News! News! I have big, sad news… it’s our last full day in the precious village of Kuala Tahan, and we’re all devastated. But don’t worry—in true Menlo fashion, we’re not going out without a bang! This is Sienna reporting to you on June 3rd, 2025—preparations for our final farewell dinner are in full swing this afternoon. Let’s take it back to this morning and recount how it all started.


Ananya and I got to sleep in a bit until 8, when Angah dropped by the house and woke us up. Unfortunately, we missed our last chance to watch Didi & Friends today, but of course we still know the theme song. Horah Hooray! Angah, who is our host mom Hidayah’s sister, joined us for breakfast, which was roti and curry with bananas and nasi goreng. And again, we had to have our giant coffees with tons of condensed milk. It’s a Hidayah staple. 


At around 9, we left the house to join the rest of the group at the community hall. After our daily VIBE check-ins (Vitals, Internal, Basic Needs, Excited For…), we rehearsed all of our performances for tonight. Our musical number, written by Sadie, Kate, Phoebe, and Fernanda, is a spinoff of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” but with extra-special lyrics referencing our time in Malaysia. The four of them are also performing an a cappella rendition of the Cup Song from Pitch Perfect, which they’ve perfected after loads of practice. Our whole-group skit is a nod to the beautiful wedding we saw last Saturday (see Blog Post #12!) and takes place between Ella and Sohum. But the funny twist is that pretty much everything goes wrong. Leeches, sick guests, and even Asher with a Rojak Mee TikTok cameo. It’s hilarious! We also had a few students working on a slideshow full of pictures from our adventures that we’ll show to the families tonight. And we can’t forget the gratitude speeches to thank each family for inviting us into their beautiful homes and hosting us on this trip. I have the honor of giving one of these speeches, and I’m really hoping I won’t get too emotional tonight :) Each family is also receiving a handmade card lovingly illustrated by Lya, Ella, and Ava, along with gifts made using beeswax from the beehive at Menlo!





With all of this preparation out of the way, we joined our host families outside near the fire pits to start cooking some of the foods we’ll enjoy later tonight. One of these specialties is lemang—glutinous rice cooked in bamboo shoots and banana leaves. Apparently, we came at a special time: lemang is only cooked when holidays such as Hari Raya Haji are around the corner. We spent our time rolling banana leaves into long bamboo shoots, filling them with sticky coconut rice, and preparing aromatics for the rest of our dishes, including beef and chicken rendang. And we loved seeing the kiddos—Syaddad, Syafi, Kayla, and Madiha—run around with big smiles while we cooked.





All of us have been really loving the card game President lately, so we had to sneak in a few rounds of that too while we had some time off.


Lunch rolled around, and I bet you can guess what we had: yep, chicken and rice. But it was no less tasty than it has been! To accompany it were some hash browns (seriously tasted like home), salad, and some sweet berry lemonade.


And now, here we are!





We look forward to sharing videos and photos from our performances later today. We’re off to Penang bright and early tomorrow morning—see you there!


-Sienna

Addendum: We wanted to show you how the homestay families are related and who was staying with which family. Our biology students (juniors) made a "pedigree" so you can see the family tree.  







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