Things are deff picking up here in Sabah. Aman and I have confirmed and paid for our Hong Kong flights-we leave next Friday and return on 2nd Feb, so will have 5 full days there. Will prob spend the last few days of our Chinese New Year hols doing our Padi course together in KK. This weekend we're meeting up with the rest of the Sabah crew to celebrate Georgie+Kathryn (ozzies), getting into their uni courses- they both just found out a few days ago. We've just returned from "Sapi", another of the beautiful 5 islands off KK. Gutted cos there was a turtle sighted in the reef but it visited when we were out on our short but sweet jungle trek. Aman and I booked our accommodation for Hong Kong and it turns out it's gona cost us a lot more than we expected- but I'm sure it'll be worth it!, We're all going to go for a nice meal together tonight, then Georgie and Katheryn are coming back to SMK DPM to crash in our room-noo idea where they're gona sleep! Aman and I are then going with some of the Asrama kids to a deaf birthday party on Sunday and then we'll hopefully meet up with the guys to see the Chinese dragon dance on Sunday night. Still not received out formal timetable, so this week we have decorated the GAP corner notice board in the school- giving info of where we're from and our hobbies etc. We have also been searching for a script for the drama competition. So if anyone knows of a 20 min long script in proper English, pleease let us know!! Aman has started teaching the deaf children and we have both been learning Bahasa Malay Sign Language from a book Catherine has given us. She's picking it up a teeny bit faster than me though! Cathrine asked us today how we would feel about taking a camp for the deaf students, where Aman and I would arrange all of the activities, while the other teacher's would be there to supervise. We told her we'd be 100% up for that so it should be going ahead in June. It's more of an outdoor adventure camp than a formal teaching thing. Should be amazing- Cathrine said the location has some of the best views in Sabah. She also told us that they ran a similar camp for some of the children that had recently been abused in their primary school by their former teacher. Was a real shock to hear what some of the deaf children have been through. I sat in on Aman's class, where she was teaching 3 students the basics of BM as they didn't know much Bahasa Sign language. It was great cos it helped me pick some new things up. We had a nice surprise yesterday- a girl approached us and gave us a box with cake in it. She said it was from her mum, to welcome us to Sabah- we were pretty much speechless- just kept saying thank you to her. We were then approached by the same girl's elder sister who asked if we had received the cake ok (it was ginger cake-amaazin). We said yes and asked her to thank her mum. She then asked if we would be interested in meeting a Scottish couple. Turns out, her parents are close friends with a Scottish couple that have lived in Sabah for 20 years. She asked if we would like to join them on a Thursday night as that is the day they meet with the couple for a bible study. Of course we said we'd love to, so we're waiting for her to give us a definite date. We've been taking classes in the evening for the Asrama (hostel) students. So far we have been revising the alphabet and playing "When I went to the Jungle I saw...." then giving an animal beginning with a certain letter. We then asked the kids to draw us pics of the animals- resulting in us having loadsa pics to decorate our room with. Meeza was soo sweet. She spent ages on hers and when she eventually gave it to us, it turned out she had written us the cutest poem ever- "When I went to the jungle I saw...This really cute creature. Is really cute! This is just a sketch, when you see it with your own eyes, you will see all the kindness in that big blue cute cuddly eyes. That soft fur and...The warmth feeling...when softly smile...A traveler was inspired by softly, then she wrote a poem to one she loves. Love- without love life would be nothing, But if you appreciate your love, try your best to protect it. Then that's where your life had begun. Kirsty and Aman, are good friends, both come from a different end, Everybody love them, as they love their own friend, A friend that is always be there to clear your pain... I am sorry if I have spelled wrong, But I am worried more if I am not good enough to be your friend. So I made you a poem, a poem that hoped to be remember. If you're sad, just remember us, Your sincerely, friend from SMK DPM, Mizah. We were like- awww and that night we had Meeza, Joyce and one of their friends into our room for cheese+crackers and coke. Spent the whole night talking about food- they loove cheese cos they don't really get it here in Sabah and it's really expensive. They couldn't believe that we eat mouldy cheese- but they're still dying to try it. So mum- I've had orders that you've got to bring out Danish Blue, strawberry laces, Millions (sweets), liquorices and various flavours of fudge. We've also had loads of the deaf children in our room and Aman successfully persuaded one of the girls to use her lip pattern. This is a real achievement as the children all sign with their mouths closed here and rely entirely on signing. They are sooo easily embarrassed and have really low self esteem - resulting in constant giggling and shying away. It's good when we speak to them in a small group, as they're more confident. We recently discovered we hava small gym in the school so Aman and I have sworn to get fit while we're here. I spent 20 mins on the bike last night and nearly KO'd. Only prob is, we can only use it at 10pm cos it's also used as a classroom and the boys study there until 10. During the week, Rakeema (the matron), took us to the beach with 2 of her friend's that are young teachers. All have quite poor English so we have agreed we'll do our best to help improve it. We went to the beach in KK in the evening and was fab cos there were loadsa fruit stalls- pineapple here is to die for. Loadsa people were drinking outa huuge coconuts and we bought cups of corn cooked in butter-mm. Sat and listened to some live music- sax + singer, and chatted away. Rakeema wants us to