My Revisit

In trips home to Taiping, I'd sometimes drive past our school but have never stopped. I'd look at the sports field, the buildings, the front yard, and wonder at the goings-on within. Who is the principal now? What is she like (somehow I always picture a woman)?

I've not been that way for some years now, and was quite curious. I had seen the pictures in the "Sejarah TMGS" file that Su See had forwarded and didn't know what to expect. I believe I was rather relieved as I drove up to the gate. The buildings were still intact. The front lawn, where we used to have assemblies, is immaculate and overseen by the national and state flags. Overall, I sensed love and pride at work, to upkeep the old lady as best as can be. And so, she forges on and even manages to look stately while wearing a fading, peeling and cracking coat. I was glad to see our alma mater retaining her character.

"Why don't you come over to the school and meet us?"

That was the invitation which brought me there last Wed. On Tues, I had googled TMGS for the telephone contact. I was struck by the warmth of first Farah, who answered my call, and then Shima who said I should talk to Pn Noriza, the school head, I was surprised, to say the least. I had not expected such openness.

"My staff told me an old girl has volunteered to help."

I was surprised again.

"Shall we meet at 5.30pm today?"

I was simply bowled over by Pn Noriza. Wow. She asked me where I was at that point, Tues, slightly after noon. Told her I was still in KL. Her relatives had taken six hours due to construction work at the Jelapang toll. We agreed it'd be best to meet the next day.

So 9.30am it was. I took my time walking to the office. This was the first time I was stepping on this ground since leaving in 1980. Laughter from a time past pealed through the corridors of my mind and I saw again our fresh young faces. And, those of our dear teachers, albeit with a different set of expressions. As I stood at the doorway and looked up the grand staircase, I saw again my gang and I scrambling up the stairs, shrieking and laughing.

I was standing there with a nostalgic grin on my face at the foot of the stairs, when a lady greeted me with a smile.

"You must be Swee Bin."

Will surprises never end? She turned out to be Lay Hoon. Ex-Convent girl, mind you. The mood that I was in, everything transported me back to school days, and I made the cliched joke. We shared a light-hearted moment of schoolgirl rivalries.

"Puan Noriza is also from Convent."

"Puan Haslina (English teacher) is ex-Convent."

Gosh, it's an army of ex-Convent girls serving at TMGS!

And doing a good job at that. Since coming onboard last Oct, Pn Noriza has used the very limited funds available to address the urgent problem of termite infestation in the resource room and reorganizing rooms. Teachers and the school's general maintenace workers pooled their effots to clear clutter, repair and refurbish furniture, re-arrange rooms, lay on linoleum and repaint. Through resourcefulness, the resource room, coursework room, operations room, surau, counselling room, male teachers' toilet and foyer have been spruced up and functioning properly once again. When I was there, a teacher and two students were painting a container designated to house text-books under the Skim Bantuan Buku Teks.

What needs to be done next will need more funds.

I had asked her again and again - what is the budget needed by the school? They have applied to the Ministry of Education for a special allocation under the newly announced fund for missions school. At the same time, they wished to find their own ways to raise funds. Pn Noriza initially shied away from naming a target figure.

At my prodding, she burst out with, "Why don't we make it RM500,000?" to the astonished looks of Lay Hoon and Mrs Ng. "If we want to dream, let's dream big," she bolstered her two loyal soldiers.

Maybe, I was looking astonished too because she went on to say:

"I'll be very happy if, as a first target, this old girls' fund-raising raises enough for us to do up the teachers' room. Proper windows, airconditioning, proper flooring, proper furniture...I'll love to give my teachers partitions so they have some privacy."

And gave her reassuring yet determined smile again.