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,