Community health Survey - Day 1

After the 1st day of community survey, I can conclude certain things.
1) The Malaysian sun is crazy
2) Tan people like myself can still get sun burn
3) Malaysian are not very friendly, especially when someone knocks on their door to do survey
4) It is not a smart idea to do survey door to door
5) It does not make sense to make 3rd year medical students do survey door to door
6) There are Malaysians who are nice and hospitable but they are very rare. most are just cold and unfriendly. It's surprising that the hot weather here has not warmed their heart yet.

Alrite. Today was the 1st day of our Community Health Survey. From the start i didn't think highly about the whole thing and my experiences today only confirms my speculations. First, the bus driver didn't know the way. He drove round and round the same road, taking us on a tour of Cheras, up hill down hill, in and out many lorongs as well as demonstrate how to make a 3 point turn with a bus several times. What was suppose to be a 20minute journey became 1 hour and 20 minute. I really wanted to just drive the bus away when he went down to find directions several time.

Next, we walked around Cheras Baru and Cheras Utama from 9am- 3pm. Yes. We walked like complete dungu for 6HOURS!!! We went from house to house shouting Hello!! Uncle!! Aunty!! Selamat Pagi!! and anything we could to get the residence attention. The results?

For every 10 house we asked, 6 responded 4 didn't on average. 50% of responds we got was only from a barking dog. That leaves 3/10 human responses. 2/3 of the people we spoke to said Don;t want, Not Free. No one at Home?!?!? or Don't Want to Buy!! Do we look like salesman to you? Damn it. We're 3rd year medical student ok!!!!! Right. so for every 10 houses we only get to interview 1 person. That's on average. We completed 92 surveys today. That means we knocked on at least 920 houses. Waliau!! No wonder they don want to open door for us. We were like idiots going from house to house leh!!

We have a quota of 200 completed surveys. So tomorrow we have to hunt down another 1000 houses. Shit. This sucks man.

The only nice things we had today was that lunch was in a shady place and there was one man who was hospitable to us. At first he looked like he was unfriendly. But he invited us into his house and asked us to sit. He even offered us guava juice. We nicely declined but he insisted so we (Me, Xi Yan and Joanne) accepted half cup each. hehe He even showed us his family picture, allowed us to use his toilet and switched on the fan for us to rest awhile. haha what a nice old man. He's about 70 years old with a big family.

I was quite cautious at first since we were in the house of a complete stranger and I had 2 girls with me. Lucky he was not trying to spike our drink or something. haha. Then I was thinking, "This guy is not afraid we harm him meh?" Maybe he was more relaxed because he saw the 2 girls.. haha Moral of story: Always partner girls for survey. People treat you nicer. hahaha

Tomorrow will be another long day. Better sleep earlier tonight. I shall be better armed tomorrow. Shades, sun block and umbrella. Bring it on!