Travel Gears

January 29, 2009

THE CANADIANS, THE BEATLES AND THE JUNGLE BOYS



They came back to see the difference they had made.  They came with cameras in the early 1960s that were still rare in the interior Borneo.  These barely 20 years old teachers made the difference and so were those jungle kids in the years to follow.  That rare cameras of the old days preserved photographs of people and places that are rare and valuable now.  Thanks to the big guy, Llyod Jones.  Tell me if you know those in the photographs.

January 27, 2009

THEY CAME BACK: THE CANADIAN

If you work in a museum, you never know who will come and bring something old, including memories.  In the last few days of 2008 a big and tall man simply walked into my office and introduced himself as Lloyd Jones who hails from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.  I stood there shaking his hands as if struck by lightning and went blank.

This guy brought his memories to my museum.  He and a group of Canadian volunteers came to teach in several newly built secondary schools all over Sarawak at the height of the undeclared war with neighboring Indonesia in 1963.  He taught until 1965 and came back to teach for a short period in Binatang, now Bintangor.

After an hour or so listening to Mr. Jones and looking at copies of old photographs, I sensed that he felt in love with Sarawak and its people.  Like my own Peace Corps teacher, this guy was once a fine teacher who loved the kids and really wanted the kids to succeed in their studies and lives.  Mr. Jones was so proud to tell me that some of his students went to universities around the world and some became lawyers, engineers and priest too.

January 18, 2009

"I LOVE SARAWAK, MALAYSIA, BORNEO"


He came back again.  Prof. Dr. Richard Schtaz, from Whitworth University, Washington State, USA came back to Sarawak.  This time for about two weeks.  He was a Peace Corp volunteer who taught the first batch of Lawas Secondary School, at the Sabah end of Sarawak from 1966 to 1968.  He came back to present his study of rural development and economics base on the case study of his former students at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Malaysia Sarawak on the 15th January.  From his study he lauded the Malaysian Goverment for spending huge sum of money to build secondary schools in all the provinces in the early years of independence.
The picture above Prof. Dr. Schtaz, obviously in the centre, are seen with one of his male students of the old school and on the right are the two deans of the faculty.