\
heavy and full of reluctance (or pure laziness) to type out a meager blog post on this page. I claim to love writing and being able to express myself more thru writing than speaking, but why is it that it's so hard for me to get a start on something I love? It's just SO hard for me to sit down and begin to write. Anyway, putting that aside for now.
I am back in Kampung! and that means that I can hear all the crickets singing their love songs in the grass, see my dads beloved lawn (grown with grass roots brought all the way from the Bahamas in a ziplock bag), See my beautiful and lazy cat Baby who has grown into SUCH a prince (I just adore him), and walk into my wonderful bathroom only to find out that......the lightbulbs blown out. AAAHHH. And my good mood vanishes. It is just SO like my brothers to leave the lightbulbs blown out and suffice with candles!! They just have to wait for me to come home and begin to carry on before they even BEGIN move their behinds! Maybe I will reduce their duit raya for that *cackles*.
I see that there are some changes in the blogger settings. There's a tab here that says Monetize. Hmm...makes me remember the days when I thought I would try to make a buck out of blogging. Bleh. Not worth it methinks.
SO I dont have anything much to blog about, just wanted to pop in and say hello. It's been March since I last wrote on this forsaken territory of mine...so much has happened in that time! a rollercoaster of emotions and activities, confrontations with realities of life, which, alhamdulillah, was balanced by blissful respites from realities of life. Can't do without the other you know. Would have a mental overload.
Someone suggested I do a photo essay. I am seriously considering that. But of what? Maybe I will do some things around this kampung of mine.........
Well, till then insha'allah!!
Last night was one of the most totally harrowing nights in my life.
Totally.
Because guess what happened. I got lost!! *draws shivery breath*
It all happened at the beginning of a bright sunny day, full with a hearty breakfast consisting of Luqaimaat, Bihun, Banana cake, Tea and Watermelon slices, Us girls (four of us) were ready to hit the road and just conquer the U.I.A. swimming pool! But as they say, Never get your hopes too high because then you're bound to be dissapointed, and need I say? We were dissapointed.
"Where're your bathing suits?" the catty lady at the pool said. "You have to wear bathing suits you know, like that one, see?" And she pointed to a picture of the latest Muslimah fashion bathing suits. "And anyway, you can't swim now, we're having lessons, visitors can only come between 5pm-7pm"
HWAAATTTT!!! Talk about being dissapointed!! frantically opening back up the sms that Adila sent me the other night I saw that she did mention the pool being open at just 5-7pm....boy was I gobsmacked!! were WE gobsmacked!!
Anyway long story cut short, we spent the day in various places in KL, after having parked my car at Sogo. Now here comes the good part where we finally get ....dun dun dun....lost
Driving out of the Sogo parking lot I had not the faintest idea where to turn, thus following my 'instincts' I just followed the road twisting here and there and not really feeling scared (yet) because it was just 8:00pm, I mean....it's just 8:00!! what's there to be scared about right!
Two hours later and I am driving on the highway without an idea of where we are; all of the signs pointing to Petaling Jaya have mysteriously dissappeared and I'm entertaining crazy ideas of doing a fast reverse in the emergency lane until I see one again and to make it worse, my gas tak was empty! Only Allah knows how I kept my hands straight on that steering wheel....
blink blink blink A red light is blinking showing that my gas is just about kaput. I felt like screaming
I KNOW OKAY!! My sis and the girls and the girls in the back were keeping up some type of laughing/screeching/howling chorus, trying in vain to keep down the panic by laughing like werewolves at everything they saw.
Alhamdulillah we saw a gas station Alllllllllhamdulillah!!! Finally I can ask someone for directions!! I think to myself, But..(there's always the but) when I ran into the station I had to stop short in dismay...everyone at the counter were Bangladeshis who could barely speak Malay!! "Calm down" I tell myself "Just fill up first".....man...I was shivering so bad...when ALHAMDULILLAH some kind hearted Malay soul walked into the gas station and straight away offered to show me the way If I would just follow behind his car.But whats with women and directions? We followed him (going at 130km per hour by the way..this guy was driving mad fast) We got lost againnnnnnnn!!!
