My New Home

I have arrived and completed my first week in Borneo! Travelling out here went very smoothly, no problems with connecting flights, no visa issues on arrival and my bag made it all way. Arrival at Kota Kinabalu airport was interesting as much of the terminal was in darkness due to a power cut.

CREATE - Tonibung

For the next 6 months I will be staying with the partner organisation Tonibung at the Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technologies (CREATE). CREATE has mechanical workshop and training facilities for village engineers learning about and developing micro-hydro, solar PV and biomass gasification technology. The center provides accommodation for the Tonibung employees, village trainees and volunteers like myself! Currently, there is about  10 people living in the center and the majority of which speak no English. The center lies near a small town called Dongongon just outside the state capital Kota Kinabalu. In Dongongon there is a Tonibung office where I'll working on my project.

Centre for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology

Centre for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology

The accommodation at CREATE is fairly basic. The “shower” which is no more than a tap and a bucket and the toilet requires the ‘squat and go’ technique. On the plus side, the accommodation does have wifi and there is a TV in the social/eating area. Most evenings its typical for everyone to be be watching the History channel and playing on a smart phone.

Social/Eating Area

The heat and humidity out here will take some getting used to. It’s about 34°C most days and very humid with a short down pore of rain at least once a day.

The walk into Dongongon Township takes about 15 minutes, part of which is crossing a rickety hanging bridge. The local people seem very friendly and are always intrigued when they see me walking through their town. Locals will stop to stare, some will shout “Hello! How are you?”, in cars people will slow down just to look at me while driving past. I almost feel like a celebrity. White western people are rare in the town, tourists don’t usually go this far out of Kota Kinabalu city.

Hanging bridge on the way into Dongongon Township

In the next few weeks I’ll be heading out to several of the remote villages in the Ula Papar rainforest region. I’ll be introduced to the micro-hydro schemes currently installed and investigating some generator problems.