MY SCHOOL DAYS I started school in late 1950 at Sekolah Kebangsaan Lubuk Merbau, a plain old wooden-structured school that contained 6 classrooms. It was about 500m walking distance from home and took 15 minutes walk along the main road. The school has less than 100 pupils, boys and girls together. It equipped with a canteen, a drinking well and toilets at the backyard. There was a small field meant for school’s activities and also to stage occasional film show on hygienic awareness conducted by local health office. (village folks loved it!) My first day at school was indeed a horrible one. Nervousness has gotten over me since the early morning. I wasn’t use to be in ‘public’ surrounding unattended. My mother wasn’t there, I felt alienation, lost and devastated. For that reason I got roiled in the stomach that followed with defecation in my pant. That gave the whole class a terrible stench. My little introduction really angered the teacher for a good reason… I had ruined my first blue-pant and teacher ushered to the well to clean up. I was lost and had nobody to turn to. I cried for my sister who happened to be in the other classroom but to no avail. The first day experience has given a slight omen or sign that I wasn’t made to be a successful one in school. But life just has to go on. Without a proper education there’s no way ones will able to rid away the poverty or to facing a better future. I still remember when I was 9 and that my eldest sister was 12. She stopped school at the age of 10 to help out the chores and taking care the (8) siblings. Both my parents were rubber tappers who went out by the dawn and came home slightly after the noon. By the time reached home they almost too tired. My sister has to be there to prepare foods for lunch and kept the house tidy. I did not know how she fared when she was in school. I was too small to understand then. Anyway she wasn’t only did the chores at home but to sell nasi lemak at school too. At dawn mom prepared everything and put them in the rattan basket before she left to work. At around 9.00am, sister carried the sale to the school (compound). That was routine, an obligation, every morning five days a week. That also saw her walking a kilometre distance, to and fro, under the sun to school bare-footed. Every morning I saw a frail figure of my sister holding a basketful of nasi lemak standing next to window of my classroom. She watched me with affection of her own and stood there proudly. (Huh, that’s my brother who would do us proud one day…) Until the bell rang, it means recess time, my sister moved into the corridor to sell ‘our’ nasi lemak. It sold for 10 sen (per scoop) packed in banana leave. There would be 20 packs or more in the basket. It was considerably heavy as my sister seen having difficulty moving about with it. My mother’s nasi lemak was the best nasi lemak ever. I can never again have nasi lemak’s sambal better than my mom’s recipe, simply scrummy. I didn’t know how many were sold a day but for sure I (wished) loved if there were leftovers (not sold). I knew when I reached home I had something to eat before lunch ready (lunch usually at 2.30 – 3.00pm). And we had to share amongst us but a bite was a grateful indeed. In school I was poor in mathematics. I could not master a simple multiplication. Anyway my writing was good. Clean and clear. So I enjoyed the writing but failed to get the answers right. The funny side of it, in every test I scored high marks. I was one of the top pupils in the class, consistently among the top three then. This was not due to my ‘cleverness’ but we were simply a bunch of retarded out there in the class. My parents were happy and thought that I will make them proud one day. The results spoke well of me… But mom didn’t read or realised that I was amongst ‘slowest’ bunch in class. If I stood tall, I stood amongst the shortest. We were just one millimetre apart. (Thanks God, some of the ‘shortest’ then amongst us today are taller by kilometres…) But my sister never grew an inch till today. At 15 she worked as a maid and was paid RM15 a month. She gave it all to mother without keeping a ringgit herself. My mom then put aside RM5 for my school fee. It has to be that way… (To be continued later)
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 05:56:30 +0000