ON THE ROAD AGAIN

This is a family that we met on the ferry across a river in Kuching. The river is about the size of the Mississippi in parts. We were sitting in the car eating fried bananas which have quickly become one of Dad's favorite foods. They enjoyed talking to your Dad who kept them laughing. All of the young people spoke English.

This lady, walking toward Sister Frandsen, was in the process of filling this basket up with sand (at least 100 lb.). She lifted it up and put the cloth band around her forehead and balanced the bag on her back ---- and off she went! It is amazing the weight these small people are able to carry in this manner. Patrick Panai told us that his grandmother had a deep permanent groove in the top of her head where she carried baskets all of her life just like this lady!

Nestor (third from the left) is our Sight Monitor (we pay him to oversee the contractor) for the six Humana Schools. To my left is Torbin Vennig, Director of Borneo Aid Society (which includes Humana Schools) and he is from Denmark. The second from the right is Ishmael, the contractor we paid to do the work on the schools. Both Nestor and Ishmael work for Humana Schools. We had just had a wonderful seafood dinner at a resturant by the sea. Torbin Venning'sstory reminds me of the book--Three Cups of Tea. If you haven't read it, please do. Torbin brings education with over 120 schools to the mostly immigrant children of the workers on palm oil plantations in the areas that we visited. Some of these plantations are over 5,000 acres in size!! We traveled for hours just to visit one school. LDS Charities provides fresh water to the school, toilets, sinks for hand washing,sanitary septics. These kids and their teachers were delighful.

This picture was taken at the Kota Kinabalu Airport. One of the airlines had just had a flight land from a new destination and had hired some of the local tribes to dress up in their native costumes and greet the arrivals. Luckely, we were able to get them to pose with us for pictures.

This is E/S Frandsen, fresh water specialists, from Heber, Utah. They spent 2 weeks with us and our days were busy 13 hour days!! We traveled to Lahad Datu and came back to KK for the weekend, rested up and then spent the next week in Kuching. The word kuching means "cat" in Malaya.

I'll write more in another blog now that I have retrieved this from the drafts. It has taken me since Tuesday to get this much. Oh, well!!!!!!!!!!

Mom & Dad with the beautiful lady in her tribal dress.