A Smiley Day

The other day I drove out to my village school. The morning was the usual - tackling the administrative-type people for tasks still undone, grabbing teachers as they flew by me on their way to classes, sitting in the teachers' room chatting to friends... oh, and aerobics. Yes, aerobics. And not just any aerobics - this was nationwide, nation-building, national aerobics, with a national theme tune and everything.

This was a little frustrating, as basically the entire educational system of Sabah shut down - there were no lessons from 7:20 to 8:20 because the teachers were setting up PA systems and getting dressed in their brand new trainers. There were no lessons from 8:20 to 8:40 because aerobics had been planned. No lessons from 8:40 to 9:40, because that was when the preparations finally finished and the PA system worked, and the aerobics was conducted. Then at 9:40, everyone was too busy packing up. Then we had break, and food. Then after break it turned out half the teachers had gone home to shower, and the other half were tired. And besides, a fair few of the kids had also bunked off after their energetic morning.

This is not unusual - I would estimate that my teachers are probably actually in class for about half of the time allocated to them for each year, what with extra-curricular competitions, sports days, sports training, teacher training, sick days, bridge holidays, and days taken off to escort family members to clinic.

I came off slightly better than my colleague in town - her schools had taken Monday off for the kids to practise the aerobics. Although these kids out in the kampung probably could have done with some practice! They were so sweet, trying to follow their teachers, the video, or just the other kid standing next to them...

Waiting for the aerobics to start - in varying states of dress.

This photo cracks me up every time, the kids are just having such a ball!

Chaos.

Little Rooney from preschool was so bewildered, he just stuck to his
sister for the whole hour and ignored the video entirely.

Two of the lovely teachers - Suryati is 9 months pregnant, but I'm not sure
what Khadijah's excuse for being on the sidelines was!

I think it was worth it just for the enormous smiles on everyone's faces that day! And then, even better, later on I left the school to drive down the road into the village for lunch. I stopped at a roadside cafe, just a wooden shack with some plastic tables in the shade of a rambutan tree, and as I got out about forty pairs of eyes turned to me. I'd stopped there before to get a cold drink, but never at lunchtime, and never when all three cafes dotted around this junction were full of villagers eating. There was this deathly silence, which got a little deeper as I walked up to the owner, and then suddenly lightened when I asked in Malay if I could eat something there with them? I could almost feel the sense of relief, and everyone laughed and pulled out a chair and the few who could speak Malay started asking questions. An older lady asked why I couldn't speak Dusun yet; I told her because I wasn't smart enough for two languages, and that kept them all laughing at me for long enough to allow me to order some mee sup. There were two little boys fighting over their own noodles across the table from me - the older one recognised me from school, where he attends the kindergarten. When I later asked them if I could take a photo, they suddenly remembered they were friends, and the elder pulled the little one close into him for their portrait. We talked in baby English and Malay about their food and toy trucks and pet turtles, until their mum arrived carrying her newborn twins. She was the only person who could speak any English, and suddenly everyone was bombarding her with questions to be answered. The questions mostly consisted of, "How long will you be here?" and, "Can you teach us English?" When I told them that we hoped to start workshops at the school soon for parents, they all wanted to know what date and when they could sign up and how much it would cost (this last caused some confusion when I told them it was free!)

It was all very exciting, because as part of my project we are supposed to be engaging parents, but I'm finding it an uphill battle with my teachers, who insist that the parents aren't interested in being a part of the school. I went straight back to report it to them, and received a non-committal "Hmm, really..." response.

But now that I know, I am determined to get them working on parent workshops soon... like it or not...