We are back in Malaysia, YAY!
We already shipped most of our stuff to Malaysia on 23 January. I booked a 1300 pick up slot for the shipping but the night before I received a text message that the truck would come at between 1000 and 1200. Coincidentally, Omar had his first fever that evening with his body temperature reaching as high as 39 degrees Celsius. So, I was still no where near finished with the packing when the driver called at 0930 that morning to say that he would arrive at 1015.
Afi had to take Omar for his GP appointment at 1050. On panic mode, I called Arshad for help. He ended up bringing most of the heavy boxes down all by himself when the delivery truck arrived while I completed all the labelling and paperwork. The shipping company quotes 6-12 weeks for delivery. We pray that everything arrives safely.
Omar finally met Simon on 2 February when we had lunch with him and two other of his students, Marie and Yunli. On 4 February, we had our formal farewell at the Summertown House common room. With our tight finances we didn’t originally plan to organise the event but in the end were glad that we did. The attendance was beyond our expectations and we were deeply touched by the kind gestures and well wishes.
Our flight out of the UK was on 8 February, the very day our visa expires. Since it was a morning flight, we decided to leave Oxford on 7 February and stay overnight in a hotel (Travelodge Heathrow Terminal 5) near the airport. We made an appointment with Chris the caretaker to hand in our apartment keys at 1300. Zul also graciously offered to accompany us to the airport.
As 7 February arrived, we again apparently underestimated how much packing we had to do. There simply was not enough space, both volume and weight wise, to pack everything we wanted to bring home with us. On top of that, we also had to make sure that the apartment was in an acceptable enough condition for the hand-in. Again, Arshad came to our rescue by babysitting Omar while the both of us busied ourselves with the cleaning and packing. Zul also came later to lend a hand. Thankfully, Chris only dropped in after 1500 and after a quick scan of the apartment gave us his thumbs up.
Finally, after packing and repacking at least three times we were ready to go. Arshad, Uyie, and Zul helped bring our luggage down to the waiting cab. Syikin, Azad, and Min were also there to send us off. We left Summertown House for Gloucester Green Bus Station at about 1820.
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