pelf-ism is contagious

Yesterday a bunch of us went to Pasir Pulau in Dungun for a release of terrapin hatchlings ceremony. The ceremony, which was officiated by the Terengganu Mentri Besar, started only at 3pm but we were to arrive at the location at 9am.

I got up at 6am, picked my colleage at his place at 6:30am, picked the Research Assistant at 6:40am and then we went to the campus. The van which we had earlier hired for a day, arrived and we loaded the display panels and specimens onto it.

We picked Rohan in town before picking my Supervisor and off we went. Oh by the way, Rohan is a Ph.D candidate with the University of Canberra in Australia, who has been working on the turtles in Cambodia for 3.5 years. Rohan, if you’re reading this, “Hi!!” *waves hand*

As soon as we arrived at Pasir Pulau, we quickly set up our display panels and displayed the specimens we brought on the table. It was not long when the orang kampung started swarming the place.

Quite a number of other species of turtles were also put on display - in the makeshift pool. There was an adult male river terrapin, a juvenile male painted terrapin, some softshell terrapins as well as a couple of other tortoises.

The live turtles exhibits not only attracted adults..

But kids as well..

There was a guess-the-weight-of the-painted-terrapin contest going on. One person was allowed to submit only one guess and over 400 guesses were collected. See how these people were so eager to guess-and-win.

There were also drawing and colouring contests, and I was supposed to be one of the judges but I was too busy at our exhibition booth that I did not have time to judge the kids’ drawings and colourings. Bad judge

Some of the kindergarten and school children came to our booth to look at the exhibits and we tried as much as we could to educate them about the importance of saving these terrapins. We do not know how much of what we said really went into their heads though..

After lunch, the painted terrapin was weighed and guess much it weighed..?

After the long and boring speeches during which I fell asleep, the Mentri Besar visited the booths. He came to our booth first and chit-chatted for while with the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) teachers who were smuggled out of wanted to join the release ceremony halfway through their volunteering week in Redang Island.

As soon as the Mentri Besar left our booth, we boarded the van and went to the project site at Pasir Kumpal by road. The VVIPs and VIPs were taken to Pasir Kumpal by boat, which would take a mere 2 minutes. But by road it was further, about 10 minutes’ drive.

Upon arrival at Pasir Kumpal, the Mentri Besar and other VIPs then released 100 river terrapin hatchlings into the river where they initially originated.

After the release ceremony, two on-site briefings were given to the Mentri Besar, one each by the Director of PERHILITAN and the River Terrapin Research Project Leader.

At about 4:30pm, we were all invited for tea. Boy, the food was yummylicious - which made lunch tasted like crap, though I didn’t eat anything because all they served were beef and thrash vege which had flies all over them *yucks*

It started to rain cats and dogs when we were almost done with tea. We quickly left Pasir Kumpal for fear of being stuck there because the accessing road was not in good conditions. Plus we had to get back to Pasir Pulau to clear and keep our exhibits.

Upon arriving at Kuala Terengganu, we dropped the ISKL teachers at Ping Anchorage and Rohan at the airport before returning to campus to unload the stuff from the van.

It was a tiring day, no doubt and I had a very bad headache at the end of the day. Yes, the number of terrapin hatchlings released and their size were insignificant, but we were glad we had the opportunity to meet the orang kampung and to create the little bit of awareness in the kids.

More pictures here.