Memory of Street booth

(1)
    Still in dream, I heard Manon calling me, although in a soft voice--"Fresh, Fresh..."
    Yep, that's my name, which, ironically is not accepted by Facebook.
    I opened my eyes. "Awatif texted me," Manon said, "that the street booth starts from 9 am."
    The idea of not having set an alarm felt like a lightning in my head, I responded: "And what time is it now?"
    "8:30."

(2)
    Half an hour later, we got on the bus that took us to University station. That's where we were going to do the street booth for two days.
    Manon sat beside me. She is a Dutch intern arriving 2 days later than me, so we basically started from the same line. Before us there were also interns from different countries. Like us, they stayed in KL for 6 to 8 weeks for the project. Among them we only get to know Asuka, a Japanese girl that had already spent 4 weeks here when we arrived. Now she's back home.
    "Does Awatif mention when we can finish the steet booth?" I asked.
    "3 pm." Manon answered.
    "Hmm."

(3)
    University bus station.
    This is the place we can't be more farmiliar, for nearly every day we come here and switch bus or LRT. Roughly speaking, we've come here for more than 80 times, as a normal passenger or a passby, except for now. This time we come with mission, tough, awkward, or may I say--"almost impossible".
    It's absolutely harder than it sounds like--spread some information about HIV and aids to those who are waiting for bus. Imagine back in China, if someone aproachs me in the bus stop saying "Do you know about HIV or aids?" I probably would turn around and leave even if there comes my bus... How people will react to us? With this wondering, we had been hesitating after arriving at the University bus station for 10 minutes, witnessing a bus coming by and almost everyone got on and left.
    The first step is always the most difficult. Anyway, we managed to aproach to one man, who seemed to be bored..."Hi,"--ok, let's do it!... quickly--"we're from AIESEC UM..."--he seemed not that against it, good--"blablabla..."
    With a graceful "thank you"--oh you can't imagine how GRACEFUL we are--we got the first name signed!

(4)
    There's an old saying: "Practice makes perfect." Well, it's true.
    "Hi, we are from AIESEC UM. "--that was the opening. The station is close to UM, so most of the people waiting for buses are either students or staffs of UM. Even though they are not, at least they know about UM. They might know little about AIESEC, but stating at the beginning that we're from something related to UM makes us more official and harmless.
    "Today we're doing a volunteer program, "--that means "we are not asking a donation or begging money from you, don't worry about your pocket."
    And here comes some knowledge about HIV or AIDS--"..that is we spread some knowledge of HIV and AIDS in the station, like the highest possibility of getting affected is by sharing needles. And unprotected sex puts people in a risky exposure of getting affected, too. That's why we encourage people to wear condoms during sex and if doubted, it's better to get tested."--mostly just some basic knowlege that can be easily accepted and remembered is enough and effected.
    "While raising the awareness of protecting ourselves, we also encourage people to care for those affected. We can shake hands with them, hug them, eat food prepared by them...these are safe."--change to the other aspect of the program.
"...and if you don't mind, can you sign your name here, so that we can know how many people get this message?"that's basically the end of the conversation.
    Passage above is generally the final version of our talk. At first we said "we're exchanged students." but people seemed quite confused about that:"Why is exchanged students are related to HIV and AIDS?" so we change it to "Today we're doing a volunteer program.". Indeed we learned from each talk and it got more and more natural and fluent.

(5)
    Of course, after the first suceess, we also come through a lot of responds that are not very cheering--
    "Hi..."and he went away.
    "Sorry, I'm waiting for someone."...which sounds totally not a reason, not even an excuse.
    "Hi...""No." Hmm? We havn't started! "No approach.""Oh, no. We are not selling things, just sharing some information about...""Still, no interest."
    Maybe it's widely considered that we are doing a volunteer program, that we've come all the way here, surrounded by all the gas from the bus, standing for hours under the sun--Malasian sun!-- to do a good deed, so we deserve to be accepted and respected. If I say I'm not disappointed when someone keeps doubting or just not willing to listen from the first moment, it's defenitely a lie. However, it's not at all exaggerated to say, that our "fragile" little heart become stronger and stronger after all this. Also we can be more considerate, standing in other's shoes after this experience.
    Gradually we started to be more confident and learned to keep calmed facing the misunderstading. There was a young man who nelected to listen. Ok, deep breath. And we explaned that we are not selling things just a simple message sharing that wouldn't take long. He started to smile:"Oh sorry, I thought..."That's really a memorable moment!

(6)
    In fact, most of the people we've been talked to were quite friendly. We noticed a very adorable detail: when they saw their bus was coming but our talk was not yet finished. They were too shy--or so polite--to say dirrectly:"I need to get on the bus." We were really moved by this and learned to be more alert for them to observe the bus when we started to talk.
    There was a man, who already went a few steps away after signing his name, turned back and said:"You say the best way to protect ourselves is using condom? I think the best way is stop having sex with someone outside the family." At first we were a little frightened, but he seemed nice even though he held a different opinion. That actually helped us to improve the talk to avoid the misunderleading and to make it accepted in different religions.
    Besides, we met the most amazing and kind people that kept smiling the whole time. We had eye contact and it felt so good--just like a breeze in the hot summer.
    In the second day, even the ticket selling officer and the owner of the breakfast stand nearby become curious about what we were doing. After a nice talk, we got their names, too!

(7)

    Good news: next week we are going to do a steetbooth in Majid Jamek LRT station!...

    ...And then there will be new interns to join us!

By Fresh