This photo was taken at the RAAF in Butterworth Sister Colette
This photo was taken at the RAAF in Butterworth
Sister's real name is Catherine Selvam. She is from Kuala Lumpur. She came to Butterworth to help the poor people and to teach them. She started teaching them at my mother's friend's place in 1992. She was teaching the kids for free. She came to Mak Mandin every day from the Penang convent and she came in the morning on the bus from Penang and went home in the evening by bus back. She did this for one and half years.
In the middle of 1994 she got the convent to let her rent a place because there were too many kids going to her learning centre and the place where she was teaching was to small. When she started to live in Mak Mandin she got very bad asthma. The people always came to see her to get help. There were 50 children in the learning centre then and she also decided she would start a night class for the parents who wanted to learn English. She had about three or four mothers who she was teaching. My mother attended for one or two classes and then she stopped for some reason.
Sister also started doing jumble sales once a year. She started in 1996 and at the sales she sold everything, which she received, from people from the church and other people. I even take back some of my own clothes each year for her to give away or to sell in the jumble sale. The jumble sale went well and it is still going well I believe. She also organised a medical camp with the doctor from church called Dr Xavier every year. These medical camps started in 1996. In the medical camp the poor people can come and get their eyes and things checked and get their medicine for free. Then they can go and see the Doctor Xavier for free if they are sick. This is still going on in the village. I have helped in some of these camps before I came to Australia.
One year ten houses got burnt down she helped the people get the firemen and she did most of the running around. After all that when the firemen had gone Sister did not go, she tried to get places for the people to stay etc before she went back to her place. She also helped people who come to her doorstep for food. She gives them food that she has got like rice noodles and thing like that. In 1997 there were new houses built near were she was staying. She told the convent about this and the convent bought her a new house and she is still there today.
The new house she has got is smaller then the old one, which she was renting, but she can still live there and teach the kids which is very good. She got two computers from someone and she has got the Internet connected now. Sister e-mail's me whenever she can and tells me about what she is doing. I phone Sister and my Mother every two weeks. She asks me to check the e-mail before I phone to make sure she will be home with my mother waiting for my call. Sometimes I have to phone the following week.