1st Week in Kota Kinabalu

Overall, our first week here in KK has been good. Communication is a little harder than it was in Ipoh because the officers here aren't quite as fluent in English as the ones in Ipoh were. We've made two friends - Michelle, who looks after the daycare/tutoring kids every day and Freddy, who works at the corps - they both speak English well and we spend our free time hanging out with them. They've been so nice to us, taking us around KK and taking us places! On the weekdays we teach the 6 kids at the youth center math and English in the morning, and then play with them all afternoon. It's a long day and can get kind of monotonous (for us), but we try and keep the kids entertained as best we can. It's a big help to Michelle, as she's usually the only one with them all day. Last Friday night we went to a Bible study at some of the corps members' home. It was a small group, but it was fun (although no one translated for most of it) and we played Bible charades and ate food. Driving there we came across some oxen in the road - very exciting! On Saturday Freddy took us to an island (we took a boat out) and rented snorkeling gear and spent the day swimming around the coral with the fish. In the evening we had a praise and worship practice and the girls taught American dances to some of the girls here. The Sunday meeting was from 9:30 to nearly 12:00 - we did a skit and participated in the praise and worship. We had the afternoon off and at night we took a bus with Michelle and went into downtown KK to see the Superman movie (which we really enjoyed!). This week we're back with the daycare kids, and there are only two today since the van broke down yesterday and the others couldn't be picked up. (This van has also been our main source of transportation, so hopefully it will be fixed soon! In the meantime, I think we'll have to become more familiar with the buses and taxis.)

I tried to upload some pictures....but I don't see them on here. We'll try to post them later!

Lauren