The clock is showing 9:45 and we're getting sooooo nervous. finally we spot some guys selling burgers on the side of the road and I didn't even think twice man, I just swerved in next to them and Hafsah just about fell out of the car in her rush and panic to ask the man for the way!! It was hilarious!! the guy came running out and was like Calm down lady! calm down! hahaha................But him and his friends were sooooooooo nice masha'allah....and one of them got on his motorbike and led us all the way back to Kota Damansara..alhamdulillah! It was bedlam in the car man with all of us whooping and hollering and screaming and practically crying with joy that we were HOME!!.....
Now that I think of it..and recall back their appearances...They are NOT the kind of guys I would normally approach to ask something on a regular day. I mean with their piercings and wild hairstyles and dropping jeans, smoking, totally scary faces....but now I know; Dont just a book by its cover! :) :) Everyone has a drop of good in them somewhere..........and they sure did, because without them I dont know if we would have even gotten home!
Phew!
It's been so long! I've actually totally forgotten about this blog. Shame on me actually. Once upon like a hundred years ago I made a firm resolve (which, obviously, wasn't firm enough) to blog something at least once a day, but man! I am just sooo....................Okay lemme stop. I was just going to tell a lie there. I'm not SOO busy, but I'm just plain unmotivated is all.
Since moving out of my Aunts place there hasn't been any internet in our little burrow of an apartment and it's just painful to use the internet at school. I mean talk about slow!
But today...ah today. Out of all the days I decided to walk to school. "A sunny day!" I thought " Might as well just walk to school and burn some of this thigh flab, and then when I go to gym after school I will have had a head start at the excercise!" And I walked to school fantasising and thinking happily of all the nasty bits of fat that I was burning.
Ah well....that's why fantasies are called fantasies.
Everyone sing along : It's Raining...It's pouring...the old man is snoring...( eh? Is that how it goes? sheesh who cares)
IT'S RAINING BEBEH AND WE'RE GROUNDED HERE.
But it's all good, I can finally update this poor forsaken blog of mine. Hang out with the other slightly mentally damaged teachers as myself (haha) and eat burnt fritters thrown together by one of the slightly mentally damaged teachers and sip on almost-sugarless tea. Ah...the beauty of rainy days. It just turns barely edible food into a feast! lurvely.
I've an interview next weed with the School head..urgh...I am SO not on the same side of the river as that lady...what to do what to do? I just HATE people observing my teacher also (which is what she's going to do) because that is the time when all the kids act like goats possessed! But I love my kids. And (hopefully) they love me too....I mean...that's what they tell me all the time in their upside down and lopsided writing " i Luvv u tEahcehr" awwwwww wubbies.
But I can hate them at times. Oh Allah. But I heard (somehwere) that that's what makes a relationship beautiful. A little bit of hate. MUAHAHAHA.
Anyway, I wish I could have added some pictures but this school computer is SO slow i'm afraid that i'll be waiting till tomorrow and God! I can't do that, I got work ta do mon!
Ciao ;-)
It's been so long! Since moving to Kota Damansara I've had barely any time to use the Internet, and that's because my aunt and uncle have six kids and one computer...haha..do the math. Irsyad (glasses) and Akmal at the airport
|
Taking a picture with sister (glasses) aunt, brother, and cousins
I'm feeling quite silly right now, sitting here with my nose gelled up in a green blackhead remover peel-off-mask, contemplating whether or not I should feel weepy over the dramatic farewell which was given to me 15 minutes earlier.
Actually I did fell weepy whilst the farewell was in process, but now I'm wondering whether I should have felt that way? hahaha.
