Brunei The End

The End December 2008

After about four or five weeks of the new Principal in  March 2008 I could see the writing on the wall. I decided to ask CfBT for a transfer. I was the first to do so and emailed them. There was no response. This was CfBT’s standard way of dealing with an issue if unsure what to do, do nothing. In this way they mimicked the Bruneian culture which surrounded them.

After a further month of the new regime I decided a transfer would not be enough for me.

The the family were becoming unhappy. Both Sergio and Julie complained  about how boring Brunei was.

All of us became unsettled. Although the children were getting a very good academic schooling at the international school, we could see that the lifestyle of Brunei was not giving the children the life skills they needed to survive in the real world-that is, how to get around,  be independent, earn money etc. Moreover, I was becoming ‘deskilled’ in a dysfunctional professional culture.

tRoger went o Melbourne Univerity and was then offered a place at Cornell. Neither he, nor anybody else was expecting sucha contrast between Brunei and Cornell. He didn't like it.

We were worried that Sergio and Julie might not enjoy being at University outside Australia

I also really wanted to leave Brunei and do something else. However, having applied for dozens of jobs in the past year and getting no response I was not optimistic. In spite of my qualifications and experience my age was counting against me.

Almost as a last resort, I then applied to CfBT’s operations in Singapore and Abu Dhabi. I figured, correctly as it turned out, that since I was already with CfBT I might have a better chance of getting one of these jobs.

But, Singapore were not interested: even though they wanted language advisers and teachers of language they required people to have English Literature in their initial degree! This excluded me –even though I had three Masters degrees and an educational doctorate.

It was this type of blinkered bureaucratic blindness which drove  me to distraction in the end. The bureaucracy just refusedto think outside the box. They will cut off their noses to spite their faces just so that they can play the game of exercising power.  However, I have to admit that i have experienced exactly the same thing in Australia. It is just a matter of extent.

Bombshell!

I had a phone interview for Abu Dhabi and then was waiting to have another one when I was hit by a bombshell.  CFBT  me my name was on the ‘veto’ list of 5  people at the school  whose contract was not going to be renewed at the end of the year by the school.

We were all surprised!

I could not think of anything that remotely resembled an incident in the school which could have accounted for the decision by the Principal not to renew my contract. When I asked CfBt they said  they didn’t know and no reasons had been given. When I pressed them further they just said

“Don’t take it personally –it’s just your turn”

I would have to say that even the jaw of a veteran expat like myself dropped open at this remark.

I was dismayed that such a gratuitous  remark could be made to me after nine years service.

It was like saying to a holocaust victim on entering the gas chamber: 'Don't take it personally'



The fact was cfBt just wanted us all  to go quietly without causing any fuss and that would mean no problem for CFBT.

the reality was CFBt could do nothing. when the MOE said 'Jump! Sfbt could only say 'how High?' they were helpless in a crisis.

this happened a few days before my second interview for Abu Dhabi, and i became quite anxious.

But the interview came and I passed with flying colours!


To my immense relief I was offered an excellent job. It was July, and I still had six months to go at Maktab Sains, and in spite of my anger, I decided not to contest the non-renewal as I knew it would make no difference. For some reason neither she nor the Deputy liked me. It was strange because the Deputy had appraised me a few weeks earlier and given me a glowing verbal report to my face. (However, maybe her written report was different, I don't know)

I did ask Cfbt to find out the reason, but they never got back to me. It might have been my age. I'll never know.

 

Departure in 2008

By the time I left Brunei CfBT had become intimidated by their  client: the Ministry of Education.

Another reason for not contesting the mysterious decision was the fact that experience had taught me that I would be ostracized by my own colleagues once it were known I had been ‘Terminated’.

I had had this happen to me before in Australia and it was one of the ugliest experiences I have ever had. When you are in the firing line, colleagues can be so cowardly and worried about themselves that they avoid you–even if you are an innocent victim of intimidation-in case they become guilty by association in the eyes of the persecuting entity.

Any persecuted minority knows how it feels when  when their own neighbours turn their backs on them out of cowardice.

So, I suffered in silence and told no-one at school.

Interestingly enough when I arrived in Abu Dhabi I got an e-mail from Cfbt saying that the MOE in Brunei had written a letter to them saying that I had not 'signed in' on the last day of school and asking me to provide witnesses as to my whereabouts on that day.

Well.... I was flabbergasted!

Even after nine years in that police state I had not expected such a degree of pettiness.



It was very disappointing after nine years in a very challenging  environment.


Six months after leaving Brunei the new Principal was shunted sideways into the Ministry where she could do less damage.



I suppose I didn’t have very high expectations of CFBT when I arrived. I had been contracting overseas for so many years that I had very few illusions left about what to expect. I regarded them as a recruitment agency-and that is what they did really well. They were efficient enough in what they did-recruiting and helping with accommodation and making sure payments were paid on time.

But when it came to professional support they were powerless. They were powerless to do anything on a teacher’s behalf with regard to the routinely farsical situations encountered at the Ministry or in the schools. Although there were some good ones, the Bruneian Principals were for the most part  inflexible, underprepared, underqualified, and often incompetent and unprofessional. Experienced teachers had to put up with being treated like naughty children most of the time. This they did because most of them, like us,were in Brunei for their children’s sake. We were hostages to our families. I remember applying for a job in Brunei in the 1980s. In those days, Brunei did not hire families. But CfbT knew that once we had our families in the schools, we had to do what we were told by the MOE. CFBt would try to do what they could, but in the end there was no choice. Like it , or leave.

Professional development was perfunctory and non-existent in the early years: foreigners were never sent on courses at the Ministry’s expense. You were regarded as an expendable resource –a slave basically. The arrogance of the Bruneian bureaucrat was legendary.

the main problem was that the they used the wrong curriculum. It was a Cambridge curriculum  designed for native speakers of English. Obviously,  the exam results were going to be dreadful. The Bruneian children were not native speakers. So, what did the MOE do? They blamed the teachers of course. (They also blamed their own students) . CFBT were also blamed as well.  In the end Cambridge sent a delegation to investigate. The result was the exam results improved the next year. We teachers all knew why this was but no-one would say it. The tests had been marked differently. We, the teachers all knew.

This was the final straw on the camels back for me. How Could a University like Cambridge do something so underhand  as  this?

 

 

But, all in all Brunei was a good experience for the family–the children got a good academic education out of it, and enjoyed life there.  Maria also got a good job at ISB. Financially, it was good for us too.

But professionally, apart from the students, most of it was appalling for me; I had to do all my own professional development by  doing a Master’s degree and then doing an educational doctorate.

In the last year or so,  it was a bit like being on death row,  waiting for execution in the Tower of London

In the end I wasn’t decapitated or burned at the stake, but managed to escape! I was at least able to complete my educational doctorate during  my time there.

But, as I was to find out, professionally,  I had indeed been “deskilled”

Julie wanted to leave Brunei. We didn't think she would be happy in a high school in Australia. but she was a year young for University. So, we found a foundation program at Adelaide University which was half high school and half University. She was happy to go there. Sergio enrolled at Adelaide University.

Roger had decided to go to University in Queensland

Maria and Julie had gone to Adelaide in August 2008 . Serge went to stay with a friend in Hong Kong for a few moths and then jojned them in Adelaide

I accepted the job in Abu Dhabi, but stayed on in Brunei for a few months, and headed  to Adelaide for Christmas to join them before going on to Abu Dhabi.

Brunei Maktab Sains

Architecture of the office

One of the first things the new Principal did was to rearrange her office so that it was unapproachable. She changed the entrance to be a side door. The front office was rearranged so that it resembled an old style bank with a high platform type counter through which the tiny ‘workers’ could hardly be seen. On this platform was a bell which, as a teacher, one had to press for attention

It was designed to diminish and intimidate the visitor

The teachers hardly knew she was there: but she was there allright!

