O'Neal-Freemans in Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur: End of year parties for Colleen and Ken

We invited our friends to celebrate the end of our year in KL

At tatto restaurant

Varsha and Mimi, our friends from our apartment building, from India and Vietnam
Both are also parents of kids who go to ISKL and are friends with our kids

Jono and his wife are in KL as part of her advertising job,
and, like Ken, Jono doesn't work.
Jono and Ken became friends as part of the "Man Mums" group of
stay-at-home Dads who got together to drink, do manly things, and have playdates with their young kids

Ken before our party got started

Krissy D'Alessandro, she and her husband Greg are with the US embassy.
They are both human rights lawyers whose previous posting was Cuba!
Krissy was also the girl scouts troop leader for Alice and
we did the girl scouts camping trip together

Jane and Eric, Australian husband and wife, along with Irma

They are in my running group called KL Road Runners and Irma is my running group leader
She made an extraordinary home made scrapbook for me that nearly made me cry

with pictures of our group running together in Cambodia and KL

Kristen Gray, former international aid worker
Her husband, Blair, works at the US Embassy in KL
Their previous posting was in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which they LOVED

Peter and Kari Young, our buddies who we liked to dine with
Kari was my running partner for the Cambodia race
She ran slow with me throughout the race because my knee was injured.
A great act of sacrifice and support - very sweet
They are returning to Texas

The last people at the party! They know how to send us off with a party!
Ashley, Annette (husband not in picture: Padraig), and Mark
These ladies were my good friends in KL,
as part of the ISKL school community,
and they never felt part of the "normal" international school establishment
of parents and teachers. They were too unique to be a part of it.

Raj, Bawany, and Hera, my HELP University best faculty friends!

The HELP Psychology Department threw a going-away party for me on my last day too!
Anasuya, my HELP University colleague and friend,
who ran our focus group with Harvest refugee teachers,
is writing a paper about the focus group with me, and loves to give me a hard time.
She calls me "The Rabbit" because I eat too many raw vegetables for her.
My Fulbright New Leaders Group award is being used to pay for
her to do monthly Harvest teacher support groups.

Elaine, on the left, was in my Refugee Child Mental Health Research lab at HELP
and she did interviews with the refugee teens in addition to lit review and data work on our research papers. Asha's picture is missing here - she had been my research lab coordinator.

J, the assistant office manager extraordinaire. She makes all of our lives easier.

Edward and me
Edward was my teaching assistant for my first 150 person class
He was tough as nails with the freshmen, chewing them out via the microphone weekly
But, he was tender as a sentimental old fool underneath it all
Edward ended up being in my refugee child mental health lab
He was most affected by the interviews of refugee children that he did with me
He videotaped my focus group with refugee boys and he was so upset
that the Malaysian police hurt rather than help these children.
Once, after interviewing a girl who'd been molested by local men mugging her,
he cried in my office.
I was really impressed by Edward being open to being changed
by the powerful emotional experience of seeing the underbelly of your country,
and feeling somehow responsible for it
Note that he is wearing a t-shirt I gave him saying "Normal is Over"
It was created by refugee workers near Burma,
and it means that normal 9 to 5 jobs, just waiting for retirement, is over
once you are touched by the reality of refugees.
Normal is over for me. And, normal is over for Edward too.

Bawany, is my good friend and a HELP lecturer.
She has a law degree and counseling psychology degree.
She does qualitative, focus group research with drug abusing, homeless women and children

Eugene and I

Jasmine and I - she does gambling addictions research

Wai Sheng, head of the clinical psychology program
She visited me in NYC before I applied to HELP
and negotiated my coming to HELP and Malaysia
Without her, I would not have done the Fulbright in Malaysia
Also, my Fulbright New Leaders Group award is being used to pay for
her to take my place as the Refugee Child Mental Health Clinic Director

Linda, to the left of me, is the head office manager, and makes her job looks easy with a smile
Hera, to my right, is my best-est buddy around, with a mutual love of research
She got me extra pay to run a few Statistics Workshops for the HELP faculty
And, she simply was a great emotional and intellectual friend to me.

An NGO named Generasi Gemilang did an orphanage caretaker behavior management
training with me, based on my refugee teacher training.
We all became good friends, as a result.
To thank me for my help on the intervention,
they hosted a luncheon for me, with an off-the-menu special French menu designed for me

Angeline, me, Su Chen, Gin Kye, Noelle, and Gin Kye's brother

Su Chen, who is a HELP Univ. Counseling Psychology grad student and Generasi employee.
She is an inspired clinician who volunteered to do so much with me and I tapped her talents often -- she asked for special permission to take my child psychopathology class,
she volunteered to do refugee teen interviews, be a refugee teacher classroom management trainer, and be trained to be the therapist for the refugee child with the worst mental health problems and history of abuse that I had. She took his case over, and I am relieved as a result.

Noelle Tan, COO of Generasi Gemilang, a great friend and leader in many ways.
She really makes things happen.

Gin Kye, is head of the Generasi division I partnered with,
and his family has a conglomerate of companies in KL
He was the one I first met with, when first discussing the possibility of helping the orphanage.

Gin Kye and the chef/owner of the restaurant. She specially designed the menu herself
for my going away luncheon. She and Gin Kye are co-owners of the restaurant now, and
he hopes to make it a social enterprise, hiring orphanage kids when they are old enough
to move out of the orphanage, and in desperate need of a job and a home base

Crepe suzette!

They wanted a posed shot of their giving me a gift,
to thank me for my training them and helping them use the manual
with the orphanage caretakers
They love posed shots in Asia and it cracks me up!

Varsha, John, and Mimi, our friends from our apartment building
We liked to have Friday kid playdates and grownup potlucks together
Mimi hosted us for an incredible good-bye Vietnamese dinner
with Vietnamese soup and rolls -- amazing! Ken's favorite!

Meehee, Manontika, Alice, Boom, Anne, and Griffin
all kids of the parents in the photo above
Manontika and Alice were buddies; Meehee and Boom were friends too

Liz O'Sullivan was a former KL Fulbrighter who had just
retired from her faculty position and was living with her husband Doug
in KL part-time, as part of the "Malaysia as a second home" visa program

Adela, Linda, and me up top
Linda is the HELP Univ. Office Manager who brought her children to come visit me on our last nite in KL! It was very sweet of her to visit.
She is my only Muslim Malaysian friend, and her kids would bow their heads onto my hand when they greeted me, as is traditional Muslim Malay custom.

Griffin and Harrison, his best buddy in our apartment building
on our last nite in KL
We hosted a fried rice dinner for his family by the pool
They had had Griffin over for over 30 hours as a sleepover,
giving us a break during our packing frenzy.