Back and Forth Part 1

Been going back and forth to the same place all these while and I already feels familiar with Kota Marudu. I had three field trips altogether. The first trip was without my boss, so I have to lead the team (which was driving me crazy!). The second trip was before Raya Haji and we continue on the third trip shortly after holiday. I must say, for the last two trips, it was the most hectic phase of my life. Got back to KL on Friday, then balik kampong Kuala Kangsar and Kuala Pilah for Raya Haji until Monday, spend two days in the lab packing and preparing reagent for the next trip and fly back to Kota Marudu on Thursday.

For the first time, we flew with Firefly during the first trip. I guess it was okay for a short trip but spending two hours and a half was really troublesome. The flight was shaking more vigorously compared to MAS which caused our BFMP slides broken. And of course the food is hella expensive, so I pretend to sleep while they serve food, lol. We flew with MAS for second and third trip and I hope for the next trip too~

Anyway, same old routine work at different/new kampong. Bla bla bla…. Let me just share a few random shots of what we did at the Kampongs.

Meeting to discuss our schedules for the whole trip.
We usually went to village with recent/most malaria cases

Crossed the river to get to the village.

Changing the tyre. We didn't realize our tyre has flatten until
a villager told us about it. No wonder we were
shaking like mad (-__-);;

On the last trip, we were more organized that we take turns to do the works (registration, finger pricking and BFMP, rapid-test) so everyone can learn everything. But everyone's favorite will always be doing the rapid-test because it's a cool job, kekekek. The hardest would be the registration because of the language barrier, and sometimes we got scold from the children for writing their name in the wrong way, hehe.

I'm doing the 'coolest' job: taking blood for rapid-test.

Listening diligently to my boss instruction.

Then play behind her back, kekekek. (just joking)

With Pitas team.

The best part was to chat with the children :P
Some of them were really curious about our work.

Me: Dah besar nanti nak jadi apa?
Kids: Polis. Sebab saya nak tangkap orang main mercun.
Me: Oh, cutenye reason, kekekek.

When I should lose weight for working hard, I actually gained a few kgs because we have some sort of food festival almost every day! There’s this café right beside our hotel which cooked pretty much everything we ask them to. When we visit Pitas, we went to Kanibongan to buy crabs and brought them to the café for them to cook.

At Kanibongan to buy some crabs

Happy face, probably because they know what's for dinner!

Went to Tamu (a weekly market) and my boss bought local fruits like cempedak, jackfruit, rambutan and banana. Send the cempedak to the café to fry them and we got a tray full of cempedak goreng and we couldn’t stop eating the whole day! We also tried Sabah’s local fruit called Tarap which not available at peninsular. It looks like cempedak with soft outer skin, you can just peal it with your hands. I love the taste but it smells like after-fogging? Sorry, couldn’t find the word to describe it but the smell is not so pleasant but not as stink as durian (oh durian, I still love you even though you stink :DDD).

Aaannddd.... I'll continue on the next post the fun part of the trip, which is more exciting than the foooooddd~