After understanding the system, now let us show you what people of the kampung do. This is based on the lifestyle auntie Latifah shared with us when we interviewed her, it might not hold true for the kampung as a whole but it's close enough.
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| Rise and shine! |
She wakes up at the crack of dawn, it has something to do with being old and unable to sleep for more than 4 hours straight, we kind of understand that feeling of wanting to sleep but unable to (ugh, assignments).
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| Clean up like anyone, anywhere, would |
Scrub, scrub, brush, brush. Spick and span, ready to tan. (You'll get us soon enough)
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| Pandan or 'pandanus amaryllifolius' cultivation |
A little snip here and there, and that's how she spends her time. With pandans, huh. Note: she didn't mean to kill the pandans as depicted in the illustration (misleading dead pandan going to heaven, if you haven't noticed), its over dramatized, but you get us. (you do, don't you?)
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| And here comes the nasty sun |
AAAAAND this is how she tans! Blazing, hot sun around noon, leading to her stopping her pandan massacre, phew... but her turban keeps her fairly cool, we suspect, since she was standing in the sun the whole while we were dying in the heat interviewing her.
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| Gotong royong |
Annually, there would be a gotong royong or mutual aid party where the people of the kampung comes together to give aid to those who need it, traditionally it was house building or farming patch construction, now it's mostly the cleaning up of the kampung itself.
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| The attack of the wild boars (lets just pretend there's more coming, alright?) |
Snort, snort, comes the boar. It was in the past but it had greatly effected her veggie plantation at her yard, and it wasn't a pleasant surprise to her, either. Scary stuff the boars are. And gotong royongs comes in handy to get rid of those nasty boars.
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| Alms giving |
And in relation to their religion, there is a thing called zakat or alms where the richer will donate part of their income that will be distributed to the less wealthy, and it helps in supporting those people who are less fortunate.
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| Dancing BANANA! |
Well, not literally dancing bananas, but during the fruiting seasons of the many types of trees on her yard, she or her nephews would sit out at a make-do hut around the trees to wait for it to fall (like durians) or to collect it (like BANANAS).
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| Prepping lunch or dinner, those might be onions in the wok |
After spending her day wandering around, doing pretty much nothing, she cooks for her siblings and their kids. She's single, if you're wondering.
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| Nom nom nom |
Dishes are usually accompanied by plain white rice, simple but comforting. However, her siblings does take her out for dinner when there's an occasion or when she's not cooking.
This pretty much sums up her day: wake up, do some gardening, wash, cook and finally repeat. It might sound boring to you, but to her, its way better than moving into the city with her brother, where it would be like a cage for her, not being able to just walk around without worrying and her pandans, lets not forget that.
BUT BUT BUT... things are a little different when the festive season is here. They celebrate it with their family and friends and the kampung committee will organize a banquet for the people to enjoy. These activities bring the people together along with the existence of gotong royongs and the zakat code.
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| Food, more FOOD |
Hari Raya Aidilfitri, or simply Hari Raya, is a prominent festive, celebrated throughout Malaysia and other Islamic nations. People gather to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the fasting month, and to get together. But according to auntie Latifah, kids come by these days only for the money they'll be getting (tsk tsk) when they paid a visit to the elders.
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| Sorry cows, and vegetarians for this gory illustration |
Another celebration, the Qurban, where livestock animals are sacrificed in honour of a prophet who was willing to sacrifice his son (the son understood the implications of the sacrifice, so no hard feelings but in the end a ram took the place of the son) for his god. And the celebration is a symbolic representation of that particular occurrence.
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| Poor cows, but it's for a good cause. |
The meat and skin of the sacrificed mammal would be donated to the poor but never sold for a profit, as dictated by the laws of the religion.
With all these happening, the kampung people would get along and help each other out when the need arises and this quality of life is slowly fading from our society.
And with this post, we come to the end of Chapter One. From Chapter Two onwards, we will be talking more significantly on buildings in relation to our studies, so we hope you will stay tuned to this blog for more updates. Toodles!
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