Go showing his broken car window.
KOTA KINABALU: Sixty-seven years ago, 17-year-old Domoit Kantiur came across a lone Australian prisoner of war hiding in the jungle along the infamous Sandakan-Ranau Death March.
Domoit risked his own safety and that of his village located on the foothills of Mount Kinabalu, to shelter the man and nurse him back to health. He and the other villagers of Kampung Miruru even built a small shelter in the thick of the jungle where they knew his captors would not find him.
After a month or so, the soldier regained some strength and he was escorted along secret hunting trails and through the river where he was handed over to a bigger village headman who was also housing several prisoners of war.
The woman being sent to the hospital.
The woman fell onto the van, hit another vehicle before dropping to the ground.
For decades, their good deed went unrecognized, due to the far-flung location of their village, 80km from Ranau town.
Recently, trekking experts and historians identified the town and its past deeds and a shower of attention and gifts were laid upon them.
The latest contribution was in the unusual form of a musical drum set to replace their existing set which they have been using in the Kampung Miruru SIB church for 20 years.
The contribution was given by a group of students, parents and teachers from the Lindisfarne Grammar School in South Wales, Australia who had heard of the village and wanted to extend some help.
At a simple handover ceremony held at Hyatt Regency Kinabalu on Friday, the group led by specialist historian Lynette Silver and the school’s principal, Meg Ayers, presented a five-piece drum set, a guitar, two tambourines, a recorder and a set of maracas to the villagers.
The villagers used a battered second-hand drum set which had suffered a lot of wear and tear during their church services and could not replace it due to financial constraints.
“The drums are a big part of our lifestyle as we often use it for any celebrations and anything that requires music, including our church services and activities. We couldn’t replace ours as we had to pour a lot of our funds into other causes,” said village head Petrus Domoit, who is also Domoit’s son.
Petrus was accompanied by his younger brother Paulus and Alvin Buchai. Domoit himself was not feeling well and could not make the trip to receive the donations.
The village had last month received a wheelchair, an electronic keyboard, and other food supplies from the ‘Friends of Miruru’ community project.
“We were so touched by the risks taken by Domoit and his fellow villagers so we want to do everything we can to help this village who are materially rather poor,” said Silver.