so what have I said in the pictures?

SK is some Malay words I cannot recall any longer. Too late tonight to think, I am not being paid!Each of the words that follows is the name of the schools, and each are in my cluster of schools. I have more to visit next week. Crazy, I have only been visiting these schools for less than 2 weeks and the names are already familiar to me, and how to get there even moreso.  And I love all the head masters and mistresses too.  What disturbs me is one of the schools has very poor people attending and the head master advised me that the families don't have enough money for food.  I am glad they get fed at the schools at least once a day.

Tomorrow I travel down to the south coast to do some more class visits, and leave at 6 am to get there by 7:30. arghhh

Then do a workshop for the teachers there and get back on the highway to return at 5 pm, which means I will probably be home about 7 pm due to the traffic. arghh again
So I will try to take more pictures of the schools down there because you will not understand what I am dealing with if I don't.  Oddly enough, it already seems normal to have no internet, or very spotty internet, very bare minimal classrooms, the preschool has a whiteboard about the size that kids in Canada have at home to play with, and it has a huge chunk out of it from some major mishap.

As for life on the homestead, we have discovered that we cannot get home internet, as it is not available in our community.  Should have figured that out when I never see any wireless connections available. arghh again

Jeff and I did our banking today,. What a nightmare.  It took hours to set up online banking, and while I was in the bank, I saw the guards that stand there with rifles drawn waiting for someone to make a wrong move. They smiled broadly at me when I went from staring at the drawn weapon up to their faces. Somehow I guess we are very safe in a bank here. I hope so anyway.  Also got our cars serviced and some little hot shots set our clocks for us. I didn't even know I had a clock!

So what have I learned this week?  Water is precious. And internet is too.

One of the teachers wanted to know what to call me. Most of them call me Madam Frances.  I asked her if she had a preference, and when she asked me my age, (which all I of them do), she asked if she could call me Bonda which means mother. I guess that who I am at that school now. They also ask me how much money I make, and how much I pay for rent. I was told to say 'cukup untuk makan', which means 'enough to eat', and leave it at that. Most of them make far less than I do, including the head masters!

Yes, water is precious.  When was the last time you had to buy water that you wanted to drink?