27 MAR 09

Hello again! Sorry about that, an influx of children prevented me finishing my post.

We're no longer in Sukau. Whilst there we invaded a wedding, amongst other things, which was really very interesting. It seemed like the entire village had turned out in force and somehow all the hungry mouths were fed. Imagine having to cook rice, chicken, beef, prawns and vegetables for a whole village at your child's wedding... I would guess people would stop having kids but that's not the case as the average family size here is much larger than in the U.K.. Our cook at Danau Girang for example has 15 brothers and sisters! I remember our family being chaotic enough at times with two!
The bride and groom were dressed in lilac, silky outifts and turned up after having made their vows at the mosque. They then made their way onto a bench on stage where family members would bring blessings for maybe two hours.

I'm currently sat having lunch in Kota Kinabalu, having travelled here yesterday with the KOCP team. There's a bazaare at the International School tomorrow and we're helping to translate some posters about elephants and orangutans. We've also agreed to do face-painting. Poor kids. Before we can start to panic about transforming five-year-olds into tigers though we have sixty animal masks to cut around, so I'll get back to that now.

Apparently Stephen Fry was sat in a restaurant two door down from us last night, but we didn't realise because we're not 'Twitter-addicts', whatever that means. Anyone who can shed light on this new internet phenomenon - feel free to leave a comment or something!

Rachel x

22 MAR 08

It's been a busy few weeks.

I'm currently sat in Sukau in an internet cafe; I can't believe it! I don't know when it opened, but it's definitely here now. It's amazing what people are using it for though. From my seat I can see two ten year olds, both on Youtube. One is watching a video about waxing and hair removal tips, the other is watching a Barbie massacre.

Damnit, there's a school group coming in and I have to leave... basically my pig is dead (Quasimodo), we have three new people at the centre, all of whom are very nice and it's Chloe's birthday today!

Laters,
Rachel

12 MAR 09

Hello again, terribly sorry for the lack of communication recently; we've had a few technical glitches that need ironing out, but all is well in the jungle!

We've had a busy time of it recently, zipping back and forth between Danau Girang, Kota Kinabalu and Sukau for various reasons. It's been quite a while since the parents returned home now and we're back in full swing getting our work done and 'being jungle'.

I tried to follow an orangutan for a coupe of days this week but to no real avail. My attempts at recording behavioural information failed miserably but I had to have a go! He was spotted one afternoon on a brief jungle walk, so I followed him until he built his nest for the night which was about four hours after he was first seen. The next morning I was up at half five to catch him before he left for breakfast and at first I thought it was all going rather well. I managed to keep up with his fruit-eating-rampage until he seemed likely to stay put for a while and I strung up a hammock to sit in whilst he ate. He was feeding for over an hour and I was just replying to a text message (amazed that I had any signal at all!) from my brother, wishing him all the very best for his show, when I looked up and found that 'Dunstan' had gone! I struggled to get the hammock down and searched for over an hour but he was obviously hiding and I was quite hungry by this point. I was just contemplating going to find some breakfast (it was about 10am by this time) when I heard an unusual bird approaching at an alarming rate. It turned out to be Chloe calling to me in the style of our friends in Sukau who make 'natural type noises' to find each other when they're in the field. She'd brought a food parcel from the field centre after reading my note!

Yesterday I was sat out on the steps of our studio (little house thing) playing guitar and wondering how I could possibly have lost a bright orange orangutan amongst a green forest when a familiar cracking of branches nearby caught my attention. I looked up to see Dunstan suspended between two trees, giving me exactly the same 'don't you dare follow me' look I'd been given on that first afternoon when I found him in the forest. As I wasn't wearing any shoes at the time he was in luck, but it's good to know he's still in the area and I'll have another search for him tomorrow. I'm sure he likes me really...

