In Kuching we served in 4 different schools located in a rural area, 2 hours away from where the ship is docked.
The program in the first school was at 7:30 am, so we had to be ready and leave the ship at 4:30 am, a very early start for a long day to come! The programs in all 4 schools went very well and the kids really enjoyed them and were very responsive. Though timid at the beginning, but after breaking the ice they enjoyed interacting with us, singing and running, learning about the ship, lifejackets and life rings as well as learning our flags and countries and matching them to the correct person. Most of them have very little experience of anything beyond home and school, thus meeting us, foreigners from 4 different countries was a big excitement to them! After this long amazing day we headed back to the ship on a longer than expected journey due to bad weather and heavy rain. It wasn't until late at night that we made it to the ship, but thank God we made it safely!
I was also given the opportunity to join a building team that was going to
build a toilet for a widow’s house. We took some shovels and gloves and some
other tools and put on our working clothes and headed to the widow’s house. When
we arrived we saw the modest conditions that she lived in with her daughter. On
the previous week another team from the ship had finished building the toilet,
and we worked to lay concrete in the backyard to connect a drain with the house.
