Kampung Cowboy by Haryati

Rain, rain go away
Come back another again,
Little bebe wants to play

Rewind twenty years ago, when the air was less polluted & all the cars were labut by today’s standards, you might catch me singing this tune when I was stuck indoors. I was an active child running around outside my house without a care in the world except takut nampak spended! My siblings, cousins and me would play outside everyday before watching our favourite TV programs like Sesame Street, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man & She-Ra, My Little Pony and so on.

Fast forward to the present, I had difficulty buying a birthday gift for my sis. She’s not an outdoor type child thanks to cable TV. Technology has also advanced so much since the 80s. If she isn’t watching TV, she’d pop a vcd or dvd and watch some Korean or Japanese soap. And there’s also PS2. So what kind of gift do you buy for a kid like my sis? Scrap the Barbies and cooking sets, I wanted something more constructive. I do not want my sis to be part of the non-thinking, non-creative, inactive generation.

See, when I was young, play was totally different. There was main kikik (not popular amongst girls now), main carah, main tinting, main tapuk, main gatah and main pondok just to name a few. I spent my puasa school holidays at kampong which sadly, isn’t just the same anymore.

Mornings started with a quick shower using a gayung to scoop water out of a tajau! Of course the water was cold as ice because outside it was still berambun! The bathroom made from pieces of wood and zinc was outside. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were little holes in the wall where you could see who did what! And my family ampit pakai jamban tong. That’s when the saying don’t look down really applies. No fast food or maggi for breakfast but plain, boiled eggs. Sometimes it was talur separuh masak eaten with ruti & kicap! Our kampong house was small with one kitchen and living room cum bedroom. So every morning after waking up to ayam berkokok, we had to gulung our tilam kapok. Most of the time we had to jamur our tilams because it got so cold at nights that we wet the tilams, creating a world map!

We did errands for our grandparents which included jaga kambing, menjuluk mangga & jambu, bagi makan itik, putik talur and our least favourite, sapu tai kambing pakai penyapu lidi! Sometimes our grandparents would let us to naiki kambing to make them tame! So we became kampong cowboys. Other stuff we had to do was putik or tanam sayur. My siblings & I would put on wide brimmed straw hats, wear pemarang around our waists and carry takidings on our backs. After farm work, we’d spend our day swimming in the sungai. We held on to a length of rope and the biggest person around would hop on the bank and pulled us. We called it water skiing. After a tiring day, we had fresh aing piasau. My grandparents estate was covered with coconut trees that one would have to play carefully so that inda keguguran piasau. But actually we were also scared of belingkarung!

By six o’clock, we had to run back to the house. During those times, we were so scared of kelindahau, a supposedly red haired monster with ample chest, so spacious that she could hide little kids. My grandparents also scared us silly with tales of pengaits who supposedly walked around with sickles so sharp that they could behead you with a single swipe!

Kids today are totally different. So my sis doesn’t drag the rest of us around the kampong on coconut leaves nor does she try to make rafts and throw it in the water. She’s stuck indoors doing homework or projects. She’s off to tuition & mengaji. Can’t blame her for not spending time outdoors. So I bought her a DIY toy. One day she will thank me.

[Today's entry is written by guest blogger, Haryati Abd Ghafur]