This morning Chloe and I went to Sandakan to collect a parcel that's been waiting for us for over a month. We arrived, signed the appropriate documents and ran back to the car with our precious packages... only to open them and find that we'd each received a blue holdall from Reader's Digest. We were both a little confused as the only link we have to this particular magazine is the online daily draw my Mum has tried to force me to enter every day for the last two years in a bid to win a huge amount of cash. This didn't explain our curious parcels and it was only when I turned the packaging over that I realised that we were in possession of two holdalls belonging to a Mr Huing Wan Hung and a Mr Richard Gibley. Returning to the Post Office I tried to explain that my name wasn't Richard and that Chloe certainly wasn't Mr Hung, and only suceeded in convincing the clerk by explaining that 'Mr' is a term for a male and we were most definitely female. Unfortunately my Malay is still pretty dire and so the best I could do translated as "I girl, Mr Gibley boy. I not Richard, I Rachel. I no have Reader's Digest. I want letter mine." He got the picture and after reluctant searching brought out three parcels, all with 'Reader's Digest' printed on the outside and addressed to a 'Mr G.Smythe', 'Mr Chung' and another name I forget now but did not include the words 'Rachel' or 'Chloe'. Some further exasperating conversation and waving of my driving licence convinced him that I wasn't going to accept any of the identical blue holdalls and really did want my mysterious parcel. Miraculously he managed to find both and Chloe now has her Marks and Sparks ingredients for a Christmas dinner (non-perishables...) sent by her Mum in time for (next) Christmas and I have a make-your-own monkey door hanger for my birthday! When we return to the jungle I think we'll have to have a Christmas pud and craft session...

08 MAR 09

Against all odds the jungle is now connected to the internet! Of course, I have no idea how long this will last for, but at least it's been here for long enough to sort out some boring admin things and send an email or two. It's also given me a moment to peruse the 'stat-counter' thing that records how many people read this blog, and I've got to say I'm impressed! In the last week there have been visitors from Kuala Lumpur, Germany, America, France and even Russia

(Edited 12 MAR 09: The internet died as I was typing the next sentence and I've forgotten what I was intending to write about, so this post has been abandoned and a new one embarked upon. Sorry about that - these things are temperamental out here!)

24 FEB 08

Mum and Dad should be a considerable way towards London now. I was a little concerned that we weren't going to catch our own flight yesterday evening. We'd been ushered into the departures lounge where a soundproof, glass wall separates those waiting to board and those lurking in the corridor, like my parents. For some reason we thought it would be possible to continue our conversation through the wall using a combination of mobile phone screens, waving arms about and mouthing words at each other. We were so carried away trying to work out what they were saying that a glance behind us showed an empty departure lounge, so we made a dash for the plane before they decided we'd taken too long!

We spent the last couple of days of their trip in Singapore. We visited Chinatown and Little India, the zoo and the night safari and the Hard Rock Cafe.

The night safari was brilliant; it's like going to the zoo after hours when the animals are generally unaware of your presence. Of course, this depends on whether you're being loud and annoying or not, which rather a lot of visitors didn't quite seem to grasp. When we managed to lose the noisy people we saw the most interesting things, our favourites of which were the flying squirrel 'flying' from tree to tree in its enclosure and the beautiful clouded leopard. The leopard was nowhere to be seen, but a little patience and an absense of shouting tourists led to watching him stalk around his dimly lit enclosure.The Hard Rock Cafe was also a place to be remembered. The first visit was only intended so that I could visit the gift shop in search of a particular U2 t-shirt and have a browse of the memorabilia inside. It resulted in us staying all evening to watch a live band perform classic rock covers. 'Thanks' to Chloe and Dad I ended up singing a U2 song with them, which was a lot of fun but very strange as the band were so professional sounding and I felt like a real stage invader! Anyway, the manager seemed quite happy with it and our drinks were on the house!
Now we're back in Sabah to concentrate on the orangutans again...

13 FEB 09

After a tense 48 hours last week wondering whether or not the snow would lift enough for Heathrow to begin operating like a normal airport again, Mum and Dad walked into the Arrivals Lounge of Kota Kinabalu airport.

The last eight days have been so busy that I've not had time to write anything, but I'll highlight a couple of our momentous points before the cafe who's internet we're using closes. It's just taken Dad over an hour to type three emails because he's not used to this laptop and has been repeatedly deleting and re-typing them. At least it's nice and warm outside; I imagine that sitting outside a shop at midnight typing an email in England is the last thing most people would be doing in the current weather situation.