Since i'm making a move to K.L. today with my sis, my cousins who usually drop by with their mom every morning to pick up my brothers for school came to tell me goodbye. I was on my laptop just browsing when I hear an unusually hoarse voice for a little girl call me from outside my window " Umi said to salam you before you go!!" It was my 12 year old cousin and she just about burst into tears as she kissed my hand. Ooo-kayyy I think. And then next came my 10 year old cousin. And then the 14 year old. And then I was getting a bit weepy myself looking at their tear filled eyes so I locked myself into the bathroom (shame man! dont want anyone catching you all red-eyed LOL) and 2 minutes later my sis is banging on the door "get out Mak Uda wants to see you" she hollered.
Oh dear. I splashed my face quick with water and went to see her. Boy I wasn't prepared for her grabbing me that way! she just about shoved her hand to my mouth for me to kiss, and then kissed me on the cheeks and whispered ferociously "Take care of yourself now girl!" before she too turned on her heels with a swipe at her eyes and ran -yes ran- back to the car.
I was quite speechless. I didn't expect that because i had already called her for a chat last night.
Now about 20 minutes later I'm thinking : Wasn't it touching! and also : Wasn't that funny! I will come back on the weekends, and I usually only see them on the weekends anyway!! what with their school schedule and work schedule and all.
Ah well, I'm not complaining, a little extra love is always welcome, whether unnecessary or not, I'm guessing though that this was done on the spur of the moment, and most probably halfway on the drive to school those weeping relatives in the car will say "But wont they be here on the weekends anyway?" and feel silly themselves.
LOL
Because I'll be moving out that day. Leaving Melaka, and my nice comfy home.
I've got a job now see, and it starts on Wednesday Insha'allah. A sweet job, I've already spent a day with the kids at the school and they are all lovelies. What's more better is that it's an all English speaking school so I dont have to fumble around with my Malay.
I'll be staying over at my aunts whilst looking around for an apartment to rent. To be honest I wish we had an apartment to move into right away. Living with someone for any period of time over three days becomes a bit tense for me, and the lack of privacy and space really gets to me ........ but then my aunt is a great sport, and her kids are awesome, and then, who am I to have any say in the matter? at least I have a place to stay.
I'm a bit worried about leaving home though. My mother seems really sad about it and that really weighs down on me. And then i'm worried about my father. He's depressed enough as it is, and I know that with me and my sis out of the house he will get even more cantankerous and miserable....*sigh* even though sometimes I think that it probably wouldn't make much of a difference since he's the same even though we're around,, but you know that feeling..
Actually i'm not even excited about the job. After the initial surge at having found a job, I felt...nothing. It's kind of weird since ever since we set foot in Malaysia I have been planning on moving out and living on my own..you know, shifting for myself, staying in KL away from the family and getting some 'breathing space'. But now that it's all happened I couldn't care less about it, and I actually even find thoughts creeping into my mind to just dont show up on Wednesday afterall....
Tension in the family really addles out the brain I guess. Makes you undecided and guilty about things you dont usually feel that way about.
Anyway.
On a side note, isn't it just LUNACY the way the Sultan of Melaka awarded Shah Rukh Khan with the Datuk title????
Shame.
I can't believe this!!
On the ONE DAY that I decide not to cook my family a full meal (I was angry) and instead decide to punish them by making beans and bread...
GUESTS COME OVER FOR DINNER!!
I am soooo appalled! what to do!
Ya Allah get me thru this alive...
(brother Imraan high on something...Eid Day)
Leaving Kota Damansara at 5:30pm we zoomed along the highway feeling all happy and silly and hyper. Time to balik kampung! time to visit our family again! (yes, I was even prepared to pretend like I hadn't seen my mummy and Abu for ages....all for the sake of the 'real feeling' of balik kampung...) At Iftaar time we stopped at Seremban highway resthouse for a bite. It was here that I finally saw the masses of people heading back for their respective villages. And they only represented a small percentage I am sure, but The place was packed!! and i'm not even just talking, it was literally smashed sardines in the place.
Uh-oh, I think to myself. How'm I gonna get my cuppa? I WANT MY CAPPUCINO FOR IFTAAR!! glancing at my watch at panic I see that there's only 15 minutes left!! whattodowhattodowhattodo?
