Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia! Part 1

Wow, I can’t believe that I never posted about Malaysia. I came back, we flew to Bangkok to meet my parents and then my mom stayed for a month. I just had no time to blog. But it was a great trip and I want to make sure I include it in my blog book.

I left on a Sunday morning. It was hard to say goodbye – I wasn't too worried about being away from the kids for for 4 days, but I was more just hoping Damien wouldn’t go crazy taking care of them all by himself. I have to admit, it really was nice to be out on my own and working – even though I missed them a lot. I had never been to Malaysia so I was excited to be going to a new place. I landed in Kuala Lumpur and it was obvious right away I wasn’t in Thailand anymore – mostly it was the diversity. In Thailand, besides the Westerners that are mostly in one part of the city, there are very few other nationalities. It was also shocking when one of the employees in the security said, “Heeellllooo Lady.” You know, in that “How you doin’” way. This would NEVER happen in Thailand. I then flew to Kota Kinabalu which was on the North side of Borneo, the same as the main Indonesian Island. The woman who picked me up was really great and it was nice to meet another SILer in another part of the world. The apartment I stayed in was a three bedroom with three other SILers. It was in the same building as the family who picked me up which was really nice. We had dinner at their house and hung out and all got to know each other. We had a really nice view of the beach from the apartment. The sunset and the mosque were just beautiful. The apartment was actually in nice condition (especially compared to some places we’ve lived/stayed) but man, I sat on the bed and I literally lifted up the sheet too look at the mattress because it felt like I sat onto a piece of plywood. So hard! No Internet though. It’s amazing how disappointing that is. Thankfully the apartment of our friends had Internet we could use in the evenings after the workshop. They cooked dinner for us the first night because we had to be out the door by 6:45am the next morning.

This is our apartment. We were on the 5th floor.

The view was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

The sun beginning to set the first night.

I love seeing new places. Driving to the university was great. I was surprised at the similarities to Thailand, but it was still very different. We had a ton to do for the workshop before the students came. We had to install and set up FieldWorks on about 20 of the university computers in case some of the participants didn’t have computers. Then everyone came. And it was crazy. Over 60 people! And there were 6 of us to help. The first three hours of the workshop was the “opening ceremonies.” It was some serious stuff. SIL and the University of Malaysia , Sabah, was forming a partnership and signing an MOU. All sorts of important people gave speeches, shook hands, and signed things. Apparently in Malaysian culture any sort of conference has a long, drawn out opening and closing ceremony. 

We all took a table and that is who we focused on. I loved my table. It was 9 people from the same people group/language who wanted to make a dictionary of their language. I was just soaking it all in – I love all of this cultural stuff.

I had my first introduction to Tea time. We had it every day at 10 and 4. It always included food. And on this first day we had this amazing curry. Ooo, I wish I could get it in Thailand. Lunches were catered by the university for the leaders and participants. It was mostly really good – with some strange stuff here and there. For dinner our SIL hosts helped us out. 

The first night we went to a Chinese place. It was yummy – but still very cheap like Thailand. The second two days of the workshop went well. It was a great learning experience for me. It was my first time in a role where I was teaching FieldWorks. I learned a lot, but since it was also just a introductory class, I was able to help my table too. We also had Internet at the University so I could Skype with Damien if I had a question I couldn’t answer. It was perfect. And then I got to see this sunset!