On Mantanani Island

Day 1 – Masterplanning Workshop.

Today began with a driftwood scout along the beach front towards the police jetty for potential structural pieces to be floated back to camp before hauling to the site. We considered initial designs for the bunkhouse detail and finalised the area masterplan; the ‘world cafe’ format allowed some great ideas using the limited local resources to be thrown about and amalgamated. Rice wine was out again accompanied by Aida’s uke with the odd casualty burying herself in the sand whilst the rest of us enjoyed an evening dip. If anyone finds two pairs of flip flops/ a camera case/ a tee shirt/sunglasses…please return to English A.

Day 2 – Building plan Workshop. (Black Monday 🙂 )

Today we started off early, taking advantage of the cool morning weather to collect driftwood. We managed to walk the length of the Island and came away with over 15 usable pieces, ranging in size from 2m to 5m.

Our afternoon was slow as the full effects of the previous nights rice wine set in….

Our evening was more productive using “World Cafe” thinking to further develop our building plan. This was a great a session, ending just before midnight with the majority of the plan schematically planned out.

We will sleep well tonight!

Nicholas Teng

Day 3 – Finalising Plans

The day was spent working hard on models and drawings, it was satisfying to discover just how much the design had developed over a few days, and the whole thing was coming together nicely. Trusses were designed, the spacial arrangements of the beds were tried and tested and all the final details resolved by drawing. (Shermein is yet to be conviced of the merits of drawing to scale… being an engineer an all…)

Lunchtime became an adventure when David, Anna English and i swam out to the corals. Rather a long swim but worth it for the chance to see all the life teeming out there.
Sadly its clear that closer most of the coral is in poor condition. David “apparently” saw a sea turtle, but as no one else witnessed it and he didn’t catch it on film, we’ll just have to trust him on that.

Anna MacKenzie

Day 4 – On Mantanani Island.

Today was spent setting up the site and basically getting started on the building process. Half of us started off by dismantling the temporary shelters and marking the locations of the columns (with the help of Albi >of course< and Pythagoras Theorem >of course< ); whilst the rest of us went out scouting for driftwoods to be made into foundation pads for the structure. There were a lot of digging, burying, manual labour work that afternoon. However, all is well, because at the end of the day, we had managed to lay out all the foundation pads and had them cut the right size for the wooden beams to be wedged in- which means, our foundation work is halfway to completion!!!!! Work aside, I have also come to realise two things today: 1. Cereal with Hot Milk for breakfast must be an acquired taste; like the french snails or congee with frog meat 2. Never again play UNO the correct way- it is the most unbearably long and painful card game ever, more so after an exhausting day I am Shermein W. I like pretty flowers xoxoxoxoxo signing out peace and love

Day 5 – Laying Foundations

It has taken me 4 days to write my post, but now I feel wonderfully refreshed!!…blah blah.

After an early start and some interesting porridge for breakfast, we started on the days work of laying foundation pads and arranging the substructure. This mainly involved ensuring that the substructure was level throughout. Although we got off to a rocky start, we were swiftly saved by Albi who showed us his much more efficient method of doing this (see picture!). WORD OF THE DAY: NGAM! – just right!

Sarah arrived on the island mid-morning and we presented our design, construction schedule and where we were at so far to her. The highlight of the day was an amazing lunch of soto ayam (soup, chicken strips, onions, chilli soya sauce, cabbage and potato/ beef meatballs), which was definitely my favourite meal so far.

We had a very productive afternoon, splitting into groups to get the foundation pads and substructure completely sorted and bolted together as well as starting to work out where each piece of driftwood that we had previously sourced from the beach would be placed on the plan. By the end of the day the first column was chain-sawed to size and ready to go up the following morning…exciting!!!!!

Evening: swim in the sea, dinner on the beach, bonfire and ukulele playing. While we were having our bonfire some of the guys from the village went out spear fishing in the dark and came back a few hours later with a big bag of fish, including some abalon which look like massive slugs and are supposedly a big delicacy in China. Albi cooked us a freshly caught fish called kumei on the remains of the bonfire, which we all tucked into before bed!

by Anna Nicholls

Day 6 – Raising the Columns

Today we spent time marking, measuring and cutting all the columns ready for raising. This involved us breaking into teams, with the two Anna’s measuring and marking, whilst Hashime and Noman cut, with the rest of the team chiselling the cuts to make them fit perfect.

After some trial and error with raising the columns we realised we would need to find three new columns. Nicholas, Sarah and myself walked west along the beach, scouring for suitable hardwood driftwood. After an hour or so we had found three good pieces which we floated into the water and pushed back to our site entrance.