After 10 seconds of agonizing I told my sis to queue up for the coffee whilst I would try to go and grab some food. My aunt, of course, was not with us, as she had so wisely foreseen this and offered to stay in the car and guard it from hooligans *rollseyes* whilst we youngsters faced the gore and muck of the crowd.
At first I turned to the KFC. I thought that maybe I would just get some sandwiches. But when I went there I found that the line of people reached all the way out the door and down the stairs! Okay next option. Food court. I cringed. Foodcourts on highway restplaces are not exactly the best place to eat...
Pattering down the steps I was confronted by another wave of humanity. It was all a-jostle down there. Timidly I lined up with all the other hungry fasting people...Standing there and watching the spectacle before me, a saying idly flitted thru my mind.."A hungry man makes an angry man". I think that for that moment all fasting Muslims in that place shed their good manners just for the sake of grabbing the next plate of rice before the next person. I personally abhor any type of pushing and shoving whilst standing in line, and I absolutely HATE any sort of uncivilized and wild behaviour when it comes to food!! It really puts a person down. Anyway, I finally got mines - slapped down in front of me with my money snatched from my hand and the change flung to me across the counter.
"Where's my chicken sandweeeessshhhh" My sister whined. "I want one!!"
And so I went to stand in line at KFC...at this time I wasn't even hoping to get anything into my gut by iftaar time lol.....after half an hour of standing in line I finallyyy reach the front. I think it was a shock to my brain to be suddenly confronted with the option of getting my food after standing in a food scented restaurant and going weak in the knees for over half an hour! But whatever it was, my previous decision of 'just getting a sandwich' flew out of my mind and 5 minutes later I walked out with potato wedges,fries,three soft drinks,three sandwiches and RM40 poorer.
(cousin Zahirah on Eid Day)
But I have to say it was nice eating out there in the carpark. Everyone around was breaking their fast also and I suddenly felt a surge of happiness at not being the only fasting human being around for as far as my eyes could see. Other muslims were breaking their fast also!! I am not the only one! It was a blissful moment...
Back on the highway the soda and food got to our brains and we began acting wacky. Singing 'baaaalikkk kampuunnggg' in tuneless voices we laughed and giggled and cracked silly jokes. At one point there was a bus next to us and the driver was staring down at us. By now my sister was obviously high on coke and she gave the driver a HUGE smile before we zoomed off. Not five minutes later the bus came back alongside our car and the driver gave a friendly two blows on his horn whilst waving at us before zooming off. Well!! that certainly set us off!! That simple happiness of sharing a smile with a stranger on the road is just exhilarating!
(cousin maisarah on Eid Day)
On the morning of Eid My family bundled themselves into the car to go to the Musalla and I almost broke my neck in the process........thanks to the stiletto heels I had just bought. I have to say that the Eid Khutbah bored me to tears.....sad right? But who can blame me!! we went to make salaat at one of those PAS places (to be with the other relatives) and I was left speechless when the Khateeb decided to talk about his politics on the minbar!! ya Allah drop it off will you!! for anyones information I am sick and tired of hearing about Malaysian politics!!! and especially from the PAS point of view, which, unfortunately is what I hear most of the time since most of my relatives are affiliated with them, it's agonizing!!
After exchanging a few hugs and half hearted 'Selamat Hari Raya's ' (I was really put off by the khutbah) we came home with my 101 relatives to partake in breakfast....and for me to turn hundreds of ringgit even MORE poorer with my little cousins asking for duit raya. 'Not fair!' I told my aunt ' How comes I dont get duit raya? never mind if I am grown up already, what about all those kiddy years that I missed having eid in Malaysia?' ( I was joking of course, but hey, no harm in trying lol) But I only got a neat pinch for all my efforts haha...