When we were teaching she would open the door, look in and go out again without saying a word.How rude!  She then had a little square hole cut in each classroom door. Glass was put in each hole so that she could look in while we were teaching.Even more rude!

The gates of the school were closed and teacher’s number plates asked for so that she could keep track of who was entering and leaving the school. 

If we went to the airport we were supposed to get an official at the airport to stamp a form to stay they had seen us at the airport!

Because everyone knew she was unapproachable she had nothing to do at all –a fact which therefore compounded her incompetence as she did absolutely nothing. It was management by default.

The HOD  was almost completely ignored by her and her equally incompetent 'lapdog' the  Deputy Principal. The HODs  were asked to do the dirty work but were kept in the “Mushroom club” for most of the time-i.e. ‘kept in the dark and fed shit’. The HOD of the English department   was a lovely person, but could not stand up to the principal or take up an issue on behalf of her teachers. She also was easily manipulated by some expatriate teachers who ended up getting all the 'easy' classes with very few students in them.

Not surprisingly, this caused resentment amongst the rest of us.

 The Principal gathered around her a coterie of poker-faced attack dogs who carried out her wishes and whims, sometimes unwillingly, but sometimes  with undisguised relish.

These were the one and the same people who in the previous year had been quite pleasant colleagues. Now there were no smiles, no greetings and these stooges patrolled the corridors writing down the names of teachers in the morning who were late for their registration duties.

Teachers who had taught in the school for many years –even ten or more were not fare - welled at any formal function. They just disappeared –often in the middle of the year.

Incompetence

The Deputy Principal saw fit to allocate the Lower sixth classes to non–airconditioned rooms for general paper (G.P. classes). Why? No-one knew, as there were many spare rooms with airconditioning available.

In the first week I moved in to one of them and stayed there for the rest of the year. A serious crime.  No wonder I ended up on the 'veto list'

 
There was one PC for twenty two English teachers in the staffroom and repeated requests for another PC were ignored. PCs did not have access to the internet. Only the computer labs had this and they didn’t work all the time-and were often used by the computer and other academic departments for classes.

Being science teachers neither the Principal,  nor the Deputy had any idea of how labour intensive debating was for teachers. We were not allowed to practice during class time-yet students were out of my class for myriads of other similar activities.

I had to go personally to the previous Principal to get my classes to follow on form year 4 to 5. The GCSE was a two year course. It is  more efficient to take the classes for two years. The Deputy didn’t like this because it was more difficult for her to administer. Perhaps this is why I was put on her ‘veto’ list.?  God only knows

Record Books

This was a huge book which consisted of weekly lesson plans and daily lesson plans, exam marks etc.

It was largely a work of fiction.

Nobody followed the plans

Most people made up the lesson plans and didn’t follow them. Most people also made up the marks . I certainly did. By the end of my time at MS I wasn’t setting any homework because students either copied it, or didn’t do it at all.

The book had to be inspected and signed by the HOD every week and the Deputy Principal every three weeks. The Deputy Principal was a science teacher, as was the second Principal.

Between them they didn’t know the difference between an English lesson and a bar of soap. But that didn’t stop them from writing absurd comments on the book when they didn’t like something such as “where are the homework marks?” when they knew perfectly well what the situation was in reality. The Ministry had some regulation that required teachers to mark one composition and comprehension every two weeks-for over a hundred students! Each grammar mistake was supposed to be corrected in red ink and the student and teacher were supposed to correct them all! Of course no-one ever did this.

My own personal story at MS

My arrival and first two years were very happy at M.S. For the first time in six years I felt relatively valued as a teacher in Brunei. The administration was relatively benign. They were not actively supportive, but passively so.

That was the best you could ask for in Brunei as most administrators were either incapable, incompetent, inexperienced, or all three. Most schools had an environment toxic to professional teachers. But this was not the case in the first two years at M.S. I began to feel enthusiastic about teaching again. For the first time in years I started to think about doing a project which would keep me happy in my spare time. I eventually came up with an Action research project on teacher collaboration. I was able to conceive of, design, implement, evaluate and write-up my project as a thesis for my Educational Doctorate from an online University in the United States.

Staff in the English Department generally cooperated with me but in the end only people who were ‘ free’ could be involved –a design fault but better than no project at all.

I wrote up most of the project at home or at the Seaside Travellers Inn in Kota Kinabalu.

Apart from my thesis the most positive thing that happened was the winning of the Debate competition. This is something that had not happened at the school for eleven years. I certainly got some kudos from the administration for doing this.

Before I arrived at M.S. an interesting event occurred as a result of a visit one day to the school by the Crown Prince. He was a nice enough fellow but regarded as a bit slow. ‘Not quite the full shilling’ as we say in Ireland.

Apparently during his visit he had taken a fancy to one of the sixth form girls. She was a pretty girl.

On his return to the palace his Aids did the needful and within two months they were married.

Now the girl's mother was a Swiss lady who was an employee of CFBT.  She was the counselor and a very good one at that. She kept many teachers from going nuts during periods of stress.  She  became the Queen mother and had to give up her job at cfbt and was not seen in public after the marriage.

 She  had no choice in the matter either. That is the way things are done in Brunei.

Returning to my thesis again, there was no needs analysis in this Orwellian world. It wasn’t necessary because naturally, the administration knew everything that was needed for teachers and students. Communication was nil. It was like travelling on a spaceship on an intergalactic mission with the crew in hibernation and only ‘Hal’ the computer for company.. The Bruneians  complied as usual thus giving tacit consent to their own oppression-and this was why I lost respect for many of them in the end.

They were likeable but I didn’t respect them. They never, ever, stood up for themselves or each other. On the contrary they routinely dobbed each other in order to gain ‘Brownie points’ for themselves at someone else’s expense. 

The truth is this is what humans do, wherever they are: they look after themselves, at the expense of their peers . 

I've even done it myself.

The Migration Experience

Welcome to a world where you may be acknowledged as a novelty or for your entertainment value and where you might survive for a short while through your curiosity value.

Welcome to a world where you will only be acknowledged if you fit in with someone else's agenda and where you just might, if you're lucky, be acknowledged as the 'supplementary novelty' to the main social event.

Welcome to a world where you will be shunned by acquaintances as a liability and where you will be measured in terms of your usefulness and 'Value-added' to a relationship.

Welcome to the world of deception and pretence.

Welcome to a world where you are invisible.

Welcome, migrant, to Adelaide on a Friday night in 2009.

International School Brunei and Maktab Sains.

International School Brunei.

ISB was the main reason we came to Brunei. It was a free private education with an international experience. Moreover, they were introducing the International Baccalaureate the year that we arrived.

From the beginning ISB was an outstanding success for all of our children. Roger did a six month foundation course from January to June. Sergio and Julie were both ‘held back’ a year because of the difference in the academic calendar in Australia.

Later on, as it transpired, this turned out to be a mistake as it meant that they were older than other students. I think this led to them being less satisfied with the school in their later years as they outgrew it, mentally.

Roger did very well in his IB and was ‘Dux’ of his year. An outstanding achievement.

Due to the kindness of our friends, he thenwent to Thailand for six months to work for a teacher recruitment company.

He then went to Melbourne University. When he was in Brunei, he had a charming girlfriend.

Serge and Julie got a lot out of ISB in the area of extracurricular activities. Julie was the lead in the musical ‘West side story” and Serge had a major part. They both were General Secretaries’ in the Borneo Global Issues conference.

The academic side of things was very satisfactory too for them.

However, as the years progressed and they grew up they  became less than satisfied with Brunei. They wanted to go and see the world. Maria and I became less satisfied too, not so much with the school as with Brunei itself.

Life was so easy, and perhaps we had all had become spoiled: travel by car everywhere, no walking, an ‘Amah’ to wash the dishes, clothes and cook our food, cheap food and DVD’s.

It was an easy existence –and, in retrospect, not the best preparation for life in the real world for the children.