After a strenous day of lifting columns we have managed to lift 14 of the 16 columns so we will all sleep well tonight!

by David Arnott

Day 7 – Finalising columns and first truss!

A great moment happened today- with all the columns raised and every surrounding tree ‘pruned’ by Albi’s hungry ‘parang’- the first truss was raised. After being measured and remeasured, nailed, deconstructed, measured again, re-nailed and bolted, we finally had a perfectly square truss.

There was a brief discussion about setting up the block and tackle to lift the truss, but this was brushed aside by Albi and Hasshiem. They had after all, just raised the monumental trusses on Arkitrek’s Kindegarten- our 1.4m high trusses were childs’ play in comparison. Our passive ventilation design caused some confusion at first untill Albi exclaimed ‘Ah! Air- Con!!’ So now we have, in progress, the first air conditioned building on Mantanani.

by Sarah Greenlees

Day 8 – Rafters and Bed Building

With an ambitious schedule in place, work began on the beds this morning (entailing a ridiculous amount of chiselling) whilst two further trusses were raised. We later went along to the jetty to chat to some locals and sow the seeds of water conservation amongst them. We were surprised by their misconceptions about the aquifer supply; Shermein more so by witnessing her first ever goat.

By lunch, Scottish Anna was no longer transparent and sporting a healthy red colour. The evening was spent fishing where we caught an array of coral and clothing before an early night with the best intetions of getting up for an early run.

Jennifer Sutherland

Day 9 – Beds and Purlins

Finally all the trusses are up today and half of the purlins. Albi and Nomin are human monkey’s as they climb from the ground to the top of the truss within second. I’m surprise to see Anna sitting on the truss nailing the purlins to the truss because it is difficult for me to climb down from the scaffolding as you can see from the picture. Even though just one bed was built today, I believe the lower level beds will be finished by tomorrow. Hopefully we could finish the roof tomorrow so we dont have to work under the hot sun anymore!

Nicholas Teng

Day 10 – Beds, nails and sun

Today was long… and knackering. But a surprising number of small jobs were completed.
This morning, the crazy people got up stonkingly early and went for a run round the island. I declined to join them and stayed in bed a little longer, not a surprise to anyone who knows me.

After an interestingly flavourless breakfast of over cooked rice, with which we were expected to add salted dried fish, Anna English, Jennifer and myself set about laying the floor joists. As it turned out not the easiest of tasks…
As you can see hammering the nails was fairly difficult.
I got a fair slagging for my lack of skill in the hammering department, but David ate his words as he had a go completing the task this afternoon perhaps we will attribute this metal work as a small peice of art that adds to the authentic character of the building.

We now have a whole bed unit completed! after a mammoth effort by everyone to get it done before dinner.
So all in all progress is progressing.
The roof is currently at a standstill while we wait for the atap (natural roofing material).

Tomorrow it seems will provide a little respite. I think we are all looking forward to it, but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out what we’re up to.

Anna MacKenzie

Day 11 – Day off!

I am Anna, I am persuasive.. blah blah.

Today, we ventured over to the adjacent island, Mantanani Kecil, in order to source more driftwood and for a little a bit of R & R, which was much needed amongst all of us after the amount of designing/ measuring/ carrying/ sawing/ hand-drilling/ chiselling and chiselling and chiselling and chiselling that we have managed to accomplish over the past several days.

After a perfect start to the day with eggy bread for breakfast, we set off with the chainsaw in tow, on a boat across to the other island.It was a great day for this – the sea was really calm and we were even able to see Mount Kinabalu clearly on the horizon for the first time since arriving on Mantanani.

After walking along the beach of the idillyic island (which we pretty much had all to ourselves), we went snorkelling before having a barbeque on the beach for lunch. This was a large array of food which included jacket potatoes, freshly-caught fish,lobster, sausages, and of course, noodles. We were also further impressed (especially Jen!) by the machine-like, multitalented Noman who within minutes, caught a bunch of squid from the sea to be cooked on the barbeque…very tasty! Apparently, amongst the locals it is said that when you cook squid it is guaranteed that it will rain and by the evening this was proved true.

However, it was not all play and no work today. We left the Mantanani Kecil with a lot more really good pieces of driftwood for the flooring of the building and for certain people, with A LOT more sunburnt skin!

Anna Nicholls

Day 12 – Weaving, weaving, weaving..

After our awesome day off yesterday it was a bit of a shock to the system to have to get up again at 6am to begin the day..

The buildings super structure is all but complete. We’ve now turned our attention to the facades.
For the rear this means floor to ceiling coconut leaf. Each piece needs to be hand woven and a modern day sweat shop has been set up to produce the 100 or so leaves we need.
Every so often Noman has to seek out a new palm tree to prune, occasionaly followed by his No.1 fan, Jennifer.

