Ok so we are not quite at the end of the year, and are currently hosting several Australian school teams in Borneo,  but this week we staged our end of year party for all staff.  Its an annual tradition to get together and have some fun, usually centred around some dancing (both cultural and “modern”) and some singing (normally a mix of dreadful and amazing karaoke renditions).  This year there was the added twist of fancy dress (super heros meets cultural attire) – more about that and some embarrassing pictures in another blog I am sure!  So we managed to get nearly all our camp staff down into Kota Kinabalu (which is no mean feat!) for the evening and had circa 60 people present.  Normally the gathered crowds have to endure a speech from yours truely and this year was no exception – although i thought this year i would keep it simple with a summary of the year in numbers.  I have copied it here for people to see the size of the operation we are now running in Borneo:

Total number of pax coming through Borneo = 764

Total number of days spent in our camps = 14,936

Total number of days spent working on our projects = 7,613

Total different nationalities = 19

(Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Belgian, Australian, British, Pilipino, American, New Zealand, Botswana, Ghana, German, Bruneian, Japanese, Indian, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Korean)

Total welcoming and leaving dances danced = 117

Litres of water drunk = 59,744

Meals cooked = 44,808

Rubbish collected from beaches on Mantanani = 320 kg

Litres of air used doing scuba diving = 98,600

Trees planted = 8600

Money spent on our community projects = RM 97,300

Money spent in direct support to these projects & locally within Sabah = RM 2,850,000

There are some pretty juicy numbers here and it illustrates the hard work the team have put in this year as well as some of the great achievements we have done.  And whilst the figures are impressive my main message to the team was not to loose that little special something that everyone experiences when they come to Borneo – that special feeling of being part of the family, part of the community, mucking in and sharing those great little moments with people.  Thats what makes Borneo such a special place and the staff we have such mind blowingly awesome people – they work hard of course but they are willing to share and welcome people into their lives and families.

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……!!!!

So it is only just over 1 week until we welcome our first visitors into the homestay at Kipouvo – and yes it still looks like a building site but you can see it is almost there – I just received this pictures from Melanie who visited there a few hours ago – she was taken aback by the progress and by how good it looks – so we are all very excited. I am back there this Sunday where the community are holding what they call a “Gotong Royong” – this is basically the community coming together and mucking in to get things done – so i am looking forward to seeing the progress and being amongst it all on Sunday afternoon. It looks great.

I am just back from a visit to see the work progress at Kipouvo and pictures are below.  I was very impressed with the progress and the overall feel of the building – its a great little spot, very quiet, beautiful surroundings and the layout of the building promises to provide a great living space.  The big boss builder was on site and he was confident it would be ready – quite relaxed about it all – he had about 7 other workers on the building – the roof is up and the skeleton of the walls is going up – this is being lined with polythene which will then have a bamboo coating both inside and out.

The boss builder was even quite relaxed when I started to ask for the interior walls to be moved – its every builders nightmare when the client turns up and starts questioning things and asking if things can be done differently – we moved one wall a few feet and it was all very calm and stress free!!

We spent quite a bit of time working out what furniture would work and in particular thinking about the layout of the veranda area which will no doubt become the main focal point of the structur for those that stay there. The final plans are now coming together and it is planned to have a final run through and opening ceremony celebration on 1st April – I can sense the excitement of the community already – its really picking up momentum and energy as we proceed.

I am going back into the community again on Friday so will update you then with some more pictures which will hopefully show the walls nearing completion.

Here’s some more pictures taken on Wednesday this week!

The road to the homestay:

Front view of home:

Community working hard – pulling wheel barrel filled with bricks up to kitchen area:

Back view of home:

Living room:

Kitchen:

Side view:

Toilet & shower:

Unfortunately we were unable to get any good pictures of the ongoing build at our new homestay style accommodation at Kipouvo due to a serious downpour during a recent visit this weekend.  However it did have the roof on, almost, I promise! Usually once the floor and main joists are down, the roof is the next thing to go up, obviously on the supporting beams and uprights.  This means once the roof is complete the carpenters can work underneath without being affected by the weather.  And obviously in Borneo this can be one of two things – either the searing heat of the midday sun or the torrential downpours which occur most afternoons for an hour or so.

What I can show you however is some pictures of Mel (our Homestay Coordinator) working with the ladies of Kipouvo on some basic tourism principles and issues.  She spent most of Sunday (such dedication!) working with the ladies, helping them to come together and start to plan how they are going to manage the homestay when our first guests arrive in early April.  They are all a little nervous so much of Mel’s job is to reassure them that they are very capable and will do a great job – and although they are a little apprehensive they are all extremely excited and raring to go – this is a huge huge undertaking for them and they are eager to get it right from the start.

That’s all for now but hope to get some more pictures up here for you soon.

It is with an immense sense of pride and excitement that I can show you some pictures of our small eco-tourism project taking shape in the small community of Kipouvo.  We have been working with the community for a while now, making plans and preparing for the construction of the small homestay style building.  And finally we are under way – it is great to see the building starting to take shape.

These pictures show the main supporting posts and trusses being laid as well as the concrete/brick work for the washing/toilet area.

We are obviously using local community members to do the work.  I was a bit nervous that they could achieve it all in 6 weeks but they were adamant it could be done – after all they have been building these type of buildings all their lives and know the layout inside out.

And so here it is – I hope to keep you posted of progress each week so you can see it really take shape.