There are days when I come back from "work" thinking how lucky I am to be here and today was such a day. I was at my rural school at the village of Kinapulidan which compared to some schools it is not rural at all but it still is about 8 kms along a gravel road and the Dusun language is spoken more than Malay, which is another hurdle for the children when they start school. I have been working with the Preschool teacher, David, and we are hoping to be recording English songs for the Preschoolers with a Dusun feel to it e.g. instead of Hokey Cokey we are singing "Oh Mount Kinabalu" etc... - it's bound to be a success don't you think?! Anyway after the Preschool finished at 11.30 he told me that the parents were coming to garden and demolish bits and smarten up a hut in the playground.
So we all got to work and to the parents' amazement they found that the orang putih could actually do things as well. So we took the planks off the hut and then stored them away, the next thing was to get rid of the four beams in the middle which weren't holding anything up. So the ladies got their parangs (machetes) out and got chopping. These parangs are used by everyone here and they seem to have a multitude of uses. I have seen 10 year olds carrying and using parangs without any worries (except mine) because they have been brought up to use them and know how to handle them. So you can imagine the scene- we had very young children wandering around with everyone brandishing their parangs and I don't think anyone thought it was mildly dangerous apart from me! The next stage was making the hut "beautiful" with very bright linoleum on the floor and the benches and my sewing or carpet laying skills came to the fore and I was able to prove my worth as a helper. After we had finished it was time to sit in the now transformed hut and have our meeting. David fortunately was able to translate for me as my Malay and Dusun are improving at a very slow rate. I was able to show them the 25 picture books I am giving to the school and we have organised that the parents will organise a lending scheme for the children to take one book home each week and they are going to sew bags for them to be looked after. Not a very original idea but the culture here is much more of an oral one and books really aren't found in homes so maybe the next generation will find a love of reading- it's certainly worth a try.
After the very short meeting it was makan (food) time and we ate a delicious meal that probably cost practically nothing. We had young green papaya cooked in a slighty curry sauce and tapioca and papaya leaves with a handful of dried fish added and of course the red hill rice which is so much nicer than the white rice. They asked me lots of personal questions like everyone does - age, religion, etc.. and we parted and I drove home along the muddy road with a wonderful view of Mount Kinabalu thinking what a nice job I have!
The view of Mt. Kinabalu from the hut.
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