Mel arrived from the mainland at lunchtime. In the evening we prepped a bonfire on the beach, complete with a pack of marshmallows, green flavoured juice, red flavoured juice, hundred plus and two bottle of slightly dubious “golden star”. The golden star took its effect, luckily not as much as the rice wine did..

Back to hassling the others to write their blogs and trying to win my bet with Anna English that I can resist doing impressions of her for 24 hours..

David Arnott

Day 13 – On Mantanani Island

We got up bright and early today and finished up the rest of the bed structures.
We managed to get them done before lunch, which was a massive relief, because we were starting to get worried that we were falling behind schedule. We did some coconut leaves weaving in between- although I was pretty embarrassed that as a local myself, I was being outshone by Anna English. By the time I finished one set of weaving, she was already on her third. Therefore I have concluded that weaving is not one of my fortes. Patience, I have none.

After lunch, some of us put together some cut out wooden pieces to be made as ladders for the bunk beds whilst the rest of us compiled suitable offcut driftwoods we collected over the last week for flooring. I did the latter. We started off nice and slow. It was all going well until I realised that hammering, is also not one of my fortes. (Clearly I am not very good at many things that cannot be solved by a simple equation or punched into a calculator)

Nicholas, Hashim and Norman felt bad for me and decided to help/take over almost. By the end of the day, we/they managed to get most of the flooring done and happy faces all around! yaaaaaaaaaay

‘My name is Shermein W and I like pretty flowers. xoxoxoxoxoxoxxo

Day 15 – The devil is in the detail

We are now close to completion. Nothing big to construct, but a lot of details to be done. We have finally completed all the flooring today including the communal area. The ladies spent most of their time weaving the coconut leaves.

Not too much left to do, only 50, even though we have already done 90 pieces.

As this is my last blog for the camp, I would like to share some of my experience for the past three weeks. I have finally been able to open a coconut by myself with a parang today. Since secondary school, I barely get to speak Malay, is a shame that I nearly forgot everything i learned from school. There was once Shermein and I argued the meaning of ‘kegunaan’ and ‘pengunaan’, but I guess I improved my Malay after being a translator on site for three weeks.
It is fun to see how people enjoyed their simple life on this island. It is a great experience for me who spent most of my time in city.

Also, no matter how clear the sea water is, it is still very salty.

Nicholas Teng

Day 16 – Rain reminds me of Scotland

Today it rained and rained and rained and rained.

It was a day of sugar highs and lows.
There was very little progress on the build as all deliveries have been delayed till at least tomorrow. We are still awaiting atap for the roof and netting for the beds.
So we wove, played cards and slept most of day away.

and its my birthday! so we’ve had CAKE! brilliant.

Anna Mackenzie

Day 17 – First Flush Diverter

So today at 7.15, we finally got our attap delivery. It was a pleasant mid breakfast surprise I must say. Whilst Norman and Hashim were fixing up the attap roof, the rest of us split up into 3 groups. Nicholas was in charge of the storage space and benches, Anna English and Jennifer nailed up all the woven coconut leaves for our back elevation and Anna Scottish and I worked on some gutter and pipework and tested out our first flush diverter(as you can see from the picture attached) It was proven effective, by the way…. (hmmmm!)

It was a busy day for us all. By the end of the day, we have got all of the back elevation sorted, half of the attap roof installed, the gutter/pipework details drawn and mapped out and a good idea of how to go about with the benches and storage space. Aida had also specially prepared for us a delicious meal.

Delicious is an understatement- as it was probably the best meal we’ve had on Mantanani Island so far. Potatoey meatballs with tomato sauce, mushy peas and garlic bread- just what we needed after a long day!

I am Shermein W I like pretty flowers xoxoxoxoxo signing out
peace and love

Day 18 – Rain, rain, go away

Today was lined up to be one of our busiest. The rain of last night had left the site damp, with out atap laid out over the full extent of the site, ready to be dried by the sun.
The morning started well, with the heat of the day making the camp very muggy.

Anna English and Jen neared completion of the coconut weaved rear and side walls, whilst Nick busied himself translating, designing the metal “air-con” louvres and sawing the front seating.

The roofing continued, using only those bits of atap that where driest.
Anna Scottish managed to get the rear elevation rainwater clips on whilst she assisted Shermein with the confusing task of working out all the drainage..

After our lunch, the burning heat tempted us all for a nice swim.

As work continued after lunch there was a couple of spits of rain. Having worked through the rain yesterday we thought nothing of it, until Albi and all the camp staff started running around hiding things from the rain.

