Camp Bongkud, Ranau.

Arkitrekkers, Nick Nearchou and Zhen Ron with two other volunteers from the United Kingdom, Holly and Annabel spent a lovely time contributing to the Community of Kampung Bongkud (Village Bongkud). It is considered exciting for Zhen Ron as this is his very first trip working (and of course enjoying) with Arkitrek outside the office. Photograph above shows the main common area where meals are served and most activities being held.

Being with the Community

With the arrangement made by the camp manager - Eve, Nick, Zhen Ron, Holly and Annabel were lucky enough to be presented some village dances by the local kids. They were then being invited to join the dance. They danced so clumsily, well, despite of that it is considered a good "side-read".

 

 

 These are some photographs taken during the dance.

On early morning the next day, they managed to witness the prize giving ceremony for the local kids at the Fajar Ceria Play School. The chief village, Bindang was invited to deliver a speech to the audience presented that morning. In his speech, he expressed his appreciation to Camp Borneo and all the volunteers who willingly work and contribute to the local community. Kids on stage with a Sumazau Dance. How adorable they are.

On the Building Projects 

Arkitrek is building a Community Hall and a Gravity Feed Water Tank at the Camp Bongkud. To ease readers (especially with architectural background), it will be easier for you to understand the project as we described along with the attachment of a plan of the community hall. 

The layout plan on the right depicts the simple arrangement of space organization in the community hall. Eve said that there is a need for a guest house so that people from the government department of any government official can stay overnight there if necessary.

The photograph above depicts the kitchen area where concrete is to be poured. It will be levelled at the height of the ground beam... Much work to go~

Currently, we are now at the concreting stage for the ground floor slab at the kitchen and pantry areas. Concreting seems easy, yet, until you tuck on your boots and start mixing with shovel you will realise how labourous the work is. 

Also, there is a lot of  precaution steps to be aware of and to get the right chemistry mixture reminds us of the boring (or maybe interesting) Chemistry classes back in school. The lower photograph shows a number of steel plates are embedded partially into the ground beam on a central axis.

 

 

 

  

These are some other photographs taken at the building site.

This photograph was taken after a labourous day under the Malaysian hot Sun! 

They are enjoying, aren't they? (From Left: Nick, Holly and Annabel)

Others

In an occasion, Zhen Ron and Eve went to nearby hawker stalls to get some fresh fish and vegetables to cook. The hawker stalls are about 10 minutes drive from Camp Bongkud site. There are a lot of BBQ chicken skewers for sale, they looked so tempting and irresistible. Zhen Ron had bought some snacks and also managed to get some photographs of what are sold there. Nick and Holly loved the Chicken Skewers and BBQ Chicken Wings so much. They craved for more~ This is the food bit.

 

 

 

From top: Fresh fishes, BBQ Chicken bottom, and BBQ Chicken wings.

During the stays in Camp Bongkud, it rained quite often as work at site was not able to begin on 1 particular whole day. Yet, they managed to get themselves busy up with some interesting chatting sessions and some card games. Zhen Ron introduced some card games which are quite popular amongst the local Malaysians. The topics they were having concludes cultural differences, study and life experience in the UK and Malaysia. 

In an occasion, Holly was drying her clothes on the drying lines. All of  a sudden she was shouting out loud: " A giant spider!" It was at a quite corner and it seems invincible. It is a very colourful one. It would probably glow in the dark. Here is this pretty babe:

 

 

Look at that pretty babe! Holly was trying to get a detailed image of the spider.

Yeah, one more thing to mention - Shaznini! Oh, look at the name Shaznini, what can you think of? A lady? A place? ... ... No, it is a kitten. An evil one~ Shaznini was born at Camp Bongkud. She has been wondering around the camp all this while. Need not to mention, of course the source of food is the leftover one coming from the gappers or the students. She is evil because she will jump onto the table and grab your food! She is a bad kitten. Nick was pissed off with Shaznini once she tried to grab Nick's food from the plate. On the other hand, she will entertain the gappers whenever she can but ONLY after she has eaten. Her entertainment during the stays for the gappers made her eligible to be included into several posters created by different groups of gappers who volunteered at Camp Bongkud. Here is Shaznini: Look at her evil face... She is Hunting for food without mercy~