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  Where was the sekolah? Finally I found my school. It was an educational shock. Built right in the middle of a cluster of about fifty homes it seemed to me education was the central life of the kampong. A few metres away were two communal wells, one on either side, jealously guarded by all the folks.

  The school was an open-plan homemade building – custom-made by the parents. Eight tall coconut-trunk pillars planted deep into the ground and cemented in place supported the roof frame; the roof was made of the large pinnate coconut leaves, woven into a complex and tight-thatched roof. Where were the classrooms? There were four ‘rooms’, three were classrooms – the first housed Standard 1 (eight pupils) and 2 (nine pupils); the second was for Standard 3 (seven pupils) and 4 (eight pupils); the next was Standard 5 (three pupils) and 6 (eight pupils) – and the fourth room was the staff room.[2] The long desks comprised six coconut trunks sliced lengthwise, cut side up, smoothened and varnished. Coconut stumps supported the desks, and shorter stumps became stools for the children. The staff room was furnished similarly. It was an ingenious way using an abundantly available material: the coconut tree. A mobile chalkboard in each classroom was the only teaching aid. Teachers brought their food and drinks. The fresh breeze cooled us during the hot days; when the rains visited, school was over.

  On my arrival I was a curiosity.

  The kampong knew I was arriving – the new cikgu – to teach English. There were hushed whispers among pupils and parents who unabashedly stood outside the school to welcome me.

  ‘Good morning, Teacher,’ the school chorused. The lesson began, but there were no listening ears, only high-definition surveillance camera eyes scrutinising me inside and outside the school. At the end of the day a parent presented me with two fresh eggs in a woven coconut leaf basket. I was flabbergasted – what did it mean?

  The guru besar or headteacher grinned. ‘You “pass”.’ The other teachers nodded. They too had received their two eggs.

  ‘I passed?’

  ‘Yes, you pass, kampong likes you.’

  It was a school, a kampong school and a kampong with a difference. Every Friday, the last school day for the week, each teacher received a gift from the kampong: two eggs, a handful of chillies, a cucumber, a young coconut or whatever they had harvested, beautifully presented in coconut leaf baskets. During the fruit season, these wonderful people presented us with a handful of rambutans, a mango, half a comb of bananas, several pieces of jackfruit, guava, a durian and other fruits. They gave from their hearts, not as special requests for favours. I was never to enjoy such hospitality ever again. In return we gifted the children a bar of chocolate, something they could not afford.

  One teacher managed two classes in the same room, double tasking, setting a Maths task to Standard 2 while teaching English rubrics to Standard 1. Fifteen minutes later, Standard 1 class practiced the writing, while the teacher checked the Standard 2 Maths. It was the same in the other two classes. The pupils were naturally curious, which was a good thing, and often found the other class’s lesson more interesting. They cross-talked and cross-walked. No problem for anyone.

  ‘Ahmad, mak awak pergi jamban!’[3] the whole school laughed. The communal village toilets were about twenty metres from the homes, nearer the fruit trees. The call of nature was continuous.

  ‘Rosmah, mak dan adik awak mandi, tak pakai baju!’ a student teased. Rosmah, visibly annoyed and embarrassed, snapped back, ‘Your mother and sister also bathe not wear clothes!’ Everyone took water from the two communal wells, did their laundry and bathed there, the used water snaking its way to the patch of grass. The women had a sarong tied round their chests, and little ones bathed naked, ‘tak pakai baju’.

  ‘Mak saya tangkap ayam.’[4] Mas, pointing to his mum, was happy; there would be chicken for lunch and dinner. Amidst this banter, it was difficult to teach.

  At about 11, a student might breathe in deeply, ‘Mak saya goreng ikan masin. Sedap.’[5] Somehow the children could identify from whose house the aroma wafted. Everyone breathed in, to savour and indulge in an imaginary lunch of fried salted fish, served with fried onions, fresh red chillies, freshly squeezed limes, and hot rice, and perhaps a fried egg. Perfect silence in that finger-licking meal.

  Teaching had its memorable days. The students were easy-going, gregarious and affable, though not so eager to learn. Perhaps the syllabus was beyond them or the environment did not motivate them or I was an incompetent newbie or their parents did not see the need for ‘very high’ education, as they would probably continue to farm the rice fields, cultivate the fruit plantations, tend to a few cows, goats and chickens, and to their vegetable plots; perhaps it was all of the above.

  It was a gotong royong community. Working together, they had little in terms of urban comforts, but the little was plenty. Water came from the communal wells; light was from kerosene lamps; cooking fuel was dried coconut husks, coconut shell chips and chopped dried tree branches. All fruit trees belonged to the kampong. Vegetables and the animals belonged to individual households. Rice came from their fields. Much of the cooking oil was kampong-produced coconut oil. When the kampong needed other basics like sugar, salt, dried foods, kerosene, additional oil, the village headman took it upon himself to do the shopping in town in his blue Fiat 600. The shopping list was long. All the kids would beg Pak Haji to take them along, ‘Pak, saya ikut. Pak, bolehkah saya ikut? Satu kali sahaja.’ They were always unsuccessful; nonetheless there was never a lack of trying. Most of the men had jobs in the towns and proudly rode their Suzuki bikes. They did some shopping for their families. The greatest treat for the kids was a motorbike ride round the kampong. Such simple happiness.

