I have lived

This is how I remember Kampong Lipat Kajang. The ‘serambi of my grandfather’s house at Durian Sangka (about 500 m upriver from the village mesjid), facing the Sungei Pahang, about 100 meters there on. The old rusty zinc roof, the climbing steps to the ‘serambi’ door and the ‘tempayan’ at the bottom of those climbing steps. The leaning mango leaves on to the roof. It was as if yesterday that I climbed up those steps on my little feet, into the house where my grandfather sat on his rattan chair, and my grandmother cooking in the kitchen. Well its all gone now, just memories.

And I loved to be at my father’s house at Cerok Panjang, (about 2 km west of my grandfather’s house) in his small hut of thatched roofs, tree bark walls, pieces of ‘pinang’ (a sort of tall thin stemed palm tree) floor, and we all sleeping on mats on the floor, my brother and I and my father, my mother being separated from my father. And later we were joined by my stepmother and my two other new siblings, a boy and a girl. And looking across from my father’s house side (we used to have a cool clear spring water well on our side of the padi field where we used to take drinking water from and to also wash ourselves with) we saw the house across, over the padi field, my uncle’s house. It might have not been like the photo, which was taken very recently, but its was just about that. A beautiful scenery and a pleasant memories.

And behind my father’s house was the Malay School which we all went to.

Of my Kampong Lipat Kajang.