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On the 25th
of January 2008, the committee members of Batch 5 MBBS organised an outing for
their foster parents from Kampung Bujang to visit the Semeling Campus as part
of a class project. The idea of the project developed as a form of thanks to
these various families for having been so kind as to take in 60 of the said
students as foster children during the village stay program at the Kampung. The
event kicked off at 3.00 pm when 2 AIMST buses, guided by the students, headed
to the village hall in Kampung Bujang to pick up the eagerly awaiting foster
families.
Within minutes,
since the campus and the village are only 12 kilometres apart, both buses,
which were packed to the brim with the parents and their children, arrived at
their first tour destination, the Administration Block. 9 students of Batch 5
stood by the newly arrived buses greeting its passengers with warmth and cheer.
The air was abuzz with chatter and uncontained excitement as the dumb-struck
village people gazed in awe at the infrastructure of the administrative block. ‘Ooohs’
and ‘ahhs’ could be heard over the din of excited voices as the students
introduced and led the people to the Auditorium (great hall). The children were
particularly fascinated by the miniature model of the lay out of the campus
that was on display before entering the hall and rushed around it to get a
clearer view.
Once the thrill
of the Great Hall had subsided somewhat, the students then guided the villagers
to the Medical Block for their second tour destination. Here, since the crowd
was quite large, the villagers were divided into 2 groups, one which went round
the lecture theatres first and the other, which explored the Anatomy Museum,
Dissection Halls and the ‘morgue’ where the cadavers were kept. Those villagers
who were curious and brave-at-heart ventured into the cadaver storage room only
to come out with teary eyes as a result of the powerful formalin fumes in the
chamber. Even the children, some of them at least, went in but emerged chocking
from the vapours. In the mean time, the faint-hearted lingered in the Anatomy Museum spellbound by the various
specimens out for display and asked a multitude of questions regarding the
authenticity of the specimens.
Besides this,
the group was also taken the Multi-disciplinary laboratories (MDLs) where they
were briefed on the various equipment found there and the various charts about
bacteria and viruses that decorated its walls. Even here, some sharp villagers
asked some very challenging questions that left some of the students quite
amazed let alone dumbfounded!
Once the Medical
block had been satisfactorily explored, the group was then taken to the library
block and here the children clamoured to go see the library. As a result,
several journeys were made up and down by the lifts so that all the assembled
people had an opportunity to check out the facilities provided by the library. By
this time, the adrenaline rush, that had initially energized the people, was
beginning to dwindle and so the last stop for the day was the cafeteria, where
the villagers were treated to a hearty meal and a warm drink to wash it all
down. Just before they made their way back to the buses, the students and some
members of the Medical Faculty gathered with the villagers for a photo session
to forever save the memory of the visit these people made to our university.
With that, we bade the villager’s farewell and
watched them leave, on the buses, back home to Kampung Bujang after an
exhilarating day at our glorious university.
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