The WWF have been producing some amazing campaigns to highlight the plight of our forests.

This is particularly relevant for our Borneo projects and the effect the palm oil industry has on the environment over there.

So last night was the official opening of our new homestay style building in the community of Kipouvo just outside Kota Kinabalu. This was the culmination of 7 weeks of hard work by the team and community to go from a patch of jungle to a fully operational building.

As I have mentioned before the community have certain beliefs and wanted to make sure they blessed the home properly in order to not incur the wrath of any spirits in the area. This they did with a few prayers, a hymn and splashing holy water around the house itself. This was followed by the usual large pile of food and some drinking – I treated the team to some red wine which went down well but was not as well received as the locally brewed rice wine or tapai. The spirits were banished to the jungle with the act of cooking in the house and myself and Mel staying in the house overnight. Below are some pictures from the evening including me being made to chop onions using the biggest sharpest parang in the village much to the amusement of everyone gathered.

The next set of pictures shows the house all cleaned up and ready to receive our very first guest this morning – in other words the finished product…

And the final picture shows all the team gathered on the steps of the house this afternoon, welcoming Joe, our very first guest. Joe has now been absorbed into the bosom of the community, showing great flexibility as the team adapt to their new roles and tasks. I have no doubt however that she will have an amazing experience and feel confident the community will do an incredible job – this is the start of something truly special…

So we are almost there – we go operational tomorrow at Kipouvo – I hope you have enjoyed watching the building go up – below are some pictures taken from the weekend when the community turned out for what they call a “Gotong Royong” – this is where everyone turns up to get stuck into some kind of community task – this time around it was landscaping the area around the house and doing some painting and decorating.  In the region of 50 people turned up to help and give a few hours of their Sunday.  As with most events in Sabah food formed part of it with a delicious spread of local dishes laid on for the workers as reward for their hard graft.  With the painting well under way all that remained at the weekend was the plumbing and wiring which were estimated to take a day each.

As a postscript I visited the house yesterday and final work was being done – wiring and fan installations – the furniture was being put together and gathered from different sources, ready for arranging later today (Thursday).

This evening it is planned to have a small opening ceremony with some prayers and of course some food!!  They want to cook from the stove in the kitchen – this is an old superstition and dates back to when the cooking was done on fires – they believe that when you move into a new house you must cook and create some smoke in order to tell any spirits hanging around in the area that people are now moving in and they should move away.  Hence we will have some food cooked there tonight – I am staying as a guinea pig for the night and I believe there will be a little bit of local brew for a celebration – I cant wait!! I will try and update tomorrow with some pictures from the ceremony and the start of operations…..here we go……!!!!