6 hours later, and it is still raining, the whole camp was under water at one point. Aida had never seen so much rain on Mantanani before!

We’ve got on with some more weaving, and as I have potential dengy fever, I’ve been under a blanket in the hammock..

Still, tomorrow is another day, with hopefully, the final delivery of our remaining materials, ready for the buildings grand opening on Saturday!

by David Arnott

Day 19 – Three Halle Berry’s and some driftwood..

It’s good to be back on Mantanani again. So much has changed. There is now a very nearly finished roof and there is an awesome wall covering, the nature of which is staying under wraps for a couple more days- if only to tease Will a little longer. More than anything else it’s great to see that problems are being systematically approached and solved. This is most beautifully apparent in the recycled drinks can flashing, the likes of which Hassiem has never seen in his 42 years! Everyone has put in a lot of effort and the building looks great. Astonishingly, the group are cooler than cool about their accomplishments, leaving David and me looking like the kids on food colourings as we rave about another elevation completed or the rythmic spacings chosen for the wall panels!

Today will most likely be the last day that we had a need to go and collect driftwood. The Annas and I were going to make sure we made the most of the best job on site. A long walk down the beach was called for and then a lazy swim back to camp accumulating our found (and now floating) objects as we went. A veritable raft of driftwood was collected, piloted past the perplexed guests at Mari Mari and dragged ashore in a fashion sadly rather conterary to David’s somewhat misleading title!

2 days to go!

by Sarah Greenlees

Day 20 – Flashing, Mantanani Style!

1 day to go…again!! After being wrongly informed by someone that today was our last construction day as a motivation tactic, we soon realised it was actually our penultimate day. This was lucky seeing as the netting for our beds still hasn’t arrived on the boat from the mainland – fingers crossed it will be here on the first boat tomorrow!

On the bright side, after a stormy night the building seemed to remain pretty dry with most of the atap roofing and the majority of our elevations finished – so fortunately no-one will ‘have to sleep in raincoats rather than pyjamas’ as Hashim was worried about. Today was a busy and productive day and we were on site bright and early. The recycled tin-can flashing was finished and looking great, the front elevations were continued with, the ‘air-con’ louvres were installed and some of the finishing touches were added. Although we thought we had finished all our weaving yesterday, after reconsidering one of the side elevations, we also got to do some more this morning.

This afternoon after some more work and a swim in the sea, we went along to the village to play some fun and slightly chaotic games with the local school children, connected with appreciating and saving their water. It went really well and our new friends followed us back to have a look at our building afterwards (although they soon seemed more interested in our cameras!). We then pushed ourselves to do another couple of hours work before dinner.

It was a busy day, but we are now treating ourselves to a couple of beers and dinner at the Mari-Mari restaurant. Everyone else is nice and relaxed, but David is being extra horrible today and getting me to write the blog and carry on working that bit longer – definitely looking forward to my lamb chops now!!

by Anna Nicholls

Day 21 – Working into the night!

Today was our final work day, Ian and his wedding party arrive tomorrow at 10.30am so the building has to be finished by then!

We had a fun but busy day, with a break in the afternoon to visit the local school and play some games with the kids which we hopef would teach them about water conservation. We drew large images of the water table under Mantanani and played games where teams had to run from one bucket to another, transferring water as fast as they could, except that the bottles used for transferring had dozens of holes in them. This meant the kids had to work in teams to block the holes and get as much water in their buckets.

We have 12 beds to make, which involves stretching netting over the wooden beams and hand weaving rope around all four edges to make a tight bed. A lot harder than it sounds and even after a 6am start, with the help of a solitary light bulb we worked on till midnight. I had to force the guys to go to bed!

We have a couple hours tomorrow from 6am till 10am to finish the building!

David Arnott

Day 22 – Finished!!

What a night and day. Finishing up around 1am and everyone back out on site at 5am racing to finish before the boss, the client, the supplier and 11 guests arrive at 10.30!

Everyone was rushing around fixing beds, tidying the site, connecting up the drainage and sweeping!

All of the boats that arrive at the island are usually late, but this time Ians boat was 40 minutes early!

Some last minute panicking and the building was finished!

The guys lead the guests through the site to the new building and its fair to say everyone was overwhelmed at the sheer scale and detail of the building.

I’m incredibly proud of the group who have designed, drawn and constructed from the ground up in 22 days! With only 6 of us its been hard, but the effort shows in the building.

We where treated to a massive downpour in the afternoon which tested our our water collection, the 1600 litre tank filling up in less than an hour!

We’re having a beach side bbq tonight and actually getting to sleep in our building! Lots and lots more photos to follow!

David Arnott

Related posts