Today is Hari Raya!

Last night when I went to bed no one was sure when the end of Ramadhan was going to be as apparently it depends on the moon. However this morning the call to prayers went on for an hour and as soon as I got up I could sense the excitement in the air. The children were all walking around the village in their brightest and best clothes, fireworks were being let off - it was official the fasting month was over! The celebrations continue for several days and it is "Open House" for everyone which means Christians, Hindus, Budhists, non believers are all very welcome and everyone enters into the festivities. We visited two houses in the village and I even got involved in some kareoke singing!
Tomorrow I am off on my 3 day jungle safari hoping that I will see orangutans, probiscus monkeys and ????.

 Happy Hari Raya!

The Last Camp

In 1945 while Sabah was still under occupation by the Japanese,  1047 Australian and British prisoners of war were held at a camp in Sandakan. The tide was turning for the Japanese and they marched the prisoners 240 kms through the jungle and mountains to Ranau. This became known as one of the Death Marches and by the time they reached Ranau only 189 were still alive. " The Last Camp" was made beside a river tucked out of sight of the allies who were now searching for the prisoners. Over the next few weeks all perished there apart from six Australians who managed to escape and were cared for by the local people. The final fifteen, including the last four British were murdered twelve days after the war had ended and Japan had surrendered.
 On Thursday 25th August, a team of soldiers from the Royal Artillery arrived in Ranau after completing the Death March in 12 days- the same time as the POW's. A memorial was laid yesterday at the Kundasang War Memorial in rememberance of the British Soldiers who lost their lives. I was very fortunate to be invited to visit the Last Camp by the historian Lynette Silvers who has written many books on the subject and has been very involved in the reseach and uncovering the evidence. The Last Camp is set in the most beautiful setting about 8 kms from Ranau and just to make it more poignant it also happened to be the anniversary of the murder of the final fifteen. If you would like to read more about it here is the site.
http://sandakan-deathmarch.com/

A weekend in Keningau

 I set off on Saturday morning and had a 2 hour drive twisting around and down the Crocker mountain range. I hadn't really remembered just how high we are up here in Ranau. About half way down the mountains the scenery started changing and I saw lots of padi fields; the farmers planting  rice;water buffalo and many more traditional wooden houses on stilts. My destination was Keninghau which is a large town on the plain, west of Ranau, and apart from shops there seemed to be little else of note to see. I was however visiting a friend and in the evening we went to the Lantern Festival/ concert at a Chinese Primary school that she works at. It was a huge event and the hall was absolutely packed with parents and families, with the VIP's at the front sitting in sofas! There were lots of events but the highlights for us were the children's Malaysian national costume competition and then the traditional dancing of the Murut tribe which apparently is rarely seen except in tourist areas. There were about 15 men banging gongs while the men and women danced, which included some very quick and nifty footwork jumping over long bamboo poles. It was incredibly well organised and everything worked like clockwork -even the audience were well-behaved!

"Thank God it's Friday"

I was quite surprised when one of my Guru Besar's (heads) said that to me this morning especially being a devout muslim and  her husband being the Head of Islamic Affairs in Sabah! However this has been the week when all the children in Year 6 have had to sit the National Examinations known as UPSR in 5 subjects. They do two papers in Malay and one in English, Science and Mathematics. No child is made to resit the exams but like all examinations there are the statistics published for each school and judgements made accordingly. As part of my research  I'm looking into the results of English over the last few years in each school and there have been no surprises so far. I have two village schools about 10 km apart along the same valley. The children in each school are 98% Dusun and most of the families have low incomes and live off the land. In one school the result for English last year 86.1% pass rate and in the other it was 42.3%. The attitude, the atmosphere and the approach to teaching are  totally different in each school and my role of "mentor" is to try and help one particular teacher. I'm finding that in some schools the children are often left unsupervised  while the teachers have meetings, are asleep, on Facebook, watching TV or eating! The English teaching varies greatly and sometimes it is so awful I feel like bursting into tears. It is going to be a challenge to try and change things for the better - any suggestions? However most of my teachers are really nice and have already made some good practice changes in the classroom. I've introduced behaviour charts and stickers as positive reinforcment and when one of my teacher's was inspected this week the inspector took a photo of her chart!!

 As a result of breaking fast with the head of the Education Department last Friday, we have been invited to the Berbuka puasa at the Education Department this evening. Apparently you could manage to eat out every night if you knew where to go - perhaps not an option for me! Tomorrow I am going to visit a friend about 2 hours drive away on the other side of the mountain to go to a Chinese mooncake and lantern festival at a Chinese Primary school in her area. I have one Chinese School in my group of schools and you can see that there is more money around in the schools. The funding is different and the government pays for the salaries of the teachers but the equipment, buildings etc are paid by a committee. They have a photocopier which is wonderful - in other schools the teachers pay for the copies themselves. So TGIF and I will now stop rambling on about my schools. Hope I'll have something interesting to report from my weekend.

Berbuka puasa

On Friday mornings I go out to a lovely village school on the other side of the valley with the most wonderful views of Mount Kinabalu. The school is quite run down and the chidren much poorer than the town schools. The school provides a free simple rice or noodle dish every day to help the families and there is a lovely atmosphere at the school. As I was leaving on Friday they invited me to the Berbuka puasa, meaning the breaking of the fast, that evening which was being held at their school. Apparently during the month of Ramadam they take it in turns around the villages. Feeling quite honoured to be invited but having no idea what was going to happen I went along in time for sunset and the evening prayers. It was held in the school coutyard and Emily and I were seated at the table with all the men while the women and children sat at another table! We listened to the call to prayers on the radio and then broke fast by eating a date. The men and boys went off to prayers and then we all started eating.All the food was prepared by the teachers and parents and it was all really delicious. The men were very charming and we discovered that we were breaking fast with the head of the Education Authority of our region - I think he was from the village so we felt that we'd scored some brownie points!

