East Malaysia Visits

As the plane finally came in to land at Kuching (after having aborted the landing once due to some pretty windy conditions), Jan & I wondered what was in store for us in the next 10 days. This was the third, and last, of our visits to PETs & ELCs in their schools & districts. The last couple of months had seen us driving all over Peninsular Malaysia visiting people and attending Zone Meetings. Now it was the turn of those in the states of Sarawak & Sabah. It was Sunday evening and Rob Clement and his wife, Kim, had kindly invited us to their home for dinner. We had a very pleasant dinner but had to call it a day reasonably early as we had an early start the next morning.

I was waiting outside the hotel at 6AM the next morning as we had a long drive to get to SK Sageng by 8:30 along some pretty rough roads. Rob was starting the ELP programme with this school which had been his control group during the earlier ELP programme. We had a wonderful time with the students and teachers who really appreciated the lessons (see the pictures in the Photo Albums). Then it was off to catch up with Scott Palmer in Sri Aman. We met Scott for lunch and then went back to his office for a chat about his training programme and how life was treating him in this pretty remote location. Then it was back on the road for the two and a half hours' drive home. Coming back into Kuching, we were diverted away from the hotel as there was a huge Chinese parade wending its way around the streets. It looked as if we'd never get to the hotel and so I elected to get out of the car and walk, thereby allowing Rob to turn around and get out of the traffic jam. I finally arrived back at the hotel at 7PM!

Jan on the other hand, had spent a fairly quiet day visiting Ian Martin, the new PET at SMS Kuching (replacing James Christie who had left at the end of March after completing his contract) who seems to be settling in well. He's already offered to reorganise their library for them!

The next leg of the journey was for Jan to head over to Labuan to visit Stefan Hayward and family and for me to find my way to Lawas to visit Stan Austin.