Roger leaving  Cornell only confirmed our suspicions that life in Brunei was not necessarily the best preparation for the real world.

As Serge and Julie became unhappy, we started to think about moving back to Australia.


Maktab Sains

By 2005 I had had enough of Menglait.

Although it was much better than the school in the water village, there was a sameness about it that was ultimately soul-destroying. For all the charm of the students, there were some things about it which were negative  by any standard.

For one thing, the classrooms were uninhabitable. Neither man nor beast could function in them: they were filthy, hot and airless; and the noise of the fans and the traffic made it necessary for the teacher to shout in order to be heard.

Most teachers couldn’t be bothered to shout and simply wrote instructions on the board for the tasks to be carried out. All this made it a dismal environment for students and teachers. And all this in a country with vast resources of oil.

More importantly, the English curriculum was beyond the vast majority of students. It was the same curriculum I had studied in the UK as a boy. As a result, only about one percent of the students could get a credit in English. A credit was the minimum standard required to enter the University.(Grade A-C).

The rest of the students were basically destined to become petrol pump attendants and car park kiosk staff.

The local staff were quite friendly and  the CfBT staff could be variable.  My debating colleague was a  soul mate. Sparks sometimes flew between us but the chemistry was generally so good that  we had a laugh most of the time.

But it wasn't enough

In desperation, I applied for a transfer.

To my surprise I was given one almost immediately to Maktab Sains.

This was a ‘Gamechanger’ for me. I knew the teaching would be good. This turned out to be the case and the staff also turned out to be friendly and fairly open.. This was largely due to the Principal , who, although fairly conservative by western standards, was approachable and a kind-hearted person.

After a few months, and having mastered the teaching I quickly decided I needed another project to do to develop myself professionally and to help me get another job after Brunei. I started thinking about doing an Action Research project for a doctoral dissertation.

I looked online for Universities and came up with a variety of cheap ones who turned out to be “Diploma Mills”.

I finally came across a more reputable one which seemed affordable. I enrolled  in 2005 to do an Action Research Study. In the end , although it was technically called a 'educational doctorate'  it was in my opinion, only the equivalent of another Masters degree. This would be my 4th Masters degree.

The beauty of this was that I could do it without seeking permission from the school or the Ministry of Education. In the end I was able to  enlist the passive support of the Principal.

This was all I wanted . I did not want her active support because  active support could easily turn into interference. I wanted to control my own action research.

Debating

One of the highlights at MS was the debating. This time I was on my own without my colleagues. But, the students were outstanding, the best in the country. I had a great time coaching them and we won the senior competition one year. It was so easy to coach these students.  They did all the work!  but, when the Principal met me afterwards, she referred me as 'The Emperor'. I didn't complain! Debating had a high status in the school culture

the academic teaching was great at Maktab sains. the students were an absolute delight. I was able to try out lots of ideas with them. One of the noteworthy  things about the Malay culture is the love of music, so i decided to try working with the 'Phantom of the opera'. It was a huge success and the students loved it. I would do vocabulary work with it. In fact, it was such a success that the students decided to include a sketch form 'the phantom of the opera in the opera ' in their end of year review in front of the whole school. It was also a great success and was greeted with rapturous applause. Unfortunately, for me, the new principal , who was very conservative, did not like it. I think it might have been one of the reasons why, a year later she put me on the shit list.



One of the most annoying things about teaching in Brunei was how teachers were expected to provide their own equipment and teaching aids. I’m not sure if this is just part of the culture or whether it is simply a consequence of incompetence. At MS I bought my own marker pens for the whiteboard, my own writing pens and pencils, paid for my own photocopies (about 100 dollars a year); my own Television, Video cassette player, DVD player, DVD’s, electrical extensions and adapters, audio-cassette player, laptop computer, computer paper and fans. I even paid 150 dollars to have the air-conditioner fixed in my classroom as the school would not pay to have it fixed. It was the best 150 dollars I invested the whole year!

In a school with dozens of computers the Internet was not available for staff use.

Many of the classrooms had plugs and sockets and fans which did not work. Many of the airconditioners in the classrooms had broken down and no attempt was ever made to repair them. There seemed to be a  belief that a hot sweaty stinking classroom was good for a student’s character.

Chronic teacher shortage

There was also  a chronic teacher shortage. The English Department at Maktab Sains-the premier college in the nation- was always two, sometimes three staff down.

This was tolerable in the first two years when the Principal was an approachable person and expectations of our workload were reasonable. We agreed to cover as much as we could when we were able to. The students at Maktab Sains were able to be left unsupervised anyway. But with the arrival of another Principal,  it became a problem as she insisted on every class being covered and she brought us back in the afternoons to do it.

I believe the real reason there was a teacher shortage was because the Ministry didn’t care. In fact,  I was convinced it was not just negligence or incompetence on the part of the Ministry, it was even more than this: it was a deliberate policy to increase teacher loads covertly.


Lack of communication was the hallmark of all administrations in Bruneian schools. The second Principal at MS was a shocker in this respect.

She arrived in the first week of February and was obliged, against her own instincts,  by public demand to have a short ten minute meeting of staff to explain how she was going to take the school to ‘higher level’.

That was the only staff meeting she had all year. Not that I liked staff meetings. But it was typical of her that she believed that it was not necessary to communicate even formally with her staff. Everything was done by written Memo. She did not speak, even informally to most staff –only to her gang of attack dogs-who carried out her dirty work for her –enforcing her many new measures designed to change the school from being a flagship school of innovation into a nunnery.

She did not speak to the students either. The only communication was to have formal assemblies at which she talked invariably about graffiti in the toilets-a thing which had been unknown at Maktab Sains before her arrival.

She treated the school like it was a piece of her own personal property and the people in it like kindergarten children. In fact she invited the Director of Prisons to address our scholarship students before they went to the UK! What an inspiration for young people! ore on that , later.

L1 Brunei Darrussalam (10) Holidays in Brunei

Bario

Charles took me to Bario a couple of times during the final years. This was a place in the central highlands of Sarawak inhabited by the Kelabit tribe. There was no access by road –although a logging road did reach there the year before I left Brunei.This meant that everything had to be flown in or brought up river by small boat. There were eighteen motorized four-wheel vehicles in Bario at last count –including mechanical diggers.

It was a beautiful rice growing area and the people were very intelligent and innovative.The natural primary jungle was still intact in many places.The lodge we stayed in was very quiet and well tended by Jem and his kelabit wife who sang quietly to herslf most days while she cooked tasty and nutritious food for her guests. He had an electric generator which he switched off at about eleven at night. We went for long walks to little villages with longhouses that were still in use.

Jet-skiing

Charles also took me Jet-skiing. He had bought the jet-ski in a vain attempt to keep his teenage children happy when they were in Brunei. His family had gone home to England and so he invited me to accompany him on some Jet-ski trips. We had some adventurous trips: many to Limbang ; one to Labuan , one to Lawas and one to the wildest of all to Marudi on the Baram river in Sarawak. Charles also did a night trip with his wife from Serasa Yacht club to Kota Batu at night: She sat on the back and shone a torch so that he could see where he was going!

The trip to Labuan was memorable for the fact that the wind blew up at about three o’clock – just before we started the return trip. I remember sipping my beer in the waterfront hotel and feeling a little apprehensive as I saw the wind get up.

By the time we left Labuan there were a few white horses. I was driving. Ten minutes out the engine died and I looked round to see Charles disappearing under the stern of the ship. After what to me seemed a very long time –but it could hardly have been more than fifteen seconds he re-appeared with a plastic bag in his hands. It had been twisted around the propeller. I was very relieved to hear the engine start again. On and on we drove with the sea getting rougher by the minute. By the time we were half way across there were white horses everywhere. The outward journey had taken forty minutes. The return journey took an hour and a half. As we neared Muara port there was a very turbulent area of ocean which almost capsized us. Several times, waves came form behind and nearly washed first Charles, then myself, off the Jet-ski. One wave in particular almost pulled me after it. But we were close to home and this rough patch didn’t last for long. Like drowned rats we steamed into port, I was much chastened by our experience!

