the park in the morning, focusing on our training throughout the day and spending time with friends at night. My morning run lately has taken me to the park in front of the Twin Towers, where there is a trail and plenty of eager runners at sunrise. Time with friends at night includes going to dinner, wandering night street food markets and going out dancing.
Step Four is absorbing all the information from training. Our first week of training was full of useful knowledge about life here: the country's history, government, school system, religions, races, states, economy and healthcare. As I mentioned, Malaysia only gained independence in 1957, so the government is relatively young. However, the prime minister is NOT young - he's 94 years old -- wild! The main races in Malaysia are Malaysian Malay, Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indian. The main religions are Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. There are 13 states throughout the country.
Through all of this, I've somehow formed a bit of a home here in Malaysia already, and I'm eager to get to Malacca to officially move into my home and get to know the community members of my school and neighborhood. Next step: learning the local language - Malay!
