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…