But not Charles. I decided there would be no more open ocean trips for me after that. Charles, not so: the next week he went straight back to Labuan and did the trip again–this time on his own. The same thing happened and this time it was a moderate gale which blew up! He made it back safely.

Marudi

The trip to Marudi was in many ways the most adventurous of them all: It started as we looked at the Baram river on the Map and it looked like a snake and fun to travel on.

Marudi was an old logging station in Sarawak-just across the border from Kuala Belait in Brunei. We towed the jet-ski down to K.B. and Charles crossed the border by sea illegally by Jet-Ski and met me in the Mariott in Miri. I had driven the car across the border. We stayed the night and then the next morning I drove back to the river Baram and Charles jet skied (again illegally) to meet me. I noticed that the river was vast – and it was flowing strongly, and more importantly, it was full of logs and other dangerous jetsam and flotsam. I began to have second thoughts about the wisdom of the enterprise as I stared towards the mouth of the river waiting for Charles to arrive on his Jetski from the Mariott..

He eventually arrived but very late. He looked like a drowned rat.

He told me that he had beached the jetski on a sandbank and taken ten minutes to manoeuvre it off the bank. Then the propeller had jammed with a plastic bag and he had had to dive under the jet-ski to unsnag it. Pointing to the logs in the river I asked him tentatively if was wise to continue with our plans.

Charles had no doubts at all.

As we set off upstream, dodging our way through the logs, I asked him about petrol and he said it was just over half -full and should be OK. It was a white blistering hot Borneo morning and we whizzed up the river feeling like Dr Livingstone, albeit moving a little quicker than he probably did..

The river was dead. Because it had been logged many years ago, all the animal life had disappeared and the riverbank was a desolate sight. There was no-one living there. For about two hours we motored along in the searing heat.

Charles shouted to me over his left shoulder:

“I think we have a fuel problem!”

My heart sank –on either side the river there was only mangrove swamp.

I scoured the river banks for life.

In the distance I pointed out what looked like a dwelling of some sort and we veered off at speed across the huge Baram river and made for it. When we reached it in about five minutes we saw a “sight for sore eyes”

It was a fisherman resting. Beside him was a can of petrol for his boat! Although neither of us could speak much Malay we managed to make him understand that we wanted to buy the petrol. He couldn’t have been more cooperative. Soon, we were on our way again to Marudi.

If this ‘Tom Sawyer–like’ figure had not been there I don’t know what would have become of us. When I asked Charles later he said:

“The worst that could have happened is we would have had to spend the night in the mangroves at the side of the river”

“Exactly! I thought to myself”

Half an hour later we were in Marudi. And what a disappointment it was: it was a seedy place with many whorehouses form the logging days barely disguised as hotels and motels. As we were eating lunch the rain came and we delayed our return for a while until it abated.

But it didn’t stop raining!

At about three o’clock we had to head back and we started off with me piloting in the driving rain. I couldn’t see through my glasses and so we changed places - a tricky maneuver in the middle of the river. As I tucked in behind Charles on the jetski the rain set in and there was a considerable show of lightning and thunder. I remember thinking to myself

“Maybe this was not such a good idea”

When we reached the bridge it was with considerable relief that I disembarked. Charles insisted on driving the Jetski back to Brunei into the storm at the mouth of the river and I was seriously concerned about his safety.

I needn’t have been. When I got back to Brunei and Kuala Belait by car Charles had
already arrived and was hauling the jetski up on the beach!

Hassles and Holidays in Brunei

Daily life 

The children settled in well to life in Brunei and the school. Roger did spectacularly well in his International Baccalaureate Exams. They made good friends form all over the world and their neighbours were very congenial company. We also enjoyed our neighbours some  of whom taught at my school. Friendships were formed which were too last a long time through shared recreational activites.We all enjoyed the help of our maid form the Philipines who looked after us well and got on very well with the children. Maria and I were very satisfied with the move to Brunei.

Holidays

One of the first holidays we had was one of the best-to the Seaside Travelers Inn in Kota Kinabalu. We drove in convoy with our neighbours, the Maddens. The STI was run by a Chinese family the Ongs. The grandfather was the Patriarch and was the retired Police chief from KK itself. Over the years I became friendly with the son James who managed daily operations. The house was set on the beach with beautifully landscaped gardens and a very picturesque restaurant and balcony perched right over the sea. There was a small pool in which the three children and the two Madden boys splashed for most of the day.

I became a regular at the STI: the food was ok and the staff always very friendly. There was a very slow turnover of staff and the cook Jumaidi and his wife Watie were still working there when I left nearly eight years after my first visit. This to me showed they must be doing something right.

The father, the patriarch ran his weekly meetings with his staff in military fashion. Everyone paid very close attention to what he was saying! He could get angry. Right next door, also on the beach was another guest house –Langkah Syabas; another beautiful place but with a very different style of operation. The latter was run by an Australian and his Malaysian wife: there were little ponies in the stables and even Australian sheep wandering around but there was a very different style of management here. The manager was could be abrasive,  of the type sometimes  found teaching in language colleges in Australia. I often saw her dealing with her local staff in an aggressive and rude way even within the purview of guests. It was embarrassing me. There was almost nobody ever at the place. I just don’t know how they made any money. The staff turnover was very high and there were different faces every time I went. Although the rooms were not as good at the STI,  it was always busy.

Over the years and when I came to do my doctoral dissertation I bought a lap-top and did a lot of it at the STI. In latter years I discovered a rapid route via Labuan and Menumbok taking a ferry, speedboat and bus. I could do the journey in about five hours.


There was one holiday –the very first in KK which we would rather forget. It happens to all families. We stayed in the Marina court apartments of the Promenade hotel. Everyone was sick: but  I escaped! The rooms were awful –narrow with no cable TV.

The weather was wet and windy and we ended up cutting the holiday short and going home.

We went one Christmas to Bali and it was not a great holiday either. The children enjoyed the waterslides etc. But the apartment we stayed in was so expensive-and I couldn’t stop thinking about the expense!

 Also we had a misadventure with a company that was selling timeshare properties when we were there: We were whisked off the street by a smiling snake who was shouting at us that we had won a prize! When we got inside we were offered a share in timeshare properties for a lot of money. The Englishman who sold it was very convincing. I swallowed the bait.

After our second year, for the first time in our married lives, we had saved a few thousand dollars.

After a few days I realized I had made a mistake and that would never travel enough to use the properties. I went back claiming ‘customer remorse’. He was actually quite reasonable and reduced payment to one third of the original cost  and extended the time we could use the property to fifteen years. Nevertheless, the money was wasted, down the drain because as we  never used a property even once! How gullible I was!


Another holiday which was a fiasco was the one to Kuching. We were all in the Toyota bouncing along the highway when the aircon gave out. We reached about a third of the way to Kuching when we camped a night in a beach resort. It had been raining very heavily and the whole site was mosquito infested. Everything was damp and the place was empty. It rained and rained –so we decided to go back to Miri and catch a plane!

Rog was not really happy at Cornell in his first year,  and it showed. But we enjoyed Kuching though –it has character.

Hassles

 I  had several run-ins with Travel Agents.  I booked a weekend to Kota Kinabalu on a long weekend. The agent was offering a “two night/three day package”. I booked it and picked up the tickets. The mistake I made was not to look at the times of the flights.

When I got home I discovered what three days and two nights meant: depart Brunei 10.30 pm and return Brunei 8.a.m! I just couldn’t believe they would sell these flight times as ‘two nights three days’. Anyway I had a huge row with the agent  and demanded my money back claiming it was misleading advertising. He wouldn’t budge – and so basically they were stealing my money.  We ended up shouting at each other and he then wrote to me demanding an apology and threatening me with legal action. In the end I had to retract the accusation.

