Brunei's South Pole Girl Talk

23/10/2009- THE BRUNEI’S SOUTH POLE GIRL TALK

On Friday 23 October 2009, a talk was held at the UBD by Dk Najibah Eradah who is known as the first Bruneian to go to the South Pole, the purpose of the talk was to motivation to the student in UBD. Not all students in UBD were invited to the talk, and we, as a BEACA students was so lucky to be invited to attend the talk. The talk started at 10.00 am and finished at 12.oo pm.

The talk started with Doa Al Fatihah, then Dr. Asmah continue by introducing the South Pole girl, Dk Najibah Eradah, or known as Era, she is 26 years old. Actually, she is a teacher, where she used to teach at S.O.A.S.College. I know that from my brother who used to be one of her student during her time at S.O.A.S.College. She told us lots of thing about her, she started to love adventure since she was 6 years old. She has been studying at Kingston University at United Kingdom where she took Bachelor of Science. In addition, she is the member of the Brunei Adventure Recreation Association.

Era with the BEACA students

Then she talked more about herself and shared in front all of the students and lecturers on what she have been through during the training before the actual journey. The training took part by 8 commonwealth countries which are Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore and United kingdom, each country have their own representatives which is all women. The training took part at Norway then to New Zealand. Then she told us the difficulty she faced during the training, one of them was when they setting up their camp. To set up their camp they have to use the metal stick, which is very cold and the difficulty was because they have to wear glove which make it more difficult for them to grab the stick, and if they don’t wear the gloves, they may suffer frost bite where their finger will swell and discolorated then their finger will have to be amputate. She also told us that the cold and snow weather creates so many difficulties for them and the wind makes the weather colder.

Their sources of drinks come from the snow where they have to melt and cook the snow into water. Moreover, she told us that its takes a time to melt the snow. Then I started to realize how difficult it is in poor country where they suffered from the lack of water, unlike in Brunei where they take the water for granted, they waste the water. What she has said really help me to understand and be more aware on how we make use of our natural resource such as water. As for breakfast, they eat cereal porridge and they eat chocolate to get more energy. For every camp there will be two women living in the camp. Era was in the same camp with Sofia, I could not remember where Sofia comes from. Therefore, in the camp both of them have creates a lot of good aspect such as teamwork, responsibilities, discipline and so on. Before sleeping, they only have a very short time to do their cooking, drinks and sanitation. So in order to make use of the time, they divide their work into two. For example, if Era is doing her sanitation so Sofia will do the cooking and they do it one after the other for every day.

For me she is a very good person, and I was amazed when she revealed how actually motivates herself to change the bad habits of her for example on punctuality. She uses the word `Janji Melayu’ as her own motivation. And because she herself is a Malay, she don’t really like that the Malay people being labeled as `Janji Melayu’ because for her that actually shows the other races that the Malay people is not punctual so she work on her punctuality to remove the label and being a good example to the other Malay people.

THE THING I HAVE LEARNED:

· The talk was very useful and it gave a lot of inspiration to me. Era is very motivate with her goal, she show us how to work on our motivation

· She taught us how to creates teamwork, responsibilities and discipline

· She make me realize and understand how important for us to preserve the resources that god gave to us, we shouldn’t waste it

· She gives me inspiration that one day I also want to make my country proud

Lastly, I wish Era a very good luck. May Allah bless you along your journey and back in Brunei at safe.

Week 10- Diplomatic Resident

Week 10 – trekking at Diplomatic Resident

On 18^th October 2009(Sunday

), my activity for BEACA’s group was a trekking at Diplomatic Resident, Brunei Muara district somewhere at Jalan Yayasan .

My responsibility for that week was as a sweeper, and my leader was Malek. As usual, before bringing the entire BEACA student for the trek

, firstly we will have to do a recce. The recce took place on 16^th October. During the recce all the sweeper and leader came. The purpose of the recce was to make our mark along our track under the guida

nce of Dr Irene. The purpose of experience was not only to explore environment in our country but we also doing some community work by picking up litter to reduce littering on the environment.

Our target for the activity was

to keep our environment clean and to maintain the unique nature of our environment.

Brunei Darussalam is one of the countries which are rich in flora and fauna.

During the trek, I saw a lot of plants but we didn’t manage

to see an insects or animal. Maybe because we always make noises which may sca

re the insects/animals away. We also got to see a pandan leaves.

Pandan

Dead trees

The trekking last for almost two hours, it was very tiring. During the recce, I and Malek have to remember the track because on Sunday it will be our turn to guide a group of 4/5 from the BEACA students for the trek.

The important things that I have learnt:-

· Do not make too much noise or you will not get to see any insects or animal

· Teamwork is important if you want to make things easier

· The beauty of our nature environment is being ignored or abandoned, so it is us who have to step up to create awareness on the other people

Lastly, I think the trekking was good. It teach us to be fit and tough both mentally and physically.