This is a strange experience for me as a foreign student in Malaysia. This started when I could not pay for my rent as a student. I had to pack my loads from where I was putting up which is very far from the university every day. Although, where I was staying was far, the people I was staying with were nice but the work they do while I was there with them makes me to think otherwise.
I am here in this country for Ph.D. studies and they are not here as a student and so we do not have the same mindset. If I come back late due to a far distance any day, I got a lot of backlashes from these people due to their anxiety that police may be following me one day and so they are afraid. Although I wasn't comfortable myself because I came for a study and I met with this guy who introduced me to his friends and they welcomed me to their midst but, their the works they do I cannot do it when I was introduced into it and so I left there into the university lab fully where I was managing because sometimes I will purposely stay behind if we finished late around 9 pm.
Although, I do not have the luxury of money to pay for house rent and my salary had been stopped because my university back home told me they cannot sponsor my PhD but will give me study leave for three years and so I had to look for an alternative for my survival in the strange land.
So, I had to rent a room to share with three other friends due to distance and comfort and I had to pay RM300 (30,000 Naira) monthly by sleeping on the floor/tiles, no bed, no chair even worst than the way I was managing on my table and chair back in the lab. I had to struggle for six months paying this money monthly and one day, I told my roommates that I will have to leave the place because I could not raise the money for my rent anymore and no one is even ready to listen to me. Then I had to pack my things to the lab finally one night.
I studied the university environment very well before packing my goods to the school like I said I don't have money to pay for rent which is almost 30,000 to 60,000 Naira monthly payment minimum for a manageable room with a bed elsewhere.
I usually see few of my colleagues staying behind to do their research and in my lab, I had a friend that we did master's degree together while at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Yusuf Ali Olugbenga) and he always stays behind too and we started living in the lab. As early as 4 or 5 am, we shall go to the toilet and take our bathes, change our clothes and prepare for the next day's research work. He has a place that he stays but very far to the university too and he will only use two or three days in the lab with me and go back home but I don't have anywhere to go and so I made the lab my abode for the time being.
The Lord really blessed us then that no single week in 2016 and early 2017 while as a student that they will not organize a seminar or workshop and so they will bring free foods and many of the students will eat after the workshop or seminar and we would join them and even packed some for a night or two. It was a unique experience.
The University then usually allocates some money for these workshops and they will definitely provide foods for the attendees and students can take away after the programme. This really helped people like me that are in a strange land without money or sponsors/grants/salary and we started living like that until one day, my lab was changed and I need to pack all my hidden clothes away to another place and I was posted to another far laboratory outside the University, but the University owns the gigantic building (WISMA), but I contested it due to my polio and movement from and to the university especially if I have a meeting with my supervisors, and so my supervisor gave approval to it that they should give me a nearby lab and they gave me one in the faculty near the general office (Software Engineering Lab). This is a bit relief and so I need to pack my things from the former lab to the new one, but it was very small unlike the first one.
I started doing the same thing here with few students that also sleep in this small lab too. Students are actually suffering when there is no help or aid to meet their necessary or academic needs abroad or home.
One day, as usual, I washed my clothes and used AC to dry it and one of the students (a Pakistani guy) came to the lab and see that I spread my clothes there and he started threatening me by taking my video and make it viral and I challenged him and later heard that he was doing the same thing before I joined that lab until they reported him and so he wanted to do the same for me. You know Naija spirit now, I resisted him and he was afraid and left.
This challenge made me to determine to move out from the lab unfailing as I don't want the school management to know that I do sleep in the university lab in October 2017 which I know they are aware of due to camera planted everywhere but only leave us since we do not do any negative things there. They know we are self-sponsor students and they kept quiet.
But I had to change the narrative and so I have been going to a church for close to two years and one woman approached me one day why I always come late to the church sweating often and I told her I leave very far to the church and she promised to be picking me up every Sunday to church and we strike a deal and she will come to my faculty to pick me every Sunday and I will find my way back or if I am lucky someone will send me back to the University. She did that for four good months until the incident that happens in the lab occurred and I told her I will need to leave the school, that she shouldn't come to pick me again that I am looking for another accommodation and she said what happened to where I was staying and I told her I was leaving in the lab since I came to Malaysia that I have no money to pay my rent anymore, however,I was doing a freelance job, this is what I used to pay my school fees and eat throughout my stay in Malaysia from 2016-2020.
So, she spoke with the elders in the church that I am looking for a house and that they can help me in a way to my surprised I got a place for RM400 (40,000 Naira), and the landlord asked for 2 plus 1 (meaning 2 months deposit plus one month rent). During this period, I got freelance jobs that I did for some students and they pay me and I used that to pay for this rent immediately. The place is 15 minutes' walk to the church for me which is great. This woman makes sure the church management comes to my aid and they promised to pay RM350 out of the money for me for 18 months. I had to write to them to stop the payment in May 2019. It was a great relief and I blessed God for their help, may God continued to bless His church.
I moved out of that room to another big one since the former one doesn't have windows, too small but since I had no choice I had to manage it for the time being. So, the new one is more spacious and costlier when I finished my PhD candidature defence on May 14, 2019. But, I had to bore the cost of this rent until I leave Malaysia in September/October 2020 after graduation.
In all, God is to be praised! Halleluyah!! God is able and I am able through HIM!! Hallelujah !!!
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