The Olympics

The Olympics

Meeting Dr. Jegathesan, our Chef-de-Mission for the first time was quite a hilarious experience! I actually thought he was a journalist when I first bumped into him wearing a vest jacket in the Olympic Village, where I was stationed as a Transport Venue Assistant for 2 weeks. But somewhere at the back of my head I was sure he was Malaysian! Puvan, on the other hand was working as a Malay Language Specialist at the Goudi Olympic Complex which hosted badminton along with a few other sports. Throughout the Games both of us would meet many Malaysian athletes and officials, who welcomed us warmly at the Malaysian Camp. I also got to know many other volunteers, among them from Greece, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Austria and Belgium. If you had been to the Transport Desk it would have been weird because most of the staff there spoke German! All the volunteers who I met were very friendly and keen to know about Malaysia. Just for the record, we had Austrian and Mexican support at badminton! But regrettably my fellow Transport Volunteers and I were quite disillusioned with the job towards the end. Let’s just say we were all overqualified for our jobs! I served at the VIP/ Media entrance, alternately helping invited guests to find their drivers who came in official Hyundai Sonatas and Matrices (most interesting), organizing the parking bays (a.k.a jaga kereta, seriously bad) and serving information and directions to confused people (pretty interesting). Maybe it was due to the fact that foreign volunteers like me could not attend the long term training programs held in Greece which could have equipped us for more challenging tasks. On the flip side the job gave me an ample amount of free time, in which I had a lot of fun striking up conversation with media people from all over the world who even gave me useful career advice, soldiers and other security forces who gave me travel tips on Greek islands, getting into the pins exchange fever which is a tradition of the Olympics and other large sports events and of course spotting celebrities or athletes. It turns out Maurice Greene is REALLY fast. He disappeared even before I got the chance to get his autograph and picture! I also measured up to China’s gigantic NBA Star Yao Ming as I walked past him one day. My head would reach no higher than up to his armpit! Another peculiar experience was getting Haile Gebrselassie’s autograph. All that the 10,000m great scribbled on my book was a star!