A Happy and Healthy 2015 from Normandie !

A Wright family selfie!

Well "La Ferme des Vallots" suddenly seems very quiet with all four girls leaving yesterday and leaving Patrick, Andrew, Phoebe (the dog) and me on our own. It has been a wonderful three weeks of being with the family in Glasgow, London, Winchester and then two weeks at our lovely farm in Normandie as usual. It all seems a blur of eating in lovely restaurants or delicious homemade meals and I have managed to catch up with lots of family and friends as well as going to the musical Wicked, visiting "Winter Wonderland" in Hydepark  and generally indulging myself far too much !

Tanya's surprise birthday celebration

It is 25 years since we bought "La Ferme des Vallots" and since then every Christmas has been spent here and I can't imagine spending it anywhere else. I won't bore you with all the details as each family has their own traditions and ways of enjoying their family days together but it is suffice to say that it was as lovely as ever with the family evolving and welcoming partners as the years go by. The exciting news that broke just before Christmas is that Naomi and Neil are engaged and the wedding plans are still being decided. So it looks like 2015 is going to be another exciting year for the Wrights.

 I return to Malaysia on Friday and sadly they are having their share of terrible flooding and another aircraft disaster in Indonesia. This week I have been making the most of catching up with friends. It was -5 this morning and it is tempting to stay snug at home by the fire but the sun has been out and I've enjoyed a few walks in the lovely countryside and a little bit of gardening. Anyway I'm sorry that my blogging has been slowing down and I admire anyone that finds time to blog with their family around - I know that I would much rather spend time with them than a computer. So a very happy, healthy 2015 to all of you who are still reading my ramblings !

Phoebe

The Tea Ceremony and warm welcome to the Mah Family

Yes I know it has been weeks since I've written my blog but I have no computer with me and to be honest not many spare minutes to write it. Anyway this evening is my last chance before Christmas as the family arrive early tomorrow morning. What seems like a month ago, but in reality is just over two weeks ago Andrew and I met in Kuala Lumpur ready for the banquet and Tanya and Anthony's engagement party.

 The first event was to meet at Anthony's grandmother house where we met his parents, grandmother and uncle and aunt who had just flown in for the occasion. I believe the tea ceremony is traditionally before the wedding but this was more for the grandmother as she won't be attending the actual wedding. We each took turns in sitting in the same beautifully carved chairs that had been used by the Mahs for several generations, while Tanya and Anthony served us very sweet tea. We were supposed to give them a red envelope with money or jewelry but of course we didn't have one ready! No one seemed to mind and the next venue was the restaurant where we were to have the 7 course banquet and meet the rest of the family.

 There was about 35 of us in all and we had a lovely meal and were charmed with all the extended family who included uncles, aunts and cousins and we are hoping that some of them will be able to come to the wedding.

  The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying Kuala Lumpur and visiting the sites and spending more time with Tanya, Anthony and his family. By Sunday evening everyone had departed on their way back to Europe and I was left on my own until I set off on Tuesday evening heading for Paris....to be continued!

The End of Year has arrived!!

A view from Gaya Island

   It has been a busy two weeks with the arrival of Tanya and Anthony and the the End of Year meeting but it finally seems to have calmed down and I'm spending today catching up on washing, blogging and even packing as it will only be in a few days that I leave for KL. Anyway it has been lovely having Tanya and Anthony here. Even though for such a short time they seemed to have done lots of things such as -  7 dives; visit the sights of Tuaran and KK; witness a turtle laying her eggs and help launch a hundred newly hatched turtles; visit the orang-utan and sun bear sanctuaries and then on their last day we had a very wet hike up at Poring Hot Springs to Lanayan waterfall that was plagued with leeches! They left yesterday morning to KL where they will be staying with Anthony's grandmother.

Tanya and Anthony on their first day diving

   The End of Year meeting from last Monday to Wednesday at the Palace hotel was a gathering of 60 mentors - most of them who had never met before because everyone is in such rural locations and many of them have arrived at different times during the year. It was an occasion to network and share different experiences and get to know each other and I think it was very successful. We had a variety of presentations and Tuesday afternoon was an "Apprentice" like challenge where people were put in teams and then had to pitch their Level 1 resource in front of the Directors of the project and the expert judge of a 7 year old. It was great to see how good people were at playing the salesmen role of "selling" their product! Wednesday afternoon was the time to say farewell and had a definite end of school year atmosphere. Everyone is off on their travels for 5 weeks all over the world. The mentors in my zone were going to most of the continents - Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, South America and North America and will return at the beginning of January to start the last 9 months of the project.

