Saturday Shenanigans

Petabi Lekedang [petabik-leketang]  

Greeting. It means "Good Morning"; one of the very first few phrases I learnt that's very useful in building good rapport; say this to everyone in the morning to receive amused smiles (applies to non-Kelabits only).

For our first Saturday, I was looking forward to both community service and visiting tamu (the market).

Tamu is basically a morning market, where villages take turns to sell goods - like crops or cooked porridge - each week. It is held near a stretch of shop lots around the slightly more urban area of Bario, where the hospital is.

Where there is urbanisation, there is Internet. Let me introduce eBario to you; a telecentre where my friends and I attempted (not in vain!) to get in touch with "the outside world". It was there that I used the free wifi to post my first tweet from Bario.

Replies for my tweets were just: Wow you're alive!

Since it was our first visit, our homestay host, Tepuq Sinah Rang decided to kindly treat us breakfast! I had porridge and laksa to go with a warm cup of Milo, happy tummy. :)

Project Coordinator, Daniel Agan on the left with the lively Tepuq Sinah Rang!

Sitting across Shu Anne with her porridge and me with my Laksa + Milo.

Tamu sightings: I think it's safe to say wild boar meat is a typical Bario staple.

Later, we returned to the longhouse for a short break before getting up and running again for community service - cleaning the Bario Asal church! My first thought when we stepped onto the holy grounds was - "Woah, this place is dusty." Then, I was enlightened that due to the nature of the church's surroundings, dusty floors are practically inevitable.

So why are we cleaning it? Well, that's like asking why you keep eating rice when you'll get hungry anyway, right? Haha.

We borrowed cleaning equipments from helpful residents of the longhouse and the local pastor before we started sweeping and mopping away! The most fun for me was definitely cleaning up the cobwebs, an oddly satisfying chore, even though I knew it would soon be back in the next 24 hours (according to the locals); GG spiders!

COBWEBS OFF YOU GO.

Look at them tall peeps Kee Kiat & Dev go!

Cleaning with everyone while John Mayer played from Dev's playlist on his speakers was really rather nice! Like I keep saying, so many little things to appreciate. It's crazy how easily we just got along and worked together in making this inevitably-dusty church as clean as possible - some things just happen, some people just click.

Later in the day, we dropped by the hydrodam for a dip to cool down. Even though the water was freeeezing cold and the walk there was waaaaaay longer than I thought, at least it happened with the best bunch.

Grateful for these wackos.
From left: Cathrine, Jangin, Sria, Ganit, Liging, Gerawat, Lian. 

# Xueh Wei Cathrine #

The Random Work Post

A typical work day in Bario for me was something like this: waking up at 6.45 AM and getting ready, helping tepuq a little bit in the kitchen, having breakfast, and walking to Arur Dalan with Xueh Wei and Shu Anne. The three of us were assigned to ladies who lived in a different village from where we stayed (Bario Asal), unlike the other volunteers. One thing worth mentioning about our walk to Arur Dalan is everytime, without fail, a flock of white chickens trailed behind us! At first, it scared us because we thought we were about to be attacked by the chickens. After three weeks of the same thing happening, we got used to it.

The walk took around 15 minutes and the scenery we took in was absolutely gorgeous.

The lady I was assigned to was Sina Mayda Pitan. She is the youngest Bario woman to participate in Project WHEE!. An advantage of being paired with her is that she is very considerate and accommodating towards her assigned volunteers. She does not overwork them and makes sure that they are very well fed. However,  this advantage worked against me. Many times, I felt that she thought I was a city kid incapable of helping her. I spent quite some time convincing her that I am in fact able to work in the paddy field, get dirty and muddy, and sweat it out. Sometimes, it is really funny how things work out.

January is harvesting season in Bario. Hence, aside from brushing up Sina's English, most of the work I did was drying (midang) and harvesting (ranih) paddy.

The field Sina works in in Arur Dalan is very, very beautiful. The walk to the field was somewhat an adventure for me. First, we entered a house, walked through the backyard of the house, and ended up at a river. Next, we crossed the river using a bamboo bridge and passed by somebody else's paddy field. After that, we walked through a narrow trail with bushy ferns on both sides. Oh, did I mention, we went up and down a hill before finally reaching her field? The entire journey took about 10 minutes.

Crossing the first paddy field

The narrow trail with bushy ferns on both sides

Reaching the destination after walking over a hill

For a few times, I tried role playing with Sina Mayda. I played the tourist, while she played the guide. I made her guide me to the paddy field, name the different kinds of jungle vegetables we saw on the way and explain their uses, and point out Prayer Mountain from where we were. I also taught her simple sentences to caution tourists, such as "Be careful, the road is very muddy and slippery". However, the challenge I faced was she kept speaking to me in Malay instead of English. This is because I can speak Malay moderately well (I hope I didn't disappoint all of you too much, my BM teachers!) and language wasn't really a barrier for us. Therefore she always slipped back to speaking in Malay. Actually, she understands English quite well, but lacks the confidence to converse in it.

Hut

In Bario, for every paddy field, there is a hut. This hut functions as a storage space to keep harvested paddy, tools, sawah clothes... As for Sina's hut, it is mainly used as a place to chill and have lunch after working. There is also a fireplace for cooking. 

