KUCHING – After experiencing life with a foster family at a village, Uzbek student Firuz Zaripov says he has been humbled by the warmth and generosity of the village folks despite their day-to-day struggle to make ends meet.
A student at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Firuz said that his three-day stay with a family in Simunjan, about two hours’ drive from Kuching, has changed his life.
“They did not care much about technology or material things. They do not have much but they shared with us whatever they have,” said Firuz of his foster family.
He and another student stayed with homemaker Sapiah Ahmad and local authority worker Mohd Salim and their four- and six-year-old children. The couple’s two other children work in another town.
Sapiah, who taught Firuz some Malay, helps the family make ends meet by selling foodstuff at a roadside stall in the village.
He said that although the family did not have much and leads a simple life, “they treated me the same way they treat their own children. They were very generous and always made sure I have enough to eat.
“And the food is always more ‘nyaman’ (Sarawak Malay meaning “delicious”) because it is home cooked. As a student here, I am so used to eating out so it was really good to have home cooked meals,” he says with a grin.
“I am truly humbled by the way they live and it has changed the way I look at my own life,” he said. You don’t need money and material things to be happy. It’s the people around you that make you happy.
“They (Sapiah and Mohd Salim) are too kind and humble. You won’t find people like that in the city,” said Firuz, whose family moved from Uzbekistan to Dubai when he was six.
Firuz was among 26 students who signed up for Swinburne Sarawak’s foster family program to help students from abroad learn the local culture and experience the way of life of a typical kampung.
Other students in the program were from Pakistan, Kenya, Yemen, Morocco, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Mynmar and West Malaysia.