I regretted doing that, but I had no choice. If the MOE had heard about this, I might have had my contract terminated. that is what I mean by stress and insecurity. It was unpredictable and you had no protection as a foreigner..



Skirmishes with Immigration

The authorities were always introducing new regulations to annoy foreigners

There were really memorable ones: one was near the end coming back from Labuan on a Sunday on the ferry. At Muara in Brunei I filled in my allowance for alcohol form and then joined a queue to have the details to be typed into a database by a secretary. The queuing was a new initiative and was taking several minutes. I asked the person in the back room why we now had to queue with a form.

He was curt like some immigration officials are in Brunei. I continued to badger him for an explanation at which point he exploded and asked me which school I worked at.

I told him to mind his own business. This went on for several rounds and I was very close to getting into serious trouble with him.i suppose i knew i was near the end of my contract and he couldn't really cause trouble for me.

The second occasion was when Maria was coming back from Mexico. She arrived at Brunei airport at 2 a.m. having travelled half way around the world from Veracruz to Mexico to Los Angles to Singapore and finally to Brunei. The whole journey had taken about three days because she had had a twelve hour delay in L.A.

When she was departing form Brunei the airline clerk (remarkably) had alerted us to the fact that her re-entry pass was out-of date. When Maria was in Mexico I had checked this out with Ratna at CfBT and she had said there was no problem because Maria had a dependent pass: on her return to Brunei , I was assured, she would be issued a special pass on her return to Brunei and she would be asked to get the re-entry pass renewed within a few days of her arrival back in Brunei.

But when she arrived form Singapore I could see there was a problem from the doors outside. This official was remonstrating with Maria and ushering her to the side: I could see the angry body language.

This was enough for me so I burst in through the doors and accosted the official. He wanted to send her back to Singapore. I said if she went then I went with her and he(the official ) would have to pay for us both! There was quite a prolonged altercation in this vein and eventually Maria was taken aside and given a special pass.

The next day CfBT were given an apology by immigration. The officer had not followed the correct procedure. was good for the children. They all settle in well to ISB and Roer did spectacularly well in his IB. they all enjoyed the school and the frinds they met there were form all over the world

We never got an apology though! The officer clearly thought he could mistreat Maria as she looked like a Philipina or Indonesian worker.

Brunei Debating

Debating

 When I arrived at Menglait I was allocated the responsibility for debating by my HOD. I didn’t know at the time that debating was the worst job you could be given. I was not consulted about it –I was simply allocated it by the HOD –a fact which I  resented at the time!

Australians talk long and loud about democracy and participation but as soon as this Aussie got the chance she seemed to do what everyone else does in Brunei –just dish the jobs out without consultation.

I hadn’t a clue-what was a debate? I was after all originally a science teacher. Anyway, after a few weeks I had a meeting of those interested in debating and found a huge amount of interest. About twenty five senior students turned up. I didn’t really know what I was doing but I do remember that two noisy boys at the back were creating a disturbance which annoyed me. It turned out that these boys were to become the backbone of the debating team in the following year. Apparently they were so unimpressed with me on that first day that they never came back for the rest of the first year! Anyway, I set a meeting for a future date and for the next few months of the year I had some very low-key meetings with some very keen girls and one boy-all of very average speaking ability. Basically, all the arguments and speeches had to be written by me. This meant a lot of work for yours truly. Nevertheless, I think we all enjoyed it.

Then one Saturday at noon we received a fax from the Ministry asking us to appear on the Monday at the inter-schools debating competition! We hadn’t even been told what were the topics. This was just the sort of thing I had come to expect from the Ministry. We couldn’t go of course.

After a couple of years of this farcical disorganization the Ministry had the brilliant idea of dumping the organization of these competitions into the laps of the schools. The winning school was asked to host the competition in the following year.

The following year the two ‘noisy boys’ turned out to be the backbone of the debating team at Menglait.

One of them was the infamous son of the Director of schools, and the other was  a boy who had one Bruneian parent and one English parent, so his English was very good. Both were arrogant and opinionated –and that is just what was needed to be a good debater.

In the competition we managed to beat the fancied girls team from STIPRI and the junior team from Maktab Sains- one of the top schools in the country. These two victories sent tremors through the debating world. How could lowly Menglait have managed this?

The answer was they had a damn good speaking coach. He  was an Aussie with a very outgoing and engaging personality . The students loved him. I did the organization. kelped prepare the speeches, and made sure that the practices happened, but but he  was the leader in the coaching area. The third student member of the team  had a Portuguese mother. She  was only a junior but she was very articulate. She also happened to be one of the boy's  ‘unofficial’ girlfriend (‘couples’ were frowned upon in this Islamic culture). But this meant that where one went the other followed-which helped a lot with attendance at the practices. We got to the quarter-finals against the strongly fancied St. George’s private school. This event was to be televised and everyone at Menglait was very excited.

On the day we easily won. Our arguments had been ably prepared by another debating teacher and myself and myself and the kids delivered them with enthusiasm and skill. St. George’s, our opponents, were clearly aghast at the skill of our team and more or less rolled over and took their medicine.

The only problem was the judges didn’t see it this way! They awarded the debate to St.Georges-much to everyone’s surprise-including the St. Georges team!

To my surprise our students were very sporting about the result -much more sporting than I was. I admired the attitude of our students but was absolutely livid with the judges! But I managed to control myself  and said nothing.

As a result of our performance in this competition both our boys were chosen to represent Brunei in the international competition in Singapore. But disaster was to strike! Because they were a ‘couple’ the powers that be felt they would not be good representatives for Brunei and the girls was ‘pulled’ from the competition-not the boy, of course! The woman always gets the blame. I was amazed at the equanimity with which the students handled this news. But I was furious yet again! It wasn’t the last time I would be furious in the debating arena.

The following year we won the competition with the help of a very promising chinese Malay debater . She had been in my first form class and was a top Menglait student academically. However her main strength, which was to stand her in good stead was her character. She was tenacious, cooperative, cheerful and had very good manners. 

 In a future year , at another school, as coach,  won the Senior Debating competition. We had one outstanding debater called Jasmin who could write everyone else’s speech aswell as her own. She was the only student I ever coached in Brunei who could write her own speeches.

I
The chinese Malay debater was a wonderful student and went on to get a scholarship from Menglait to do her International Baccalaureate at the International school of Brunei. This scholarship was given by an unknown benefactor and was extremely generous: not only did it include fees for the IB program but it included fees and living expenses to any University in the world!

She did very well and she was offered a small scholarship by Liverpool University to do bioengineering.

Just before she sat the I.B. exams she was stunned to be told that her scholarship had been withdrawn without any reason being offered by the sponsor: (Sunlit Advertising!) Not only did the scholarship cover University fees and maintenance, but even the fees to sit the IB exams themselves(about 1000 dollars). The family were not well-off and were unable to support her.

she was chinese Malay and therefore the Malay sponsor has withdrawn the money

What was interesting to me was the way she handled this news: the first thing she did was to cover up the whole incident, and lie about it.

“ Oh, I didn’t quite get the required grade sir –I got 33 instead of 34” she told me.

This later turned out to be false. The Bruneian instinct appears to be to lie in order to cover up everything –even if it is not their fault. Indeed, she was covering for Sunlit Advertising who had behaved shamefully towards her! Where is the logic in that?

“Oh I’ll be ok sir, I just want to put it behind me” she said

Even more shameful was the behaviour of the International school which made her pay even the 1000 dollars for the IB exams! So, instead of receiving the scholarship offered to Liverpool University she had to work in town to earn the money over the next several months to pay the fees for the IB exams. This was shabbly and weak of ISB.

What was even more interesting to me was the change in attitude when I next met her a few months later. Now she was bitter but much more open about criticising those involved.

But only when it was too late!

She ended up going to UBD.

Teaching at Menglait

Teaching at Menglait.

I had to learn to go with the flow as a teacher. Easily the most frustrating thing about teaching was the constant chatter of the students.