Coconut time

  As for my arm, well it has been great having Tanya here to give me advice on physio for the future. I went to see the orthopedic specialist last week and he has taken the cast off which seems rather soon but he is going away and won't be back until I have left so he seems to think if I keep it immobile it will heal ok. It is 30 % healed at the moment and of course I forget about trying not to use it and probably am doing too much - for example,  hikes up  mountain tracks! Anyway the plus side of not having a cast is that I can shower and put on clothes that don't need to be cut at the shoulder. Time will tell and I must try and be patient. My next blog will be about the engagement party and the gathering of the Wrights and the Mahs.

Crabs, prawns and fish at the local restaurant

Coping Single-handedly!!

Well it is over a week now since the fall and I have been very blessed with lots of offers of help and kindness and fortunately last week I was staying at a hotel and had lots of people around to pour me coffee, open water bottles and carry things which are little challenges to overcome. I have more or less worked out what I can wear now and have a selection of elastic waisted skirts and trousers, t-shirts and scarves to cover the gaps! Apart from depending on lifts and feeling rather dependent I seem to have managed the first week without any problems.

Mengkabong  water village

 

  There were 20 of us attending the  Media Training last week which was run by a lady who has her own PR (sort of have more of an idea what that means now!) company and was formally a journalist and editor of a Malaysian newspaper. It was interesting for a number of reasons . Firstly she was very outspoken about the political system in Malaysia which is quite rare. She belongs to a group of people who promote objectivity and impartiality of the media in Malaysia but of course since most of the media is owned by the ruling government party that is very difficult to do. Secondly she was very honest and blunt about our attempts of trying to do press releases with photos and most of us felt very inadequate and realised how thick skinned and good you have to be in order to succeed in journalism! Many of us were glad that Education was our chosen profession!

Pom poms are traditional on the hats in Kota Belud

 On Tuesday evening we all went out for a meal together and some of us decided to return to the hotel about 10 ish. We walked across the car park towards the taxi rank and suddenly Anna disappeared down a storm drain. She just didn't see it and was stone cold sober too! My colleagues carried her to the taxi and then at the hotel we applied ice and looked at her swollen foot until someone decided that the hospital should be the next port of call. Where is the hospital in KK? Well of course I knew now! So off we went in a mentor's car with me giving directions. To cut a long story short Anna has a hair-line fracture and has torn ligaments and is now in a plaster and hobbling around on crutches. The North Sabah zone are definitely going to be looking rather odd next week at the End of Year Meeting!

The partnership of egrets and water-buffaloes 

 Tanya and Anthony arrive on Friday which is very exciting and they will be over a week in Sabah and then another week in peninsula Malaysia with Anthony's family. Amazingly both Andrew and I will be present for their engagement dinner in KL with Anthony's parents, grandparents and family. Andrew is in East Timor at the moment and will fly into KL en route to Europe and then I will fly over from Sabah to be there too. I'm sure we weren't expected to be there but how lovely it will be!

The Broken Arm Weekend!

A illustration by Jainal Amambing

Jainal is going to illustrate one of the stories

   This is going to be short and sweet this week as this is my first attempt at using a computer since I broke my arm on Friday. Early Friday morning I thought I would finish painting above the window in preparation for Tanya and Anthony's visit. The chair gave way and next thing I knew I was crashing down to the tiled floor and landed on my right upper arm. It took me quite a while to get up but managed to get round to my neighbours who very kindly drove me to the local Tuaran hospital where I waited in line and eventually was x-rayed. Yes a clean fracture upper humerus......I would have to go to KK to see an orthopedic specialist however the next appointment he had free was next Thursday! So they strapped me up gave me another injection of a pain killer and said I could go. When I told my boss what had happened she said "you have to go private - that's what the BUPA is for!"
  So to cut a long story short I ended up in a very upmarket hospital in KK - a sharp contrast to Tuaran's - and was prepped to go into surgery at 7 pm to have my arm reset by an orthopedic specialist. "Where did you do your training?" I asked as he had a very British accent "UK, Belfast"he replied and then we started...! Not only had he known my father when he was a medical student at Queens but we had gone to the same school and had friends in common. He had been a boarder and had been great friends with the Elliot's who were also great friends of mine. He of course is Malaysian but had spent many years in Northern Ireland and had a great Ulster accent!The nurses stood by while we chatted away and I was supposedly breathing in gas and air and by the time it was finished I felt I had made another new friend!Every cloud has a silver lining.