And then afterwards came the most BORING and repetitive part of the eid. VISITING! Ya Allah, not that I dont like visiting all these unknown and unheard off relatives, but just dont give me an overdose of it...dont stuff it all down my throat in the tiny timespan of just one day!! We were out from 10 in the morning up to 10 at night visiting and visiting...and eating and eating....and supressing belly aches...and having eardrums popped with the whining and exploding of fireworks...and developing cricks in my neck from the constant bending to kiss hands...by 5 o'clock that evening I had developed an allergy to hands but what to do? I must be polite and kiss more..and more..and more...at one point I tried to do what I saw my cousins do, sniff the hand instead (I hear this is a malay way of kissing lolololol) but after one whiff of a hand I threw that method out the window..
By the time I got back home that night I made up my mind :
NEXT YEAR I WILL GO TO SOME GOD FORSAKEN PLACE AND HAVE A PICNIC ON EID. ON MY OWN!!
Last week we invited all of our relatives over for Iftaar. Anyone who knows how many family members I have will know that it was one painfulllllllll day preparing the food! And Ya Allah it was, me and my mom and sister were cooking from 9 in the morning until just before Iftaar and after everyone left (around 11pm) we just collapsed in bed and didn't wake up (from after sahuur next day of course) until 12'oclock midday!
But anyway this post is (mostly) dedicated to my youngest and newest cousin Irfaan Haarith who was here also with his mama and Ya Allah! I hadn't seen him in just a month and the boy has grown gorgeous *swoons* Masha'allah!! I barely paid any attention to the other kiddos running around when I was snapping pictures, lol, I was just too taken by this young man....unfair or what :p
So here he is!!
I received a call today from a school in Kota Damansara. It turned out that I was being offered a job as a kindergarten teacher! They wanted me to teach Arabic and Islamic studies to the kids. Well! I was really happy at it, and after a little while had passed I decided to go and look up some nursery rhymes and Arabic and I came across this version of the Arabic Alphabet. It's so nice! I absolutely looooooooove it. Interview is on Monday, Insha'allah all goes well :)
Today did NOT start off well, in fact it was just plain harrowing! and it's only 8 o'clock in the morning!
I had to drop the kids off to school today since my aunts car suddenly got a flat. No problem. I zoom on the way to their school all happy since I had the windows down and the cold cold air from the surrounding plantations was swishing in and it was SO refreshing.
Come to the turn to their school and I slowed down since the roads to their school are just narrow tiny village roads, and to make it even worse, there are open drains on both sides, and here was the first bad event of the day: I was almost pushed off the road and into one of those drains because this dumb school van just insisted on coming from the opposite direction without even letting me thru first!! And what makes me mad is I WAS THERE FIRST NOT YOU, BIG GREY VAN!!
After I got out of that my heart was hammering so fast that I didn't even see the speedbump ahead and I just flewwwwwww over it and those poor children in the backseat almost hit the roof. And then what do you know!! a second car comes barreling at me and tries to push me off the road too!! My Goodness!! are they the only ones in a rush to send children to school?? The road is not yours you know!!
Second Incident.
Coming back from dropping the children I had to swing around by my aunt to send her to work since she lent her car to my uncle. Reversing out of her driveway I mistakenly (and I emphasise again , Mistakenly) press the gas instead of the brakes and BOOM I knock into her wooden shed causing my sideview mirror to swing all the way back (Alhamdulillah it's the swingable kind!! otherwise it would've broken for sure) and whats worse, knocking down the pole of the shed and bringing half of it down!!
Not amusing at all.
Lastly, on the way back home, I stopped by the gas station to fill up and as I was walking towards the cashier to pay, POP and my sandle strap snaps, sending my sandle swiveling across the cement and leaving me standing there in total shock. In the open! with the gas station full of cars filling up! Aaaaaaah the embarrassment!!
What else can go wrong today? This has put me into a bad dangerous mood!
(adorable cousin Zahira)
Just a short rant.
It looks like I wont be buying any nice pretty bling-bling abaya/jilbaab this Eid :(
And Guess why? It's the most silliest unthinkable reason too.
Because there's no Jilbabs or Abayas my size in the stores!! And dont even tell me to check KL because I already did, and the response I got was the same as in Melaka "But you are too tall!! Sorry we dont have your size"
*sigh*....... Now is the wrong time to wish that I had polished up on my sewing skills..