They never, ever, shut up! One walked into a classroom and it was as if one were invisible. There was no impact whatever on the students. It was hard for my ego to take. I understood it in a way but it did not make it any more tolerable.

It was not defiant chatter-it was just good natured idle chatter based on the reasonable premise that there was little point in listening to what the teacher said either because it wasn’t worth listening to or because, in as in my case, (I hope), you couldn’t as a student understand it.

At first I tried to and insist on total silence before I would continue but it required too much energy to do this. After a while I learned to tolerate a certain level of background noise which I would not have tolerated in other contexts.

The inattention was not defiance –it was actually just socialization. Yes, the kids were enjoying themselves – at my expense –or on my watch-as it were. But I learned that if I allowed them a certain amount of socialization time - they would then reciprocate by attempting the tasks I set them. This realisation came slowly –and took about two years to sink in.

In the end, I could set the task for the class and insist upon about ten to fifteen minutes maximum of concentration for most students. The rest was pretty much socialization dictated at their pace. This was how I survived. They liked my classes and I was a popular teacher at Menglait. Nevertheless it was grim at times and I had to keep reminding myself to smile. I determined I would try to smile . In the mornings the students always returned my smile. Menglait students taught me how to smile.

 

Most of the staff were quite pleasant –but there was one –the Head of Maths who actively disliked me. I do not know why but she was rude to the point of cutting me cold. Perhaps I upset her over my use of the computer lab one day without her permission -I’m not sure.

That was the problem-Bruneians were generally good-natured but they could be  touchy and you could upset people without knowing you were doing it-in fact by not doing very much at all. This lady,_ definitely had it in for me. There is a certain type of female that really dislikes me –and she was that type. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are certain types (plural) and she was one of the types. I could see the loathing in her demeanour every time she looked at me.

No, Menglait was relatively good overall but after four years it began to pall-and it was beginning to take a toll on my health. I became hooked on Xanax to get me to sleep and cope with the pressures of being an HOD. But in addition there was simply so little happening professionally.

And yet I was trapped in Brunei because I knew the international school was so good for the children and for Maria.

I couldn’t leave.

It was as simple as that.

Evolution of teaching style at Mengalait.

Regarding the teaching it was a case of adapt or die. It was a tough environment physically. The school resembled a bombed out Dresden relic. It was originally a primary school. The classrooms were old , filthy, ill-maintained and stiflingly hot. Some had fans and none had air-conditioning. It always amazed me that in Brunei all manner of lowly workers from shop assistants to waitresses all worked in an air-conditioned environment but not the students or teachers.

Why? Rumour had it the Ministry felt it was good for the character of the students sit in the stifling heat. And the teachers –well who has ever cared about them anyway?

Most of the kids were hopelessly ill-equipped to cope with the ridiculous academic program designed for Native speakers, which I myself had studied forty years previously as a young boy in Ireland!

About twenty percent of the students could get a bare pass –and about one percent of the final cohort could get a credit! (Grade a-c)

And our school was by no means the worst.

The schooling process was clearly just a huge exercise in political manipulation to sieve and sift out the brighter students who were to become the administrative political elite in the Government and run the country.

The rest counted for nothing. The fact that ninety percent of the students failed was of no importance to anyone.

It was a war crime.

Many of the students at Menglait knew they had no chance of benefiting from the system and consequently most of them were very poorly motivated. Nevertheless, they still enjoyed coming to school –not to study –but to socialize. Malays are a playful and very sociable people-and the boys and girls loved coming to school where they could meet other outside the strictly controlled Islamic environment of their own homes.
 

H1 Brunei Darussalam (7) Menglait and Hazwan

9/11, Menglait, Afghanistan and Hazwan

I had very little to do with management in Brunei but there was one important incident well worth relating in detail as it concerned 9/11.

The day after 9/11 I remember trying to explain to the students of a relief class what had happened –with the aid of a little drawing on the board. The students seemed to have very little understanding of the significance of the event.

Very soon after this Afghanistan was invaded and this did produce a quite unusual reaction on the part of one teacher. One of the local teachers who used to chat about football to me sidled up to me in the library and made a snide remark to the effect that there had been a ‘good win’ last night for Palestinians.

This was an unusual  remark-because most Bruneians were never overtly political in this way.  Not long after this a bizarre incident occurred which sheds much light on the management style of the Brunei Ministry of Education.

Just before the end of school one day I was told by my H.O.D. that the Principal had instructed her to take me off one of my form four classes and give me another one.

I was surprised of course, and asked why. She said it was something to do with a student disciplinary issue in the new class. This sounded odd to me–because the new class was the top class in the year and there should not be any disciplinary issues in such a class! I was intrigued.

When did I start? The next day!

 The HOD  wouldn’t tell me anything more –something about  which I was annoyed. But it was typical of expatriates s to imitate the behaviour of the local management style

I started teaching the new class the next day determined to succeed where apparently the other teacher had failed. I deliberately did not inquire about the identity of the ‘difficult’ student as I did not want to be walking on eggshells with him or her all the time. There were only fourteen in the class –and after several classes I still had no idea no idea who the problem student was.

Then one day a boy arrived at my class and said that the Deputy Principal wanted to see me.

This was most unusual at Menglait-to be called out of class. I followed the student up to the office and the deputy Principal-a formidable lady in her own right ushered me in to a room where I was introduced to the parent of the student who had caused the problem with the other teacher.

This lady was seated and she said

“Good morning Don , do you know who I am?”

“Actually, No!

I said-half-smiling and half- grimacing as I could tell by this time that this was probably a very important person.”

“I am the Director of schools”

“I see..”

“And my boy  is a very good student of English. You will have no problems with him”

I then realized that I had just been ‘vetted’ by the Director of schools.

 Her boy was in fact  quite arrogant.

 But fortunately for me he enjoyed my English classes which I was able to rearrange with a little extra effort. So much so that the Deputy Principal was eternally grateful to me and thenceforth thought the sun shined out of my rear end.

 The boy  had apparently wanted to discuss the US invasion of Afghanistan with his previous English teacher –who was an Indian lady.

This was a natural thing for a young man with an enquiring mind to want to do. But in Brunei it was very dangerous for the Indian teacher. So, the teacher had forbidden discussion of the subject and the boy had complained to “Mummy’ about not being able to discuss it. He had  also gone to the Principal.

I believe the fact that he enjoyed my class gave me 'protection' (through his mother)  in Brunei  from overbearing bureaucrats and bossy school Principals for three or four years. Eventually, of course, 'Mummy' forgot who I was and I spent the last year or two without protection again. The boy is probably a Minister in the Government by now.

Most of the staff were quite pleasant –but there was one – who actively disliked me. I do not know why but she was rude to the point of cutting me cold. Perhaps I upset her over my use of the computer lab one day without her permission -I’m not sure.

That was the problem-Bruneians were generally good-natured but they could be so touchy and you could upset people without doing very much at all. This lady  definitely had it in for me.

No, Menglait was pretty good overall but after four years it began to pall. There was simply so little happening professionally.

And yet I was trapped in Brunei because I knew the international school was so good for the children and for Maria who was now teaching kiindergarten at the International school. I couldn’t leave.

Evolution of teaching style at Menglait.

Regarding the teaching it was a case of adapt or die. It was a tough environment physically. The school resembled a bombed out Dresden relic. It was originally a primary school. The classrooms were old , filthy, ill-maintained and stiflingly hot. Some had fans and none had air-conditioning. It always amazed me that in Brunei all manner of lowly workers from shop assistants to waitresses all worked in an air-conditioned environment but not the students or teachers.

Most of the kids were hopelessly ill-equipped to cope with an academic program which I had studied myself forty years previously as a native speaker!

About twenty percent of the students could get a bare pass –and about one percent of the final cohort could get a credit!

And our school was by no means the worst.

The schooling process was clearly just a sieve to sift out the brighter students who were to become the administrative elite in the Government and run the country.

