Page 19 - MDOS2_Final

MY EARLY DAYS IN ALMATY

Bahasa dan Pustaka – Dewan Masyarakat, Dewan Siswa, Dewan Kosmik,
Dewan Budaya, and Pelita Bahasa. I started to enjoy reading them. I spent my
nights reading every issue and continued to read them throughout my stay in
Almaty. Many Malaysians do not appreciate these magazines much but they
are actually loaded with information. I also scanned some of the outdated
Malaysian newspapers the embassy received every fortnight by diplomatic
cargo. It was during this self-imposed lockdown that I experienced the most
depressing time in my life. I did make a phone call to my mother once in a
while. I wish I could do it every day but unlike the technology we have today,
the exorbitant international call charges then had made it uneconomical to
do so. I always looked forward to going to the of ce because it provided me
with the opportunity to interact with the outside world and to free myself
from the lockdown.

T en came Hari Raya on 27 December. Besides myself, Shukor was the
other Muslim home-based of cer at the embassy. He invited me to his house
on the f rst day of Hari Raya. T e next day, Mr. Nik Zainal Nik Yusof , also
known as Pak Nik Zainal, Regional Director of the Islamic Development
Bank based in Almaty invited us to his house. At that time, there were only
a few Malaysians working and living in Kazakhstan. Pak Nik Zainal and his
wife were known to be the only Malay family there. Other than visiting the
two houses, the Hari Raya atmosphere was not felt the way we are used to
in Malaysia.

After several days of being chauf eur-driven to and from work, I started to
drive using the embassy’s Volvo 940 GL. As someone who is used to driving
Japanese cars, I must say that it takes a strong person to handle this car. T e
accelerator, the brake and the clutch pedal as well as the gear lever felt tight
to press or shift. It was also my f rst time driving on snowy or icy roads. It
was challenging as one had to be extra careful and avoid speeding. To go to
places other than the embassy, I had to rely on the printed city map. I faced
another challenge as all the road signs and signboards were written in Cyrillic
letters. However, since some of the letters are similar to Roman alphabets,
like a, b, e, k, m, o, t, v, w and z, it helped me to make some wild guesses on
the street names and signboards. It also helped that Almaty’s road layout is
mostly parallel. During the Soviet era, Almaty was a military outpost, which
probably explains why the roads were built in such a way. So if you miss a

17