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!