Today we visited Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. For me this was the third trip in seven months, but orangutans never get old. Well, they obviously get old but not 'old'. Mum and Dad loved it (I think), and we watched several orangutans feeding on the specially built platform.
There was a young orangutan who seemed intent on winding up the adults in any way he could. This started with a mild pestering of his mother when he'd had his fill of bananas . Not getting anywhere he opted for swinging away from the platform along the rope, designed to protect the nearby saplings from the hungry mob twice a day, and bounding back onto the platform to stand over 'Mum' expectantly. Seeing that 'Mum' was still engrossed in her fruit-feast he chanced a tug at her fur, which resulted in an unimpressed look and Mum turning to face the other direction. The little one then turned to face Dad who was concentrating on a particularly juicy looking piece of lunch and climbed on top of him. Dad shook him off and gave him a very definite 'Do that again and I'll clock you one' stare. He went back to hang around on the rope for a while before getting fed up and swinging over to wind up a family of macaques who were patiently waiting for any leftovers from the great ape feeding session.
The next time I saw him swing into view he was holding a branch twice as long as he was tall in his left foot and trying to maneuvre back to the platform with his prize. I'm convinced he wasn't trying to be awkward, but like so many small children his intentions went misunderstood, and hitting his mother on the head with it whilst trying to drag it onto level ground didn't go down very well. She grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him back to a behaving, sitting position. Sulkily he snatched an entire bunch of bananas and retreated to the rope with the bunch grasped in his feet.
The 'eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome' soon set in though and he flumped down next to Dad in search of attention. None came his way, so he started poking his father. This, understandably, was as appreciated as accidentally hitting his mother on the head with a tree branch and resulted in a wrestling match with Dad, who must have been at least four times his size and weight. As we left, the little one stood up looking very proud of himself and probably would have been able to walk away with his head held high, but he chanced one last swipe at Dad and the fiasco recommenced, just as the park closed and we were ushered away from the feeding area.

The jungle's been flooded since the day Mum and Dad (human versions) arrived and it's been touch and go as to whether we'll be able to get there or not, but fingers crossed...

02 FEB 09

It's been over six months since I left Britain to come to Sabah. With five and a half left to go and an awful lot of work left uncompleted I'm starting to see my remaining time disappear faster than a chocolate bar in an ants nest. It doesn't seem possible that in the time I've been out here one friend has moved to work in Geneva, Christmas has come and gone without any mince pie consumption, friends are applying for 'proper jobs' and panicking about being an authentic grown-up and my little brother will have finished his first year at university before I so much as touch down at Heathrow Airport...

...however I'm still very much here and enjoying every second of it. Although we haven't spent a lot of time in the jungle recently, we have had time to get to know the charms of Kota Kinabalu. We've become semi regular attendees of Amir Yussof's open-mic evenings at the 'Office Pub' and invaded more than one game of badminton. Playing badminton on a real court rather than outside the field centre using the path as our net, and regularly tripping over tree roots and rocks, has been really good fun and I'm confident that less shuttlecocks will end up on the roof of the centre when we return. The fact that we're beaten by two thirteen year olds every time should probably be overlooked, but we're thankful that they let us play in the first place so Ellie and Nathan must get a mention!

After an extended deadline I've finally handed in my primate project from the July fieldcourse and sent off an article for our student newspaper 'gair rhydd'. Not very exciting stuff to tell you I'm afraid, but it's nice to have a sense of completing something without the mad rush that all too often accompanies that feeling back in Cardiff. Maybe it's the place, the lack of other things that 'have to be done' or maybe it's the weather, but had this week occured in Cardiff I would have ended up the coffee-fuelled, stressed-out, sleep-deprived wreck that multiple deadlines on the same day have a habit of creating out of otherwise average students. This time the only similarity is sleep deprivation, but that can be attributed to having the internet and trying to stay in sync with Europe on MSN and Facebook.

Rather bizarrely, on Thursday night I shall be picking up my parents from the airport. It's strange because it seems like a complete parent-child role reversal. Thinking back to all of the guide camps, school trips, cadet expeditions andthat adventure to Madagascar, the amount of times Mum asked whether I'd remembered *Insert useful/useless object here* and Dad quizzed me on drop-off times are uncountable. The last few days have been the complete opposite, with me sending emails to ask whether they've remembered things like a hat and suncream which probably seem ridiculous items to pack if you're sitting with frost on the windows and a cat that refuses to go outside because of the freezing temperatures. And however many times I tell myself when the plane gets in, I still have something in the back of my mind that asks whether I've got the right day/month/year/country. I have visions of Mum and Dad standing in arrivals at Kuala Lumpur airport wondering why I haven't turned up yet...
...but we'll see.