In America, most families would never dream of having random people come to their house and stay for a couple days. Showing someone the "American way" would not exactly be what we would consider a vacation and/or a learning experience.
In Malaysia, the idea of a
homestay is quite popular. The government has given some communities money to ready their houses so that foreigners (and city folk) can come view what living in a Malaysia village is like. We took Philip to one about an hour out of town.
The people we stayed with were in their 60's and lived all around their children (so we met many of their children). Their entire front yard was a garden filled with flowers and fruit trees. The house had many rooms in it, and we really were able to practice our language (most of the people we were around couldn't speak English).
Along with many
traditional decorations, their house had a ping pong table, so we did get some playing in, as you can see below.
At about 11PM, we all went out to the ocean to try to catch crabs. We didn't catch any crabs, but it was a fun time. There was one area with a million little crabs (see picture below). After "playing" in the water for a while, we got the
frisbee out and the kids really enjoyed playing.
On the second day, we were sitting around with the family and they gave the drum to their 11 month old grandson. They taught him how to drum, see below:
Before we left, one of the Pakcik's (Uncle's) daughters gave Angela a baju kurung - sangat cantik (very pretty). She did manage to put it on backwards initially though... haha!