 I will be in plaster for 6 weeks and I'm just trying to work out what I can do and can't. I can type slowly if I put the computer on a cushion but I won't be able to drive and do many things with my right arm. However I'm feeling fine and not in any pain since it was reset so it's just a nuisance and it could have been worse!

Sunsets and Halloween

Since last week we have been having the most amazing sunsets in Sabah. On Thursday evening I was up in Pitas and I joined some colleagues for a meal in a little restaurant on stilts over the sea and watched the colours changing for about an hour. The sea was like a lake and had no ripples and the reflection was beyond description with the spectrum of colours turning from gold to pink and then a wonderful purple and blue. Friday evening came, which of course was Halloween, and apart from buying a pumpkin for some soup, that was about all I did in recognition of the festival. Halloween of course being a Celtic pagan festival isn't celebrated here but I expect there were some bars in KK that had people arriving as witches, ghosts or draculas. I did however go to my local beach and enjoy another amazing sunset which was one of those which turned the sea to gold. I often don't have my camera but fortunately did that night but of course every second it keeps changing and you end up with lots that look the same.

  The spectacular sunset reminded me of the sunset six years ago on the day of Halloween when my mother was buried.  After the Memorial Service in Magheragall and the glorious Ulster tea and sandwiches in the village hall, the immediate family drove along the small winding roads of County Down to Castlewellan to the family grave. The view from Drumcree  Cemetery must surely be one of the beautiful views in Ireland, overlooking the Mourne Mountains and Tullymore forest and just before the sunset on 31^st October 2008 , Elizabeth was reunited with her Tom, 73 years to the day of their first meeting. When we walked down the hill from the grave that night of Hallowe'en ,the sky exploded into the most magnificent firework sunset with  Slieve Donard silhouetted on the sky as if in celebration that at last they were together.........Miss you Mummy. 

  

Cowboys and Bajaus in Kota Belud

   

The Amazing Mt. Kinabalu

 Last week was a relatively calm one compared to some and I was able to visit some schools which is always a pleasure. Friday afternoon arrived and I headed my car up the mountain to head towards "home" ( Ranau) on a mission. I actually had been asked to help out with looking after Ella, a 4 year old, whilst her parents and big sister Bea were running in a race around Sabah Tea Gardens. Of course I managed to call in and see a few people and had my evening meal at Slagon Homestay and caught up with Lungkiam and a few others before heading off to Poring Hot Springs where I was staying with the family ready to be on duty when I was needed. The runners left at the ungodly hour of 5 am to be ready for a 6 am departure and Ella and I followed later to be around the finish. Bea who was the youngest competitor at 10 years old, flew round the 10km course with her mother and even got a special prize of  50 ringgits. I visited all my old haunts like the Saturday bundles and the vegetable market  before heading back down the mountain again. I really do miss Ranau - the people; the scenery and the volume of jungle noise that surrounds the atmosphere at night - it is very loud!

   Anyway  I went back via Kota Belud where I was dropping a mentor off and it was the famous KB festival weekend where lots of things go on such as horse and buffalo races, sports and games and is the highlight of the year for the bajaus of Kota Belud. The Padang (field) is surrounded by stalls selling food and other bits and pieces. We met up with the colleagues in KB and went to watch the races in the stadium and before we knew it we were asked up to the VIP stand based purely on the colour of our skin! I supposed I am used to it now but it still seems rather strange selecting people like that and not having a clue who we were.

 

 We joined in the fun and cheered and clapped for all the races that we watched. We entered the lucky draw and even had to draw some names and guess what?  My name was chosen and I won a bright pink plastic drink dispenser something that I'd never thought of owning before but now I have one I think it could prove to be useful. So that was the exciting afternoon in KB and then I left and headed home to get on with the sewing. Sarong and Ko have their first big order - 20 aprons for a restaurant!

