It was unusually good to wake up at 5am, make some last minute amendments to my shirt (cut and sew), skip breakfast and drive off into the sunrise. I like having dew on my car, it makes me think of mint and grass. But I think I like escaping the office more.

We reached Muar a little later than expected and everyone was waiting—the kids, teachers and the food. The flood came and left them with discarded computers, watermarked walls, clogged drains, lost records, deaths and an extremely dry season. By the time we passed out the stationeries, books and cookies, I was literally melting. I don’t know if I have any sweat left in my body.

Later, we visited another school in an oil palm estate away. It was built in 1941 and had an old building with a glass cabinet filled with taxidermy and dust. Strange, indeed. Fun? Of course.

As I was wandering around, four little kids stumbled upon me. Everything about them is so tiny, you could so pick them up with one hand and carry them off. I was talking to one of the girls and she’s got one of the biggest set of eyes I’ve seen. Really beautiful and arresting. Our conversation went something like this:

What’s your name?
Puteri (Princess)
And what’s your brother’s name?
Putera (Prince)
… And who’s the Raja (King)?
My Daddy