Time to leave my house!

Ranau Market

This is my second attempt at this post and let's hope that this time I succeed. My computer is having a sick turn which may result in a hospital visit soon I fear! Anyway, it seems like lots of things have happened since I last wrote and I hope that I can remember at least some to recount to you.The final zone meeting at the Sutera Harbour Hotel, came and went very quickly with a happy relaxed atmosphere. On the last day we rented the little hotel theatre and had a "premier" of the "My English!" film which I have been organising and working on with Cara and Damian from the film company of Scubazoo. Yes they do normally film animals or creatures in the sea but they have done a great job in capturing the beautiful children in the schools around Sabah and Sarawak. We are also in the final editing stages of a short film about the Storybook Initiative and last Friday they asked Anna and I to answer a few questions to fill in some gaps in the film. I arrived with my usual no make-up, unbrushed hair look to find Anna with her hair done and make-up on. We were filmed near a beach and I'm hoping that most of mine will be cut as the contrast will be like Beauty and the Beast! Here is the link for My English!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7CN7umchg

Sabah and Labuan Zone Meeting

 The other momentous task that has been going on for months and weeks and is now printed and distributed amongst the schools and teachers is the Resource Book. It looks like a professional book and everyone seems pleased with it and only a very few will know how many hours went into all the editing, proof reading and formatting but we did it and it is finished and I can forget about it now! There are a few more storybooks in the pipeline with Linda from Oyez Books but mostly apart from just seeing my mentors for the last time, I have more or less finished all my mini projects and will now have to think of packing, clearing my taxes etc...The ringgit is losing value by the minute so lots of people have decided to spend it here before they leave so I might go on a basket buying frenzy!

Lungkiam and me

 Last weekend I went up to Ranau to my favourite Slagon Homestay and caught up with Lungkiam and Othman and saw a few friends around Ranau. I was also invited to a wonderful barbeque at one of the mentor's houses in Ranau which featured a whole roasted pig which was lovingly turned on a log fire for many hours and was delicious. I then headed off in my little Myvi over the mountain road to Pitas which is 95% finished. When Emily was a mentor the road was not sealed and now it is practically all new road to Kota Marudu and although very steep in places the car managed fine. I stayed the night with Rosniah and her family who you may remember I met in 2011 at the Bahai camp. We have kept in contact and she has now another baby and moved to Pitas where all her family are. They are just renting a very small house until they can afford to build one of their own and they were incredibly kind and welcoming and I slept on a mattress on the floor with Rosniah and the baby while the husband and the two children had the only bedroom.

The beautiful Rosniah and Tabrice

Children from the village

A kampong house in their village

  There have been mini-symposiums, meetings and consultant visits but I think no one is really interested in that but I do have some news about my house.I went to work at 9am last Friday and when I came back at 5 pm the neighbours orchard of huge mango trees, rambutans, durians had been cut down and the bulldozer was clearing the land. He has sold the plot to a Chinese family and very soon construction will start and change my quiet living. You can now see my house from the lane and I'm no longer hidden from sight - definitely time to move!!

 

The view from my back door!!

The World's Indigenous People Day 9th August

Bajau

Murut

A Dusun Bobohizan

   As I board my fifth flight of this week , stay in my second  5 star hotel in a week , I feel a total fraud and that someone is going to find me out! I know that it is not going to last and I am going to crash down to reality very soon but yesterday really did seem like an out of body experience. I was invited by a bookshop in Kuala Lumpur to give a talk on the Storybook  Initiative. They paid my flight and expenses so I just had to come and do it! I arrived in KL early afternoon and discovered that my hotel was on the route of the first City Grand Prix and it was very crowded and difficult to reach not to mention the noise level being very high but it was my first experience of being so near cars going at that speed. After managing to shout to check in I set off to find the book shop where there was a board outside saying “Fiona Wright talks on the Storybook Initiative to celebrate the World’s Indigenous People Day” ! So this was the place in the lovely Silverfish bookshop and now I just hoped that not many people would turn up. It started with about ten people and ended up with over thirty as people arrived late or just drifted in from the shopping mall. My audience was very varied and I had a few children, a group of teenage boys and every other age group up including an elderly lady. I ended up the talk with a reading of “Itut-Itut” which was unplanned but seemed  to be a success. So it was over and everyone seemed to be happy and bought some of the books. I was then taken out to dinner by the publishers and came back to a much quieter hotel.

Bidayuh

Iban

This morning I was able to enjoy a very lovely breakfast and was tempted to take a photograph of my salmon and asparagus but thought it would show me up as the fraud I am. I even ended up talking to a gentleman who was involved in the Australian racing team which seemed rather strange too as I know nothing about car racing. I had a quick call into the  KL British Council office which was full of an amazing mixture of people from all races all striving to learn English I suppose - there was even a buddhist monk on his way to class in his orange robes. The one thing that I have really noticed in KL is how many women are wearing full burkas. No one wears full burkas in Sabah and I never noticed it in KL before - a sign of the times. So I am waiting at the new terminal 2 in Kuala Lumpur airport writing my blog and people watching and feel that I ought to give a plug for Air Asia. They won the world’s best low cost airline for the 7^th year running (flight magazine!) and I really do think that they are one of the best airlines I have travelled on. The Allstars as Tony Fernandes calls them, are always so nice and helpful, the planes are new and they run on time and have enabled me to travel, and millions of others to many interesting destinations. Continue the great work! So on Wednesday I am off to yet another 5 star hotel in KK for the final End of Year meeting which in many ways is sad but all good things do come to an end and the end is getting nearer!

Part of the leaflet as proof that it was me!

Rungus girls holding the books