Andrew in Borneo

      Andrew arrived on Friday the 21st of October and we've had quite an action packed 10 days. The first destination after the airport was this idyllic little resort that someone told me about and then later I learnt that it is in The Lonely Planet so not really a secret! However it was just perfect even though it took a long time to find and I could see Andrew wondering where on earth I was taking him! We were met at a tiny fishing village by our boatman and then brought to the Manana Resort which was about 10 minutes away. It has about six chalets on the beach and a small bar/restaurant. Electricity is on between 6-10 pm and there is no hot water but it is a great way to get over jet lag and I would highly recommend it as a get-away- from- everything destination.
     I had to do a couple of days work and then it was a holiday for Diwali and we went to visit Poring Hot Springs up in the mountains. We did the canopy walk which is a series of suspension rope bridges at the top of the huge trees in the primary forest. The views were spectacular and apart from a very heavy tourist that rocked the bridge rather suddenly when she got on, we felt very safe. On Thursday we set off again and drove 5 hours to the other side of Sabah to Lahad Datu where we spent the night with a lovely Sabahan family. We then were collected at midday and set off on a gravel road for over an hour and a half and driven to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Our accomodation was something like a filmset for a colonial jungle adventure and I felt that Harrison Ford might suddenly appear! Anyway it was beautiful and our lodge was situated beside a river with a balcony to watch the wildlife. We had an action packed few days which included several trips in a 4 x 4 and a few treks into the jungle, a swim in a huge rockpool and a visit to a volcanic mud pool. We saw many animals and birds that we had never even heard of before and our guide was constantly  listening, smelling and looking for the tracks of animals in the mud but Andrew spotted the lesser and greater mouse deer before he did! The final evening we went out again to try and locate the pygmy elephants that were apparently seen in the vicinity. The guides were following the dung and tracks and deciding on how fresh they were and then just before dusk we got a sighting and although we have no photographs to prove it we did see a mother and baby and a young male who was being very defensive of his mother. It was all very exciting and even though our wildlife photography will not win any competitions we had a great time. Some of the animals and birds we saw were gibbons, pig tailed macaque, (no orangutan but smelt the urine of one!) deer mice, leopard cat, marble cat, civet cat, pygmy squirrels, flying squirrels, hornbills, storks, eagles, owls etc.......

    Andrew still has 5 more days left so the next episode will be published shortly.

Sergeant Majors for the Future of Sabah!

      This week at my base school it has been sports every morning from 7- 10 a.m. We all gather on the playing field and the teachers this week have been wearing tracksuits instead of the traditional Baju kurung which is compulsory for all female teachers. This morning the whole school, including the pre-school and the Special Needs Unit started with some tai chi , then aerobics and after some traditional dancing which again seems to have something to do with birds! Afterwards the children were organised into various sports or activities until 10 am. It reminded me what fun Sport’s Days are and how much I missed them in France. This however is only the training and the actual Sports Day is on 1st and 2nd November and then the school are taking 2 days off to recover. Can you do that during term time I asked innocently? Yes every school is allowed to have 4 extra days off a year to suit their timetable.

      The drilling is what amazes me though. Everywhere you go around the school there are little platoons marching around with a very severe sergeant major from the same class, shouting orders that they all seem to obey! There is going to be a contest between classes and the children who can’t keep in time are given private coaching by their classmates in a corner where they are made to march. I asked the G.B. why they did drilling and she said that it taught them discipline and obedience and that they enjoyed it! As in all “ Dad’s Armies” there are always a few stragglers that don’t keep on time  and turn the wrong way but on the whole I would say that the children do enjoy it and the 7 year old sergeant majors are definitely a force to be reckoned with!