The rest counted for nothing. The fact that ninety percent of the students failed was of no importance to anyone.

Many of the students at Menglait knew they had no chance of benefitting from the system and consequently most of them were very poorly motivated. Nevertheless, they still enjoyed coming to school –not to study –but to socialize. Malays are a playful and very sociable people-and the boys and girls loved coming to school where they could meet others outside the strictly controlled environment of their own homes.

2001-2008 Brunei Menglait School

Menglait

Four weeks later I was back in Brisbane still lying awake at night. It was the day before my first day at the new school. I repeated a mantra to myself “Stay in the Present” in the middle of the night in order to get myself to stop worrying about the next day. It was a mantra I repeated to myself on many future occasions before I restarted the school year.

Menglait was a regular town school. Physically, it was a shambles but some things about it were significantly better than Lumapas. First and foremost, I had some upper secondary classes so the kids could actually understand a fair amount of what I said. Second, the administration , although not particularly welcoming was not hostile, as in Lumapas, and had a good relationship with the English Department. Thirdly, the Head of Department was an expat and was efficient , considering she was working within the constraints of the context. (In Lumapas, the local H.O.D was ineffectual and so the Expats tried to take over. The result was a free-for- all.)

Being HOD at Menglait

In some ways I thought Menglait was therapeutic after Lumapas, although I would have to stress –this was relative! The students were easier to handle and the administration-although not exactly welcoming , were not as hostile as they were at the water village.

I had to work out how to survive in the classroom and staffroom. This was not a straightforward task but as it turned out it was just about do-able. By the end of my second year I was quite well-regarded in the school – unfortunately, sufficiently well-regarded to be asked to be Head of Department-which was a most unwelcome development.

Being H.O.D. in Brunei was not regarded as a promotion because it meant more work and responsibility –but no autonomy to make policy or decisions, and no money!

HOD’s were glorified administrators, implementing the policies of the Principal.

Basically HOD’s were routinely used to do the dirty work for senior administrators and keep their noses clean. There was nothing given to the HOD in return. The very worst thing about being HOD was being closer to the senior administration and this meant you were a constantly in their sights to take the blame in the ‘Blame game’.

I did not want the job but had it foisted upon me by the previous HOD who was an interesting character who was actually a very good H.O.D. for my first two years at Menglait. She was calm and considerate, fair and professional - even if a little stand-offish on a personal level-as all English people are.

Both her children were diabetic and she had had a very tough struggle looking after them. In my second year at Menglait her eldest boy, a  contemporary of my eldest son, was a senior student in the  International School , after being in the school from Kindergarten.

He fell from grace spectacularly after he was caught stealing a mobile phone and attempting to sell it. The result was suspension from the school at a critical period –just several months before his final exams. He was allowed to take his exams but not was not re-admitted to classes.

I felt the judgement was unduly harsh and I urged the HOD  to fight it with the Board of Directors. She did not do this feeling it was pointless. She may have been right, but she was left feeling embittered towards the school. So, it was a traumatic year for that family and at the end of it, she, understandibly,  wanted to offload the HOD responsibility, which she did rather clumsily to me.

Other candidates didn’t want it either, and, as I was sort of next in line I very reluctantly agreed to take it on. But, I had no choice really. The actual job didn’t perhaps turn out to be as bad as I had thought but it definitely increased my stress levels. One of the main reasons for this, ironically was  the ex hod  herself.

To my surprise she  changed from being a benign HOD to a stroppy and uncooperative member of Department. I remember things we had arguments about. One was oral examinations. Every year the school had to supply two ‘O’ level oral examiners. This was a very onerous task which took place after school in the afternoons over a period of two to three weeks. It was poorly paid and very tedious as well. Everyone hated it.

 I tried to instigate a system whereby I thought everyone would take their turn. But Jan was having none of this. She point blank refused to do it. This meant that somebody else had to do it of course. She insisted, and she had her way.  I lost a lot of respect for her after that.

Later on we had more confrontations .On one famous occasion she screamed at me in public. She was in the wrong and I had actually been trying to act in her interests. There was nothing I could say or do to mollify her.

“The chainsaw”

Aside from my Ex HoD,, the staff at Menglait were a mixed bag. Most kept to themselves but in the first year before I became HOD there was one very loud Australian woman, who was a problem for me right from the start. She shouted, rather than talked, in that loud Aussie voice seemingly oblivious to all around her except the person at whom she was shouting.

She repeatedly intruded on and occupied the private space of everyone around her. Murphy’s law had decided that I was the one who was to sit directly opposite her at a workbench so I could not escape. Her voice had a high-pitched metallic whine-and I duly nicknamed her ‘the chainsaw’.

After a couple of weeks , I knew I would have to move away. So, I identified a workspace in another staffroom and one day, when no-one was looking, I just picked up my things and transferred to another room. I couldn’t wait for a longer time because the longer I waited the more obvious it looked that I was moving away from her!

She eventually fell out with management later in the year and and was asked to leave. She went to the Middle East.

Even though Menglait was better than the water village-there was still a tangible sense of insecurity hanging in the atmosphere of the school regarding one’s job which I was never able to get used to. This is something that is impossible to explain to those who have not lived through it. In vain have I tried to explain to my family and friends in UK and Australia about this insecurity.

I have had little success.

It was this tangible insecurity which led me to eschew buying a house and getting a mortgage in Australia. I reasoned that I did not want to be saddled with a mortgage when I might lose my job at any time.

This is why we never bought a house when were in Brunei.

The locus of power was difficult to locate but after about a year or two it became clearer that power appeared to be held mostly by the Principal, an aggressive inspectorate, a few important ‘others’ on the staff, among some parents, and/or even some students. Most of these people derived their power by being related to the Royal family in some way. Put simply, one didn’t know what the appraisal process was. One day as happened to me eventually at another school, not Menglait, one's  supervisor would simply come up to you and say

“You need to know this, I was at a meeting of Ministry officials yesterday discussing contract renewals and your name is on the ‘veto’ list”

No reasons would be given either to the teacher ,  or to the  CFBT supervisor.

The veto or ‘shitlist’ was the list of teachers not recommended for renewal of contract by the Principal of the school.

How you had come to be on this list may or may not have been obvious. In some cases( but not in mine) there would have been a major incident of some sort involving a student or administrator. In other cases the reason was couched in a vague euphemism such as ‘attitude’. In other cases ( as in mine), no reason at all was given. Let us be clear: This was a Mao Tse Dong, Kim Il sung style of leadership. The only difference between Brunei and China and North Korea was that  Bruneian incompetence ensured that the totalitararian style could never really be as effective in Brunei.

And it was this inefficiency that made professional life bearable for most of us. The supervisor from Cfbt had little or no say in getting your name on or off the ‘Shitlist”

He/she may in some cases have been able to assist in it’s removal-but it was by no means guaranteed even in cases where the teacher had clearly not committed a hanging offence.

The local staff were pretty easy to deal with as long as you didn’t expect much of them. There was one who was a little difficult from time to time and this was because she was related to the Royal Family. . She rarely openly defied me at Menglait, but she did show ‘attitude’ on one or two occasions. She was eventually poached from us by Maktab Sains- the elite school. She didn’t last at M.S. . She had problems in her marriage which led to her leaving Maktab Sains under a cloud.

I had a very good supervisors at Menglait. He  had a very good attitude and he was very supportive of us all as teachers. He was practical and constructive and pragmatic. I felt he would go in to bat for me, if need be. I can’t say this about all of the  other  CfBT supervisors I had while in Brunei. I found it best to operate from the premise that they would not go in to bat for me. This prevented disappointment. Mine  gave me good advice and I listened to it on more than one occasion.

The local administration at Mengalit had, as in all Bruneian schools a very top-down approach. The first principal was lazy and waiting for a couple of years before retiring.