But seriously, too tall? I am NOT too tall!! I mean I know i'm taller than lots of Malay girls but still...?
Is 5'7" too tall?
In my first entry about my family background, I had mentioned that the reason for my GreatGrandfather (from now on referred to as Tok Odang) coming to Malaysia was unknown. Well during my visit at my aunts place in K.L. last week, she informed me that he was actually a very well off businessman! He used to go off for long trips on business, and in her words "So that's why he married three wives, one in each place"
"Three?" I echoed " I thought it was only two?"
But my aunt revealed to me that, no, actually there were three wives, besides Greatgrandmother (Moyang), and the lady in India, he had married again whilst on 3 year trip to Sarawak, and from that marriage there was a daughter! this information left me stunned, and for a split second I felt grateful that I wasn't living back in those days.......*cough*
But he was a rich businessman my Tok Odang, and together with other wealthy inhabitants of Kampung Ayer Barok, the village in which the story of my family unfolds, and the village in which I now live; They erected the very first Masjid in the area. The year was 1911 and it was a grant little masjid for the padi field village at that time. The marble pillars with floral designs were brought over all the way from Indonesia, and the roof is of traditional Betawi style, three triangular layers, one atop the other and each one smaller than the next, with the edges finishing off in an elegant curl. Tok Odang was made the Imaam of the Masjid, and after him my Grandfather (Atuk). The little Masjid is still standing to this day, a pretty little building at the end of the village road. In the mornings the villagers gather there to make Fajr Prayer, and in the evenings little children from the Islamic school next door tumble around on it's floors and play hide and seek behind the pillars. And in the middle of the courtway stands a sign proclaiming "This Masjid was built in the year 1911......." (I must take a picture of it one day)
Now back to where I left off : The marriage of my Grandmother (now on referred to as Nenek) and Grandfather (Atuk).
Atuk was a poor man of Javanese descent. His family owned next to nothing except for the rice fields in which they worked. Their meals were sparse, and their clothes threadbare. Here is the story of the engagement of Atuk and Nenek as told by my aunt, who in turn tells it like how Atuk did :
" They went to masuk meminang (go in proposal for marriage) to your mothers family, asking for your mothers hand. Afterwards my mother came back and told me that it was all done and I was now engaged for marriage. But I had never even seen your mother before! One day I decided that I must go and see this lady whom I was marrying by all means, so I went over to her house and climbed a coconut tree which was growing near the house. Your Ayah (father) can climb like a monkey you know! so I sat there and waited for your mother to come out. I waited so long that my foot even cramped and went to sleep, But then your mother finally came out , she was so beautiful, She was like a puteri raja (princess),she sat on the verandah of her house and began reading the Qur'aan...such a beautiful voice too. I forgot all about my cramped foot and just sat there up in the coconut tree watching your mother read Qur'aan."
" Soon afterwards your mothers family invited me over to their house for a meal. I got so afraid when I saw their table! Do you know why? Because there was so much food on it! I had never seen that much food in my life.......and I became afraid of my mother in law at that time. They served me a whole fresh fish! and it was huge, when in my house all we ate was ikan kering (dried salted fish). We were so poor. And my mother used to tell me ' If you want to become rich, you must not eat, and if you want to eat fish, then catch a fish, but dont eat it straight away! instead hang it up by it's tail and wait for it's juices to drip. Then use the drippings to flavor your food with. That way your fish will last longer and you will spend less money!'. My mother in law did not like me, and she told your mother 'Hah! this poor man! it's better if you dont marry him, if you do you will live like a beggar!' But your mother and I still got married....see?"
(To be Continued......Iftaar is nearly here :) )
It has been long hasn't it? have you missed me blog? No? Well I didn't expect you too. Actually, and I'm sorry to break your chips-y heart; I haven't missed you either.
