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!