One of the problems of teaching English in Sarawak is that almost all of the readily available material is very Europe and US centred.  This even applies to the climate.  Brits are famous for talking about the weather and English textbooks are full of it too.  Whole chapters are devoted to the seasons and the way they change, but then we have a lot of weather to talk about.  Not so in Sarawak, within spitting distance of the Equator.  There are just two seasons here - "rainy" and "rainier", the annual variation in daylight hours is about ten minutes and the annual temperature range is about fifteen degrees, from 25-40c, day and night.  God knows what the locals do for smalltalk. Earlier this week I was preparing a lesson for a sparky group of nineteen year olds and the textbook had some photos of the Beatles and the fall of the Berlin Wall as teaching aids.  I assumed they'd have heard of the Beatles and I decided to use the material to see what re...

Life's been a bit of a struggle for the last couple of weeks.  I've had some sort of virus which has given me a sore throat and a feeling of listlessness.  Then last weekend a stomach bug on top of it, which left me immobile for twenty-four hours.  I know it's been bad, because I didn't feel like running for days on end (except for the occasional sprint to the toilet that is).  I finally staggered round the local running track yesterday morning and began to get the feeling of slowly starting to come through something. While this has been going on I've continued to take my English classes, on the basis that it's marginally easier to carry on than to cancel them.  Mostly they've been fine, although I'm coming to understand why thirteen is regarded as such a difficult age - for sick teachers to cope with at any rate. Sue has had the same bug whilst working twice as hard as me.  Because of our schedules we hardly seem to see each other during the week...

It's hot, hot, hot, right now.  Even for Borneo.  The last two or three days have been almost cloudless, allowing the Sun to suffuse the countryside with a buttery yellow light and making the temperature almost unbearable.  Yesterday evening Sue's colleague Catherine invited me on a cycle ride to a nearby longhouse which she had visited recently and where there was a promising bike trail. About ten kilometres out of Saratok we turned up a backroad which quickly became a dirt track.  It was hard work with the Sun still above the tree line and passing four-wheel drives throwing up clouds of dust, their occupants peering at us inquisitively, then smiling and waving.  Eventually we came to a turning off the track down to a longhouse, which to my surprise turned out to be the one of which my friend Ambrose is Headman.  I had been taken there by Ambrose about three months ago and could not  remember the way back.  The picture above was taken ...

In the UK I felt in the grip of two opposing forces - guilt and concern for Dad on the one hand and on the other the desire to get back to Borneo as fast as possible to carry on with what feels like my "real" life.  After two weeks the dynamic equilibrium shifted from Lincoln to Sarawak and I felt able to book my ticket back.  I arrived in KL on Thursday morning after a twelve hour flight from Heathrow feeling tired, bewildered and very old.  Sue had been spending a few days with a fellow Mentor, Catherine, in the Cameron Highlands, high in the hills of the Malaysian Peninsular and the plan was to spend the night together in KL before flying back to Sibu the next day.  I got to the hotel at about 9am desperate to get some sleep and crashed out in a sun-lounger by the pool until our room was ready after lunch. It was good to touch base with Sue that evening.  We're both finding that the variety of experiences we've had over the last ten years is making us det...

Suddenly the emotional string that connects me to my Dad got pulled too tight and I had to step on a plane, well several actually, to see him.  After six months in hospital following a pointless knee operation, which he wheedled out of the NHS with great skill and determination, he was discharged home with an "intensive home care package" and from our 'phone conversations it sounded like he was struggling to cope. In fact, by the time I got to Lincoln, tired and jet-lagged following a thirty-odd hour journey, the initial crisis had passed and he was beginning to adapt to his new wheelchair bound existence.  Far from being a sick man awaiting my succour, he greeted me as if my arrival was a pleasant surprise motivated by my desire to see him rather than by his desperate circumstances.  I felt conned and manipulated like I have been so many times before.  Then I felt guilty for feeling exasperated that he didn't seem more sick than he was. I've given myself ...

Sue's and my cup is running over.  She took part in a blowpipe competition at one of her schools yesterday and was given one as a present by a teacher who had been given it by his grandfather when he was a boy.  An honour indeed.  Following a period of indolence I am now working flat out.  After some tweaking of my prices for English lessons to encourage groups of four and five to get together, I've had a rush of clients and now find myself with thirty odd students in seven classes and our downstairs bedroom has been transformed into a classroom complete with tables, chairs and a whiteboard. Although I trained hard for my teaching English to speakers of other languages course in November last year, I am still a novice and having to work up lessons for seven separate groups has been very hard work, even though I have only about ten contact hours per week.  So for the last three weeks I've been hoovering up like a maniac illegal copies of English course books ...

I went out for a bike ride this afternoon with one of Sue's Mentor colleagues, Catherine.  We cycled up and down a tarmac jungle road until it petered out into a track.  The track seemed to know where it was going, so we left our bikes and followed it across a small wooden bridge over a muddy stream.  It took us into the jungle, past rubber trees with telltale grooves cut in their trunks through which the latex flows. After a few hundred metres we came to a clearing in which there was an Iban Graveyard.  We spoke to each other in hushed voices, although we could see or hear no one.  I instinctively took my cycling cap off as a mark of respect.  Most Ibans are Christians today, and the majority of the plots were marked with a cross.  But their Christian beliefs are blended with much older animist traditions in which the spirits of the jungle and their ancestors loom large. One grave had only a traditional urn buried in the ground and next to it ...