It's been just too painfully hot to blog! The heat is driving me insane, it's beating down in waves and sucking out all the moisture which I so carefully packed into my body at sahuur, so that by the time Iftaar time comes I gulp down my glasses of iced drink so fast I can't even taste them. It's all silence at the time at iftaar time, save for the glugging sound of throats which can't swallow the ice cold drinks fast enough.
I've just come in from watering the worms btw. Watering the what? you screech. The worms darling, the worms. You know? the wiggly ones that live in apple houses like in the story books? yes those ones, except that these ones are living in a bunch of straw and dirt and dried up goat poop spread out in wooden boxes in my porch. They are so exciting! I bought them last week, 2 kilos for me, and 2 kilos for Hafsah and all that time they've been doing nothing but wiggling around happily in the straw-y,poop-y dirt, making worm tea and vermicompost for my nice and lush garden-to-be (Insha'allah).
Worm tea. Yes the word makes me nauseous also.
But it gives me such happiness for some reason whenever I stare at their dirt haven and imagine them wiggling around underneath (I can't see them, they're 'underground') and as I sprinkle the thinly sliced watermelon skins over the dirt for them to eat I sing to them " Eat up wormy mormy eat uppp and get FAT" except that when I say it, it sounds like FUT.
So what else happened whilst I was away from blog-world?
Oh yes, I went to KL with my sis and bro to look around for an apartment and my sis went for a job interview,HAHA it gives me the stitches just to think about that interview!! I can still see the shock on her face as she reached the address and saw that it was a Modeling agency. Tut Tut, next time ask before you make a move little sis!
But that is all, Ramadhaan is drawing to an end and I dont even feel a prick of joy at Eid finally coming around. Everyone is asking me ' so what cookies are you making this year?' and I tell me "MALAS LARR" (I'm too lazy monnn) which is very bad of me, but who wants to bake cookies in this heat?
Oh yes, I also got some more old time tales out of my Aunt whilst I was in KL, some more interesting info about my long gone ancestors, and so I will write about that in another post Insha'allah :) :)
Maybe it's because I've finally become old enough to understand and take an interest in my family's history, or maybe it's because my family has only begun to talk to me about the past and ancestors of this family, but recently, since coming back to Malaysia i've been finding out some really interesting - and at times downright horrifying - details of my family, dating back to the time of my greatgrandfather,and there it all stops because he migrated here and nothing much is known about his life before he came to Malaysia. Other things that I've found out about my family is not amazing, it may not even be interesting to other people, but as I sit down in a circle with my aunt, and listen to her tell tales of her childhood I just drink them in and still feel thirsty for more and more. At times it's nothing more than basic details of daily life, but it still amazes me at times when I compare how different life was then and now.
The same house that I am living in now was at one time nothing more than a two room shack, with the wooden walls just barely reaching the roof, leaving open a gap thru which moths and mosquitoes could lazily flap and buzz in at ease. The land on which it stood was low, and so everytime it rained, the water would come washing thru the house, and after residing, everything would be covered in silt and mud. There was no running water, not even a well outside the home, and the water had to be fetched from the bottom of the hill in two buckets on either side of a long bamboo pole which was balanced on the shoulders my then scrawny little uncles. At night one kerosene lamp would be lit, and around this the children of the family would gather to do their homework.
This was my mothers house in which she lived with her family ever sinced she turned fourteen.
Before this time tho, she had lived with her Grandparents with her other 4 siblings, whilst her mother and father and the other 2 siblings were in Singapore, where her father worked as a policeman. At that time there was only 6 children. Over time there would be nine.
My mothers grandfather was from Hyderabad, India, and he migrated here to Malaysia for reasons unknown except for what my mother said that he once told her "In India I couldn't even eat a cow in peace! The neighbours tried to kill me when I wanted to eat my own cow, here in Malaysia it's no problem" But I'm sure that that was just another story , the type that grandfathers like to tell their wide-eyed, all-believing grandchildern. He had most probably come as a migrant during the British occupation of Malaysia looking for work, as did other thousands of Indians. I have no memory of him, as he died even before my mother was married, May Allah have mercy on him Ameen.