The Start of a Storybook Project

Yesterday's sunset at Simpang Mengayau

  At last a moment to sit down and write my blog. I have been very busy over the past two weeks- not only for work but also visiting Miri, Sarawak, last weekend to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday. The very wet weather, influenced by a typhoon,  continued until last weekend and caused widespread flooding and landslides mostly in Sabah. On Monday the sun finally reappeared again and the mud and debris was left to dry. Since Monday though I have been "locked" up in air-conditioned hotel land discussing the next phase of the project with a group of new mentors. It was an interesting group as they seemed to have a strong French/Irish influence and a few bilingual children accompanying them who always fascinate me. Friday was spent visiting a school and " opening " a new Self-Access Learning room which was lovely as the year 2 and 3s put on a concert for the occasion  and the stage had been cleverly made out of a door covered in plastic trimmed with satin. I was treated to children singing a John Legend and Michael Jackson song and of course the Frozen song "Let it Go"which seems to be sung all over Sabah at the moment - maybe it is a world phenomenon? After that I was straight back on the road to drive up to the Tip of Borneo so that I was in time for the first storybook workshop in the tiny village of Tiga Papan situated just before  Simpang Mengayau.

At last some parents

  The storybook project is an idea to get parents to recount local stories in their local dialect and then somehow work together to create a book that the children and community can keep. It was the first time the school had done something like this and we didn't know if the parents would turn up. The start at 9 a.m. came and no parents were in sight.... finally at about 9.30 they appeared and a car was sent out to pick up any latecomers and by the time we started about 40 people were there. They were all given some lovely children's books to look at and share and then we asked them to get into groups and think of a local story to retell to the group.

An interesting hat for a tropical climate

An illustration from Jainal Anambing's book

 

We were very lucky that a well-known local artist called Jainal Anambing was able to attend and join in and hopefully he will be involved in the illustration part when that stage arrives. It continued for a couple of hours of everyone recounting their stories and a teacher per group recording them in a book - some were told in rungus and others in malay and when we get some teachers to translate them we will know the content. At the end we had a few titles such as How Tiga Papan got its name, The ghost story of the old mango tree, How the rice was first planted, The Warrior of Simpang Mengayau and a Second World War tale.... so hopefully after a couple more workshops we will have several stories that we can make into a book.

The beautiful SK Tiga Papan

So that is what I have been up to - a very varied, busy two weeks but I must say going to a school and having contact with children is still what I like best!!

Wet, Wet, Wet

Rhinoceros Hornbill taken by Patrick Wright

Apologies for being rather late this week. It has been a very damp weekend and is continuing to pour as I write. I believe from what I can gather from the satellite images that Sabah is on the edges of a cyclone going through the south of the Philippines. Borneo is known as the "Land Below the Wind" as it usually manages to avoid the worst of the typhoon and cyclones that the Philippines and Japan and Korea seem to get.... but not this time! I do feel so sorry for the tourists though who have only maybe a week to "do " Sabah and I met a lovely Catalonian couple who had spent 4 wet days at a beach resort and now will be spending 2 days in KK and then back to Spain without a glimpse of the sun!

Pygmy Elephant by Patrick

 It was of course the start of the very important Muslim festival on Sunday of Eid al-Adha which is to commemorate the prophet Abraham's (or Ibrahim) sacrifice of his son to God, which of course thankfully was avoided by a sheep being replaced. This is a festival when cows, sheep, goats are slaughtered for a huge feast which is always shared with  people who are in need such as the sick, old and poor. However because of the torrential rain I saw very little evidence of people in their gorgeous bright bajus and "pyjamas" as I suspect everyone was inside trying to keep dry.

Gibbon by Patrick

  Last week we had a visit from a consultant from the National Foundation of Education Research who is going to be the external monitor of our project and I was in charge of taking her to visit one of the project schools and then she ran a workshop on hierarchical card sorting which is a technique used in evaluating and monitoring projects such as ours, which I'd never heard of - another new thing to learn! Which brings me onto 2 courses that I'm doing online with Coursera, which I've only recently discovered, which don't cost anything unless you want a certificate, and I've embarked on Coaching Teachers and Supporting Children with difficulties in Reading and Writing. They both seem very good and I've mostly been watching short videos which isn't too difficult!

Marble cat (photo from internet)

  My last ramble of the week is that I had a wildlife moment on Saturday which is rare here as apart from an odd sighting of a snake or monitor lizard, it is not an everyday occurrence. I was driving down a road and two kittens tried to run across in front of me. One made it and thankfully wasn't touched by the car and the other turned back into the undergrowth. The difference between domestic and wild cats is obviously very slight but the markings on these kittens were amazing and I would like to hazard an amateur guess that they were marble cats, which I have seen in the dark before but that is the first time close up in daylight.... very exciting!

Oriental Hornbill by Patrick