A Walking Geography Lesson

  Most evenings I try to go for walk in an attempt to build up my fitness for the ascent of Mount Kinabalu. I have various routes now, one of which is going over a beautiful river by a rope bridge and the other is going through the padi fields surrounding the kampong. When I first arrived in August I thought it was just waste  land but for the last few weeks there has been lots of activity in clearing the fields. This evening I was really surprised to see that they had started to flood the padi fields and that an amazing system of irrigation channels exist that I previously thought were just ditches. I know we've all sat through Geography lessons of " Planting rice in South East Asia" but to actually see it in action is so much more interesting than any books! I could see the nursery rice plants ready for the planting when the fields are all flooded. Apparently three sorts of rice are grown in this area - two mountain types that do not require to be flooded and the other one that we always associate with rice. The name Ranau comes from the Dusun word ranahon meaning rice.

 The thing that I enjoy most about my walks is meeting various people - admittedly the conversations are very limited as my Malay and their English is not of a high standard but we do make some sort of connection and I feel as if they are not so wary now of this strange orang putih who wanders around their village. Some people even call me Fiona! This beautiful lady in the photo, I met yesterday and she was so friendly and talkative but what about I have no idea.

Photos and the Peace sign

Yesterday evening my peaceful homestay was invaded by a bus load of guests arriving for a wedding in the village. Apparently I am invited to the wedding although I don’t who it is but that doesn’t seem to matter as I’m discovering! It is a Muslim wedding which apparently, so I’m told, is not as interesting as a Dusun wedding which involves many interesting traditions and lots of rice wine! I’m thinking I may escape to the mountains rather than being the random orang putih who is continually asked ‘Where you from?”. It still amazes me though how friendly and welcoming people are here. I went to get my morning coffee and they insisted that they share their breakfast with me.

 So another week over and this week I had to attend the Ministry of Education’s training for the introduction of the new curriculum in the Ranau area. The official four day training was reduced to two and half days and there seemed to be fewer teachers at the end of the day than at the beginning when we signed in! However it was interesting and when the presenter started to speak in English he was asked to speak in Malay as not everyone could understand him- he did express surprise being among English teachers but I myself have only attended English training courses spoken in French, so was very grateful whenever English was actually spoken. Much of the material that we watched was from the Ministry od Education and it struck me again how distant peninsula Malaysia is from the realities of Sabah and Sarawak – one of the clips was “Are you a teacher of the 21^st century?” – do you use internet, twitter, Facebook, etc in the classroom? Well as several of the teachers pointed out they not only don’t have internet access, they don’t have computers and many of the schools don’t have electricity or running water. As the next general election approaches, the Government suddenly remembers that Sabah and Sarawak hold a high number of parliamentary seats and there is sudden activity to surface the roads and attempt to bring electricity and water to the rural districts. Didn’t the same thing happen before the last election?

             The travelling dental team came to one school this week and I was very impressed as to how an ordinary classroom was converted to a dentist’s surgery with four dentists checking and working on the children’s teeth with generators going. We were all allowed to stare and wander around and I didn’t see one child making any fuss. While in a class yesterday one of the girls jumped up as she found a big mouse in her desk! One of the boys ran over and caught the mouse, it then bit him and he dropped it and then the mouse was running around the classroom with some of us screaming hysterically. Another boy caught it again and then threw it outside after we’d all had a look at it and then we continued as if nothing had happened! Whenever anyone produces a camera everyone makes the Peace sign- it apparently means they are happy and I think I just have to accept that!

Year 6 Scouts "camping" in the school grounds last night.

Yoga weekend

I had a lovely weekend staying at another mentor's house in Kota Marudu which is along the North coast towards the tip of Borneo. It is always so interesting seeing another area and realising how diverse and varied Sabah is. It was noticeably hotter and being near the coast was obviously much flatter. We did four sessions of yoga and we were about 10 altogether - some had done lots of yoga and some were beginners like me. I enjoyed it very much and might continue to do a few sun salutations if I can remember them. In the afternoon we all went out on a wooden boat along the mangroves and eventually arrived at the sea.

There were lots of beautiful little huts along the river which apparently are for storing fish for the fisherman while they wait for the tide to turn. We ate a picnic on one of the huts and then returned at nightime with all the fireflies lighting up the trees - a magical evening,