His wife, my mothers grandmother, was from the second generation of a Yemeni family who had moved to Malaysia; also for reasons unknown except that they felt like it I suppose.They were from Hadhramaut.She was an extremely small lady, with striking features, A woman of great beauty at one time, and what I remember most was her eyes. She lived to the age of 95 and until the day she died she had jet black hair, and she had all of her teeth and her eyesight was marvellous sharp. May Allah have mercy on her too Ameen.
They had two children together this couple, My grandmother and her sister, and my greatgrandmother also had a daughter from a previous marriage; a daughter who was to bring great grief to my mother and her siblings in their young days, as the ages long war of step-daughter rivalry was waged between the siblings, with the Grandfather showing favor to his children and their kids, and the Grandmother on the other hand showing fierce contempt to my mother and her siblings whilst being all in the favor of the daughter from the former marriage.
My Grandmother. She died whilst I was only a year old. May Allah have mercy on her. She died only a year after my Grandfather, and it was from heartbreak they say, because she loved my grandfather so much, and found life to be empty without him. May Allah have mercy on them both Ameen..
She was schooled during the Japanese occupation, my grandmother, and she experienced many of the hardships which come along with war and occupation. The Japanese were a hard and cruel people she told my mother, at school everyday they were made to face the rising sun and sing praises to it. During school hours, instead of studying, the Japanese soldiers would stand guard over the school children as they weeded and tended to their school yard - now turned vegetable garden. Those Japanese sure know how to make use of things, she would tell my mother. They used to speak Japanese at school too, and no other language was permitted.
Speaking of the Japanese occupation, there was an old man across the road from me who was very much involved with them. When I was 16 he would tell me and my brother about them. "So cruel!" He spat "They used to make us chop off the heads of our own people!" I was looking forward to coming home this time so that I could hear more of his stories, but to my great disappointment, he passed away just 1 week before I reached Malaysia...May Allah grant him peace Ameen..
One time there was an air raid, and as my grandmother ran screaming thru the streets, a bomb exploded in front of her and with her own eyes she saw her uncle blown apart to pieces. Sometimes at night she and her sister would have to seek refuge in the nearby rubber plantations from the soldiers who would come and ransack their house.
But despite the war, my grandmother and her family were considered to be well off at a time when most people went hungry and had nothing more to eat than cassava leaves and roots. 'They still drank Milo' my mother told me 'They drank milk and they had butter on their bread'. It was mainly because my greatgrandmother had a little family wealth, so she was able to keep her family healthy despite the war.
During this time my Greatgrandfather had disappeared. Leaving for India a little while before the Japanese occupation he told his family that he would be back soon. More than ten years passed and he never did come back and not a word was heard from him. His wife and children took him to be dead, But one day he suddenly showed back up again. War had held him back he said. The passage was blocked. And along with his shocking appearance came the revelation that he had married again in India, and now had two more children, left behind in India.
Life continued for my grandmother with her father now home again. She had to leave school at the age of fifteen in order to work so that she could help pay for her younger sisters education. She did menial jobs such as backbreaking jobs of planting rice, picking wild herbs from the forest and selling them, and making 'kuih' small sweets for sale. Life was beginning to get tough. But despite her little education, my mother always tells me proudly that she was 100 times smarter than her sister whom she put thru college, but she was also smarter than all of the people in the village!
Soon my grandmother was to marry my grandfather at the age of 19. They had been betrothed before my grandfather left on duty. It was war, and he was a naval officer. Time passed and it was feared that he was lost also, but in time he also came back. It turned out that he was marooned on an island with his other mates and so escaped alot of the war 'excitement'.
After the marriage 'of the beautiful lady to the un-handsome man' as my aunt loves to say, my grandmother went to live in Singapore, and there she had 4 children, living in a 2 room house and one of her children was born on the stairs.
*yawn* I will continue later, my eyes are so sleepy...such an unceremonious ending to a great story no? but sleep is a-calling...
