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!