In a way this was good for us –he was not anxious to implement the latest Ministry initiative in order to make a name for himself. After he got to know us expats he eased off and let us do our own thing. He didn't  make policy either, he just implemented Ministry directives. He simply delegated everything to his senior staff and read the newspaper in his office. Although gruff at first he became quite personable towards the end-and he had a sense of humour.

In the Bruneian system, life for the staff was easier under such a Principal. We were indeed the envy of many other schools. I remember at one famous end of year staff meeting –it was mandatory to have at least one staff meeting per term our Prinicpal spent the entire meeting reading out loud word for word everyone’s duties according to the staff handbook –verbatim- for the following year-and all in Malay too!

Still, it was a shortish meeting –about an hour if I remember correctly-and everyone had a good chat as he was doing it. So everyone was satisfied.  He  retired in 2002 - a great loss to the Bruneian educational scene!

2001-2008 Brunei Diary june-july 2001 part 3 nightmares and Gangs

Maria:  my own employer CFBT had told us told us in Brisbane that Mari would get a job of with them when she arrived in Brunei. They then changed their mind when she got to Brunei. M then was offered a job with a local private school, al falaah, teaching English in primary .

Two months later CFBT took over this school, reemployed her on a casual basis and at one third the salary she would have been getting with a proper contract at CfBT.

The reality is that she did not get  these positions because she was not an anglo Celtic 'native speaker of English' . The Ministry of Education in Brunei would not accept CFBt teachers who were not native speakers of English. If she had been of Anglo celtic saxon origin she would have been snapped up by both schools, ISB and the Jerudong international school,  either as a Spanish teacher or a primary teacher .

This is a fact that no one can deny no matter how much it is dressed up in other language.

Friday, July 27, 2001

sometime, it seemed to me that the more seriously you take your job the more dangers there are to survival in Brunei.

This is very sad. I once  spent three to four hours of my free time in school over the past two days trying to get my class to watch a video. I was thwarted at every turn by incompetent technicians and administrators The administrators didn't want the video machine  to be used because they didn't think it was 'real teaching'. Real teaching for them is doing grammar exercises or calculations.  I finally managed it but not without nearly losing my temper and damaging my professional relationships with local colleagues.



Friday, August 17, 2001

.

We had a successful trip to Labuan for a week and my son's  girlfriend  came with us for two days. She seemed a nice girl and we were very pleased that she had met Roger her who would have been very lonely otherwise in this first year in Brunei . I can't help thinking how different his  adolescence has been from mine. Certainly I think it has been a a great improvement on mine! My Mum and Dad were never able to enjoy the pleasure of seeing their son's girlfriend at such close quarters.

In fact I never saw them either, because I never had any girlfriends in my adolescence

Sunday, September 02, 2001

 One day we  got some very bad news about ten days ago . CfBT phoned this at 6 p.m. on Saturday night to tell Maria that she should not go to work on Monday because the school, like cfbt,  had decided only to employ native speakers.

I was livid. She was only given 24 hours notice –and only a phone call!  She should have been invited in to meet with some CfBT officers. Her line managers did not say a word to Maria either before or after this shocking news. I wrote several letters to CfBt about it..

We were, by this time accustomed to the the ignorance underpinning this policy of the Ministry of the Ministry of Education'.



 

Thursday, July 05, 2001

Here it is then : the distillation of a career. These were my thoughts when still at Menglait, before I moved to Maktab Sains....

 As a family I've had to stay on the international circuit in order to  provide bread and butter for myself and my family. As a positive bi product of this, we have been  able get to know and enjoy many cultures 

 

What it has come down to in my case is that in each project, and for each project read "country" that I've been, there has often been a 'crunch' point

At this crunch point, sometimes, I have been prepared to sell my principles more than other times in order to survive and hence provide bread and butter for myself or my family. But I would like to think that I have not ever sold my self to the extent that I became a complete cynic. This cynicism, I  often  observed in the   expatriates around me. Financially,  we were therefore never  as well-off as  many of our contemporaries.

The basic equation never seems to change. In Ghana, in my first job, I was ready to resign after six weeks when I realized I was contributing to the rural depopulation of the village of Wa! I hung on because i was single and enjoying myself

Thirty years later, in Brunei I was always close to resigning many   because I couldn't tolerate the dysfunctionality of the system. But I survived for 9 years.

What  happened  in between?


If I look at each place I've been in, there are some similarities. 

At King's Hospital School in Dublin I was dissatisfied with the Principal and his corrupt little regime of staff bullies. They didn't like me, anyway. I was single

At Methodist college in Belfast I was dissatisfied because I was not fulfilling my ambition to explore other cultures.I was single.

In Malawi, I was dissatisfied with the rigid system of the nuns. I was single

 

In Colombia I was dissatisfied with corruption. I was fired without cause

In Mexico I was dissatisfied with nepotism.

In Dubai I was dissatisfied with corruption. They didn't like me.

In Melbourne Australia I was dissatisfied with corruption. I survived longer than all other senior administrators in the school's history.

 

In Brisbane, I lasted for 6 years, but,  I was about to lose my job

In all cases, I resigned. It was just a question of how long I lasted.

 

but in Brunei, it was not possible to resign for various  reasons: firstly,  because the children had to finish high school, and secondly,  secondly, it wasn't fair on Maria who, understandably was fed up, like myself, with moving. Thirdly, I was getting older and less and less employable. Once you were over 55 as a teacher, it became very difficult for me to get a job anywhere, even with an educational doctorate and three Masters degrees doctoral degree. nobody told me. I found it out for myself the hard way

 

So, I had to stay for 9 years in Brunei

The first few years  in Brunei were much better than in Australia, in so many ways. The children were doing well at school. Maria and I both had jobs, but somehow, I still felt anxious. The doctor told me I had become addicted to the stressful life in Australia. He wasn't a widely respected GP, but I liked him well enough. He said my body had become addicted to adrenalin. So, In the early years in Brunei, with less stress,  I was experiencing 'withdrawal' symptoms from lack of Adrenalin! . That is why, he said, i felt depressed. Maybe it sounds a bit Irish, but it seemed logical enough to me at the time, and I couldn't think of a better  explanation.

But he definitely did the wrong thing: he started me in Xanax to help me relax. This is an anti-anxiety drug which worked very well for me during the day when i was working. It calmed me down. But i started using it at night to get me to sleep.  I woke up after 4 hours and that was not enough sleep if I had to  work the next day . The problem was it was highly addictive, so after about 2 years at Menglait I was addicted to Xanax and had to take more and more. There were side effects of Xanax.

The stress levels increased as the nine years progressed, as we started to think about where the children would go after they left high school, and what we would do when CFBT finally terminated me.
'

Fly buys and Embolisms

What's with the supermarkets and the drill at the check-outs?

Every time I go to buy tea and eggs or whatever somebody asks me about 'Fly-buys'

Uhhhh? I say

Feckin aeroplanes?

I mean when am I goin to fly again?

I haven't enough dough to keep me Honda on the road, let alone "Fly" somewhere.

Anyway, the last time I flew I had a feckin' embolism.

Do they want me to have another one?

These brainwashed teenagers at the checkouts

"You must say"

'Fly buys with that to every customer.'

Says the Corporate trainer in 2009.

No wonder the kids feckin' binge-drink.

I would too if someone told me to say that all the time.

Waiting for my second embolism

Africa and Adelaide.

Africa and Adelaide have something in common.

They are the most beautiful places in which I have ever lived.

Forget the outback-I'm talking about the eastern suburbs!

Every afternoon I sit outside and bring out my book to read.

But I read nothing!

I get distracted by the beautiful trees and the orchestral performance of the birds.

It is like a live concert for free-every day!



Africa!

Well, if you haven't been there you will never understand!

It is majestic, terrifying and awe-inspiring-especially for a young man.


The difference is in the people.

The Africans are warm and welcoming.

Adelaideans do their best -but they are basically unsentimental.

Unsentimentality is a mortal sin-as the Catholics say.