Off to another town in Sabah!

The lady church worker in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah brought us to a few more houses on the outskirts of the city and we saw more of the same, ie, people living in ‘hiding’ and plenty of kids just playing and hanging around.

We were hoping to find a community of illegals, rather than just a house here and there. After all, if we were going to help the children to read and write then we would have to start a little literacy center and this would be more effective in a kampong with many children rather than in a single house with some children.

The lady church worker did not know of any such community in Kota Kinabalu. So we headed off for a smaller town in Sabah a few hundred kilometres away.

Our only contact in this town was a friend of a friend of one of us. When he met us, he admitted that he did not know where the illegals lived though he knew that there were many around. He had seen them being arrested, he had seen them at construction sites and he had met a few of them who worked at odd jobs.

But he said that he knew a Filipino couple who might know. He introduced us to them and immediately we knew that they were just the ones who might lead us to the missing illegals.

The couple had arrived as illegals in Sabah over 20 years ago. They had worked hard in different odd-jobs and had eventually managed to get legal papers of identification. So they were now safe from deportation. The man worked as a chauffeur and his wife as a kindergarten assistant. Their children also had identification papers and were all now gainfully employed. They are not citizens neither are they illegals. They are legal residents.

This couple still remembered their roots and had always wanted to help their own people but just didn’t know how to do so. They were excited to hear that there was now a chance to help!

They told us that had often visited their friends who lived in a kampong that was full of illegals. They promised to take us to see that place!