Life in the jungle

Sandra Millin writes...
"When I arrived in Borneo, the first thing that hit me was the heat - literally! I had never been outside Europe so it came as a bit of a shock just how hot it was - imagine walking into a really hot swimming pool, add a bit and you might be there. It’s a wet heat, with 97 per cent humidity, which basically means that nothing ever dries - including you.

I soon got used to the heat and humidity, and stopped noticing it after a while. To give you time to adjust, Trekforce provides a week-long jungle training programme, during which you learn everything you need to live in the jungle while causing the minimum possible damage to it, including what to do if you get lost. It also gives you a chance to get to know the other members of your expedition, who include two trained leaders and two trained medics for each group. During the training phase you spend three nights in the jungle, living in a camp similar to the one you will be setting up for yourselves the following week. There is a party at the end of jungle training so that everyone is nicely hung-over ready for the trip out to their project sites!

My training group was split into two, with half going to the Maliau Basin and the other half to the Danum Valley and Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. Maliau is a world heritage site contender, and the guys who went there built a trail to allow tourists to visit the area safely and with the minimum damage.

My group set off for Danum and Sepilok. Danum has been a semi-protected part of the jungle since the 1970s, but is unfortunately still being logged. The Sabah Biodiversity Experiment has been set up to work out the best way to replant the logged areas. Three Trekforce groups in previous years helped start the experiment by planting more than 100,000 trees and we finished the process by building an accommodation block and wash block for scientists studying it. We also helped a group of local people check the progress of the planted trees, as it had been nearly a year since they were put in. After six weeks we moved to Sepilok where we completed four mini-projects - repairing two bridges and demolishing cages, all of which had been damaged by fallen trees, as well as repairing an old bird-watching tower.

Whichever expedition you are on and whatever you are doing you will stay in a jungle camp, as homely and personalised as your group can make it. At Danum our camp was 10 minutes’ walk from our work-site. The camp was next to a small river, from which all of our water came and where we did all of our washing. We had two tarpaulins in a communal area, one for a dining ‘table’ and one for the ‘admin’ area. Each day two to four people from the group stayed in camp as an ‘admin team’ to do all of the cooking for the group, as well as general work around camp such as maintaining toilet areas and finding firewood. I was worried about this, having no skill at cooking at all, but luckily there was always someone better than me! Everyone eats all of their meals anyway as they need food after a hard day’s work on the site. Although it sounds gruelling, our determination not to be the first team to fail with their project meant we normally didn’t notice how hard we were working!

After successfully completing all of our projects, we joined up again with the Maliau group for a party at a five-star hotel, with real food, real toilets and real showers. Two nights of luxury later, and it was time to say goodbye to some of the group who either headed home or went off travelling (Borneo is a great springboard to explore South-East Asia and Australasia). For the rest of us, it was time to learn to teach.

We had a one-week express course in teaching English as a foreign language, before being split into twos and threes to go to villages across the Kelabit Highland area of Sarawak. I was with two girls in a village called Long Napir. The village was three hours by four-by-four on logging tracks from the nearest town. There was electricity from a generator, but only during school hours, church hours and for three hours in the evening. We lived in a small house on the school site, with our meals cooked by the school kitchen.

The teachers had a fairly high standard of English compared to some of the other schools, but the children were still taught quite a few things incorrectly. Since 2002, all children starting school across Malaysia have to be taught Maths and Science in English, as well as their normal English lessons. This can be difficult for some teachers, as although they speak basic English, they don’t have the vocabulary to teach other areas. There is also a complete range of ability in each class, with some children speaking almost fluently, and others only speaking their tribal language. I taught English and Science to three classes. I had a total of eight hours’ teaching time a week, which isn’t much, although I also had to plan lessons and prepare materials. Outside school we were still teachers, as the kids always wanted to play and practise their English with us. What I enjoyed about the teaching phase was the chance to get to know the local people and learn a bit about their culture.

After the teaching phase we all met up in Kota Kinabalu, where we had first arrived four months earlier. It was time for the end-of-expedition party - with a twist. Trekforce had arranged for us to have one of the small islands just off the coast to ourselves for 24 hours - it was gorgeous, and I will never forget it!

Jungle life: things I didn’t need to worry about
- Snakes and spiders - you very rarely see them - it’s the ants that are the problem!
- Toilet arrangements - you get used to them!

Favourite memories
- Seeing orang-utans.
- Going on night drives and seeing flying red squirrels.
- 'My' kids.
- Snorkelling for the first time at the end-of-expedition party.
- Lying in my hammock in the pitch dark and hearing elephants calling to each other across the jungle - amazing!"