 I've had two other "mentors" coming to visit this weekend which has been nice and we decided to have a fish massage in the river about 20 km from Ranau. It was a lovely river but the fish were huge and my ankles are black and blue from their bites! I was hoping to have a gentle nibbling of all my dead skin but instead they just attacked ankles . No one else had such a bad experience as me - so never again! School again tomorrow and I'm beginning to get to know my teachers now however one has just had a baby. She was working on Friday and delivered today but will now have 3 months off. The little family in the photo were selling bananas and pineapples near where I'm staying- the big sister was 6 years old!

Keeping Fit in Ranau!

There appears to be some activities that are the same worldwide. Having just completed my first keep fit class in Ranau I was struck by the similarities between my gym class in St Germain de Livet and the one in Sabah. It was held in the same sort of multi- purpose hall that has a rather run down forgotten feel to it; a group of women of all ages and many shapes and sizes and an extremely fit and slim teacher leading us all. However instead of the CD player that jumps in France my new Chinese teacher has  headsets and a microphone to give us instructions. It was fun and everyone was very welcoming to me and I paid the huge price of 2 mr which is less than 50p. Yesterday I was presented at 2 assemblies and I had casually said that I would sing a song with my guitar thinking it would be a low key affair. However the Monday Assembly is a big deal - all the teachers were very smartly dressed , the children were all lined up at attention and prefects and teachers prowled around making sure they stayed still. The national anthem of Malaysia and  the Sabah anthem were sung while the flags were raised and then each school sang their school song. There seemed to be lots of very fierce talking by the headteachers and then an inspection of finger nails and presenting of envelopes for having good exam results. I suddenly felt quite nervous as I was being presented as "Miss Fiona" from the British Council but managed to say salamat pagi (good morning) and sing a little Good morning song which you'd think from the applause was something special! I now seem to be known as Miss Fiona and I suppose it has a certain charm to it. What do you think?!











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A Week in Ranau

My first week is probably going to be my easiest week in many ways as I am "building relationships" and starting to get to know the schools, teachers and pupils that I will be working with. This week I was only observing year 1 classes (6-7year olds) and I'm already amazed as to what these children have to cope with. They are nearly all Dusun and speak their own Dusun language.They are taught in Malay and then on top of all that have 5 hours of English a week! I forgot to mention at the Chinese Primary school, where only 10% are Chinese, they are taught in Chinese but have less English.
     The Dusun people are the largest ethnic community in this region and are traditionally rice and vegetable farmers. They live all over the hills and mountains and are predominantly roman catholic. They consider themselves very much the guardians of Mount Kinabalu. There are many legends about the mountain and Dusuns believe that it is sacred ground. It was forbidden to climb it in case they disturbed the spirits of their ancestors. However, along come the British and insisted that they climb to the top in 1851 but in order to do this a sacrifice had to be made to appease the spirits. To this day a white cockerel must be sacrificed to keep  Mount Kinabalu happy. I'm not sure if there is a monthly or annual sacrifice to keep up with all the climbers!

    Today was the local market with everyone coming in with their small amount of vegetables, fruit, rice and tea to sell. It was very similar in many ways to the markets in Normandie but for me it seemed very exotic. I can just about manage to count from 1-5 in Malay but at the market they only speak Dusun so I'm not sure how my brain will cope! This afternoon we visited the Sabah Tea plantations which are a tourist attraction about 20 kms from Ranau. We had a cup of tea overlooking the hills which was lovely. So far everything seems to be going well and  I'm driving about in my little car pretending as if I know where I'm going!

First Two days in Ranau

The excitement of really being in Sabah began when we saw Mount Kinabalu. It is such a huge mountain towering over the valleys, seemingly rising out of nowhere. She was very welcomimg to us and we saw her in all her glory with hardly any clouds around. We then came down with a bump though when we were shown the accommodation that the Language Officer had booked us into. It was grotty, dirty and there were no taps in the bathroom! We decided to go off and explore and see if we could find more suitable accommodation and we followed a sign to a homestay and luck was with us as we found a real gem of a place. The rooms are clean and basic but it is set in lovely gardens and a huge verandah for all the guests to sit under with a river running underneath. There is a Japanese couple staying and a Singaporean agricultural scientist and with the delicious meal served every night we have a very sociable time! My first day at school was very interesting and I visited 4 out of  5 schools and all the G.B.'s (guru besar- headteachers) were very welcoming as well as the teachers. I seem to have 3 schools in the town and 2 in outside villages. The children are just so excited about seeing someone white in the schools but I expect it won't last for long.
 Today we left our homestay at 6.15 am when our Language Officer and her boss arrived to take us in a Landcruiser to Emily's schools. It was very exciting and I'm sure would have cost a fortune if we were paying for adventure 4x4 tours! It took us 3 hours to get to the first school and what amazing, forest and jungle we drove through to get there. There are only gravel roads and if I hadn't been holding on for dear life I might have been able to take some good photos. The schools were very different to mine and running water and electricity was absent in most schools. The classrooms were very basic and very run down. The last school we visited had a wire bridge about 100m long over a large river which was the only way for the children to get to school! Accommodation for Emily is going to be a big problem as there is no electricity, phone, internet, running water etc.. and she's having serious doubts about going at all. The children were of course just adorable and you can see that these areas are just ignored and neglected.

 Tomorrow I will be going into my base school and then visiting my other village school. I start at 7 am and finish at 1.30 pm. All is fine so far and everyone is very helpful and friendly,