cook for her one night so I'm gona make her some pasta bake-although I may have trouble finding the ingredients. We borrowed her mop to clean our floors for the first time and broke it :-S- still have to let her know about that. The lizards have been full on fighting in our room. There's a nice innocent brown one, minding his own business- not making any noise, and along comes this albino meanie who chases after the brown one, tackles is, bites its neck and flings it off the wall. Poor mr brown lizard went SPLAT on the ground numerous times but still manages to waddle away kind of unharmed. I don't know why the albino one's being so mean tho. And it twitches it's tail when it's about to pounce on the brown one, and makes a really high pitched clicking noise. When I hear it clicking in the night, I'm terrified its gona throw the poor brown lizard onto my face. Ah dear. I think I'm going slightly psychotic as I am starting to feel sorry for a cockroach. We squashed it by mistake about 3 days go. It was behind our sliding door that leads to our bathroom and we slid the door onto it. I'm pretty sure we squashed it big time but its antennae kept twitching and I thought it was probably just it's nerve endings or something. We squashed it (by mistake) a few more times when opening and closing the door- and its still there- we thought it was dead by now but then it fell on the floor and started moving. So my theory is that we partly killed it and its been enduring a slow and painful death over the last 3 days. And now I don't know whether to just squish it and put it out of its misery or let it recover. What a dilemma. Aman + I have been feeling pretty knackered over the last few days + I've been sneakin a little sleep when I can. The internet's been off this week at the school due to lightning we had a few days ago. We've been experiencing some troubles with the flush of our toilet- resulting in a highly amusing episode but I shall leave the details for personalised emails. (Trust me- it's a story worth hearing about!) The kids have now changed from calling us "Teacher" to shouting "Hello Kirsty +Aman!", "Good morning!" etc. They often get the time of day mixed up so they shout "Good morning" when it's really the afternoon, so their friend's nudge them to correct them and then they all burst into fits of giggles-even the boys. We thought the amount of "hello"'s etc would die down after a while but we still receive a wave or greeting from absolutely every student we walk past- we're not complaining tho- tis really nice cos eeeveryone here is always pleased to see us. We initially thought the boys were taking the mick by shouting "I love you!" but it's starting to be quite a regular thing. We think they might actually think it's a normal kind of greeting. The food's either improving or we're getting used to it. I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Bad thing is they have really good doughnuts here so I can see myself living off them. I've started eating some fish as well, which has been a lot nicer than expected. Reminds me of Ardtoe when I have it- feel good food. Again with getting used to things- we're not sure if we're acclimatizing to the heat or if it is just getting cooler. The heat seems to be a lot more bearable- we've had a nice breeze for the last few days as well, which def helps. Ah yeeah- the animals at the school. There are 2 stray dogs that hang about the canteen. One is skin and bone and the other has huge scabby patches all over it- tis so sad. If you've seen that horrible episode of animal hospital where there was that scabby white dog- that's what it looks like. And there's no water available to them- drives me crazy. There are also about 5 stray cats here- look in slightly better shape than the ones on the street- but oh my! Their meows!! Seriously one of the worst things I think I've ever heard. When I first heard one meow, I thought it was a baby screaming in pain. Sounds like their constantly being tortured- no idea what their problem is. Their tails seem to always be zigzag shaped as well. Outside the Asrama, there is a building being built. Turns out the school is expanding to include a sports complex. One of the students told us that SMK DPM is gona become a school that specialises in sport by 2008 and the building being made is for squash courts. We've decided to teach the kids rounders but since it gets dark really early here (6pm) we will prob have to do it at the weekends. Got my first proper class on Monday- teaching 8am-10am the 2.30-4.30. Think I'm gona do drama with them-i.e, give each group a topic and they have to make an act around it in English. Looks like I'll be teaching mostly alone as Aman is badly needed in the deaf department. Forgot to mention- a tradition here is that when a teacher (or Aman and I) enter a class- the students instantly stand up. The teacher then says "Good Morning class" and the class reply in a drone "Good Morning teacher". They then wait for the command to sit down. Whereas at the end of the class, the teacher will ask the class to stand, say "Thank you class", the class will chant in response "Thank you teacher" and then they are dismissed. We have also discovered that Prefects are highly respected. For instance, Meeza is a prefect and is most definitely looked up to by her peers. She also takes a good leadership role in the class and has assisted in our evening classes by translating for the students that are poor in English. The Prefects are also aloud certain privileges- such as using the gym. We have got to learn that it is rude to point here, so are trying to force ourselves to use our thumb to direct people to things. Aman has been informed that she looks like a Bollywood film star, and the kids think Grant from feeder (in my photos) is David Beckham- hence there is some confusion as to why he has a guitar in his hand. Aman was sliding open the window to let some air in and it managed to fall backwards (outside). Luckily she has good reflexes and managed to hold onto it before it hit the wall outside. Just had some of the students fix it for us yesterday. Found a nice internet café we're sitting in just now, only got 4 comps but a bakery and fruit juice to die for all around the comps. Right- off for tea.