Inside the hut

The story behind this chair: On my first day at the sawah (paddy field), Tama Ricky, Sina's husband, decided to build a chair from scratch out of the blue. He sawed the wood, assembled and nailed them together. It was a really random little DIY project. 

A blowpipe (sumpit)

The one on the right is padi adan, the famous Bario rice whereas the one on the left is padi hitam.

Winnowing paddy

Removing the stalks from the paddy 

Spreading out the paddy with a rake for optimum drying

Harvesting paddy together

There is one thing I really appreciate about Sina: she took the initiative to work close by me in the paddy field, so that I was able to chat with her and work on improving her English. It was the little things like these that she did that touched my heart a lot.

:D

Some Instagram-worthy shots:

Sunglasses embedded in the ground.

Normally, if we went to the field on day one, Sina preferred to stay at home on day two. When we stayed at home, the things we did were drying paddy and cleaning the house. I always looked forward to days when we would go to the field, because I got to be more physical.

The official time for the volunteers to end work is 4 PM. Around this time, I walked back to Bario Asal together with Shu Anne and Xueh Wei. 

Shu Anne walking back to Arur Dalan from the field. On the left is the solar farm that supplies electricity to Arur Dalan.

Xueh Wei washing her socks after work

Werk it, gurl.

The Hills Have Eyes

The Hill

One of Bario’s iconic mountains is called Prayer Mountain (locals call it Bukit Doa) located near the Arur Dalan village. 

Now, for those in the dark, Prayer Mountain is approximately 15 minutes walk away from the Bario Asal homestay.  At the base of the mountain, a 10 minute walk through mildly dense fern plants is required before the proper hike up the path where you will start cursing the over-hyped ‘kampung adidas’ shoe that doesn’t fit your feet properly. The trek up is certainly not easy with the dried leaves on the ground giving zero grip for your shoes.

Some sections have steep ‘steps’ formed by tree roots which require you to use your hands digging onto the ground to support your way up.

There are ropes at the more difficult sections to help pull your way up if you don’t mind having blisters on your skin (note: bring gloves). However, a broken rope which was snapped in half by an overweight man found halfway during the trek serves as a reminder not to trust your life with those ropes.

I had my first climb up the mountain on our second day in Bario with the the entire Batch 3 participants. It was a big group of 12 where Karthik had an injured foot and Alicia had to descend halfway due to asthma, so we took frequent breaks and reached the peak under 2 hours.

The Church

The church built three quarters up the mountain was the first place of prayer in Bario. It is a simple structure put together by unpolished planks of wood. Each wood is obtained from the trees of Bario; each plank brought up by the local Kelabits and Penans. Such a unassuming little church, yet it is as if the hands of God molded this church in the midst of forestry, high up above, signifying a spiritual revival. Without any excessive embellishments, the church is most organic in its form. This speaks volumes how the Kelabits have such untarnished, honest love for God. 

The Mission

As part of our community service duty, YC and Dom have been planning to clean the church in Prayer Mountain and carry out some maintenance work to the toilet (small shed with a hole) there. I offered to help out but was the most unprepared one considering this will be my 2^nd time up Prayer Mountain and it’ll be their 3^rd time. Let me just take this time to clarify that YC does ballet whereas Dom does Muay Thai. Both have longer legs than I do.

However, I didn’t want to waste another chance to wear my RM9 ‘kampung adidas’, so I went ahead with them. With equipment"s ready, YC and Dom marched their way forward, each step exuding purpose and a mission to accomplish, speeding their way up. I on the other hand, tried to catch up behind them and forced myself not to pant too loudly. Halfway up, my head was pounding, my arms felt weak, I was out of breath and my thighs were sore. YC and Dom graciously waited for me while I take frequent short breaks to catch my breath and motivated me to push forward.

“Keep your head up Ai Jin!”

 “Hear that pounding in your chest? It means you're alive! ”

 “One, two, one, two!”

We arrived at the church in 50 minutes; an achievement, I would say.

Dom brushing off cobwebs.

YC clearing the floor from dead leaves.

Nailing planks to the toilet.

After we were done, a hike up to the peak was necessary just for the heck of it. My already fatigued limbs took another beating and for each painful step, I began to ponder upon every mistake I made in life including this hike up to the top (exaggerating a bit here). When we reached the top, the view didn’t amaze me but maybe that was just me being used to the beauty of Bario that this birds eye view was nothing compared to the accumulative beauty this place has revealed to me in the past week; the thing that amazed me was how I've pushed through and endured the pain (physical) to reach my destination. For that, I am proud of myself.

The attack

The sky was slowly dimming and it was getting chilly at the top, it was time for us three to leave and get quickly to the hydrodam to shower due to water rationing in the homestay. 

We bid our last goodbyes to Prayer Mountain, but apparently this mountain was not done messing with us. At the foot of the mountain, when we were about to exit the shrubbery to the opening, we got attacked by bees probably because we were bustling the shrubs too much. It was a chaotic scene: YC screamed, I panicked and froze on the spot, thank goodness Dom yelled for me to run and we soon got out to the opening. Well, there was a lot of pain and panic but all was well when we found out the stings weren't poisonous.

Prayer Mountain has given me a lot of memories. Good or bad, it's all in nature, I'll take it as it is.

Ai Jin 
Aren