Seriously?! Christmas?

It is hard to believe Christmas has already come and gone. I keep thinking it is July with this warm, no make that hot, weather. This year may pass as being a perpetual July. To celebrate this years Christmas season the other volunteers and I attended a large celebration held by the residents of Kota Kinabalu! This is a huge event held every evening for three days on Jalan Gaya (Gaya Street). Along the street there are booths set up by different organizations/families that either promote or raise money. It was fun to go explore these booths and see what was available for purchase. Both of my placements were their hosting tables and raising money for their organizations. It was so much fun to see the kids from Care Haven outside of the classroom manning their table of jewelry. They all seemed to enjoy their time Gaya Christmas Festival. My other placement with the 2nd KK Girls Brigade group also had a few tables set up and were selling numerous items. There were some delicious homemade pastries , fun holiday capes, and some homemade crafts. Every time I went to visit their table I was met with happy greetings and enthusiasm. Visiting Gaya Christmas Festival was an interesting and here are just a few of the highlights:

1- visiting with Care Haven and Girls Brigade

2- watching the music performances and street carolers

3- being out in the community

4- running into random people we know

5- experiencing another cultures christmas

It was eye opening to participate in the events leading up to Christmas on Gaya street. For Christmas Eve and Christmas day the other volunteers and I traveled with Reverend Laura and Bishop Thomas to an interior village in Sabah. I'll discuss this adventure in my next blog!

I pray that you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to celebrate the birth of the savior with family and friends.

Good week and a great weekend

A great weekend started with a good week. This past week a fellow volunteer, Katherine, and I worked with a few of the teachers children on their English skills. We met with them for three morning seasons of three hours to read stories, play games, sing a few songs, and learn from one another. I had a great time with my class of six and their enthusiasm for playing hangman and 20 questions was uplifting. As time goes on, I'm learning more and more what and how things are taught in the school systems here. My impression so far is: there are similarities in what they are learning to the states but big differences in how and when things are taught. I will blog about this latter once I observe a little more. So, for these few days I tried to make the learning process into a game and a more hands on approach! We spent time each day reading a story, discussing the story, and then creating the characters out of play-dough and acting it out. The play-dough is something they loved to do and we could have spent all our time together just creating things out of it. My six students were a quiet energy group until they had the opportunity to 'be the teacher' and each one was put in charge of the different games played!

Other highlights of the week:

Watching the crabs at the beach! They have their own little world that is hypnotizing to watch as they dig out and defend their holes.

Exploring downtown: Ellen, another volunteer, and I went downtown Kota Kinabalu (KK) and found some local markets of food and souvenirs. Then we thought we would try a Malaysia past time event and go to the mall. We spent time at one of the 9? 10? malls that they have and enjoyed walking around and seeing all the Christmas decorations.

This picture show four of the levels in Center Point Mall. Each mall has a unique layout and to me it seems like they built the main building then decided to just add on here and there around the outside. It is very easy to get lost a little inside this mall.

Then to top of the week Ellen and I baked some Christmas sugar cookies, homemade bread, and even experiment to make homemade pizza. It was great fun and the food actually turned out great! Hopefully, we will be able to learn some traditional Malay food before returning.