  The village headman was addressed Pak Haji, as he had been on the Haj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the tenants of Islam, and on his return he was credited with the title Tuan Haji, and his wife, Puan Hajjah. Tuan Haji was a respected senior but he was addressed affectionately as Pak, father.

  Ramadan, the fasting month before Hari Raya Puasa was approaching.[6] The moon was a trace of a sickle. Pak Haji called for a meeting with three strikes on his gong, which was a large frying pan and a wooden spatula. ‘The Islamic Council had announced the start of Ramadan. Tomorrow is our first day of fasting.’

  The kampong was in festive mood. The first and most important task was preparing coconut oil. I was intrigued, wanting to learn how coconut oil was home-produced.

  ‘How do you make coconut oil, Pak Haji?’ I asked.

  ‘Isi kelapa plenty protein. You cannot go jamban, eat isi, then no problem.’ That was a new lesson – the white coconut meat was a remedy for constipation. Pak Haji continued, ‘Isi banyak guna – dapat santan,[7] then rempas give chicken eat and also use as baja, and sayur all grow nice. Most valuable is santan[8] and oil. Our kampong buys little cooking oil. We make coconut oil, four months, four months we make.’

  I was eager to learn. Pak Haji agreed to ‘show and tell’. ‘I tell you, you still don’t know. You must see and help make then you know. But cannot make one day. Must two or three days.’

  It was my first stay in a Malay kampong home, and I was honoured to be in the village headman Pak Haji’s home.

  All houses rested on stilts, either cement or wood. Like all the others, Pak Haji’s house had a five-step staircase at the front of the house from the ground to the living area. There were three bedrooms, a sitting room and a prayer room. On the windows hung pretty lace curtains; the chairs and coffee table had white lace dollies over them. Comfortably seated in a chair, a lazy cat eyed me. ‘Comel, sayang,’ Mak Hajjah patted her cat. They exchanged love glances. Vases of flowers picked from the garden brightened the rooms. Family pictures reminded them of family togetherness. Her three children worked in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. They would be home for Raya. A small Philips portable radio stood proudly on the coffee table.

  Another five steps at the back of the rooms led down to the kitchen and dining room. Mak Hajjah’s kitchen was immaculate. At one end
of the kitchen was the stove and a food cupboard. Beside it was a five-tier wooden rack, each shelf made of strips of wood spaced regularly apart to allow air circulation. The bottom tier kept dried coconut husks, coconut shell chips, dried branches, an iron blowpipe to kindle the fire; the fourth tier was for pots and pans. The third tier supported the rice bin, bottles of cooking oil, dried foods, containers of chillies and all the condiments; the second tier housed the knives, chopping boards, and some kind of pumice stone to sharpen knives. The top tier was covered by a large towel upon which stood a crockery rack and a coconut shell basket for the spoons and spatulas. It had little holes at the bottom to drain the water so the crockery and cutlery were kept dry. Mak Hajjah’s kitchen was well stocked with coconut shell utensils, including ladles, spoons, spatulas, soup bowls, moneyboxes and decorative items.

  In the middle of the room was the dining table and six chairs; at the other end, a one-metre-high coconut-thatched enclosure with a waist-high tempurung, a clay water container and a wooden lid. Water was brought in from the wells. The enclosure offered privacy if Mak Hajjah chose to bathe at home. Behind the kitchen was a small enclosure where she kept a few chickens.

  Beside the bathroom I noticed coconut husks soaked in a large basin of water. ‘Mak Hajjah, why do you soak the husks?’

  ‘Rendam air[9] garam. Soak in salt water makes fibres loose. Then can make tali, ropes, mats and baju kasar, rough working clothes when we work in fields.’

  The kampong was a picture postcard. All the houses were equally immaculate. The front of every house had flowers of several varieties. Pink, white and red half-metre-tall balsam plants lined the front of the house. At maturity the pregnant pods when gently touched, like a miracle freely gave of their children. By the side of the house were giddily colourful bougainvillea, roses, hibiscus and fauna. Behind the kitchens were the vegetable plots and a good fifty metres away was the large deep compost heap. All the waste, from withered flowers to dead animals, was buried in it with a very slow continuous fire somewhere in its belly, emitting a trail of smoke like Aladdin’s magic lamp before the genie made its presence felt. The genie’s gift was the rich burnt soil that had produced healthy harvests of long beans, brinjals, gourds, leafy vegetables, chillies and many others, as well as for the flowering plants. There was enough good soil for everyone. When the sweet potato or tapioca tubers were harvested, the kids shafted some into the compost in the evenings. The next morning my pupils took me by the hand to the compost heap for breakfast. ‘Teacher, ubi, sweet potato. Very good to eat. Sweet.’ As they dug in, I could have sworn it was on top of the charred remains of an animal, probably a cat! The tubers were not wrapped in foil or in banana leaves – nothing. The kids delightfully ‘hooo-hoooed’ the ash off and bit into them. I did the same. Everyone had their fill.

  ‘What are the things we get from the coconut tree, Mak Hajjah?’

  The kids intercepted me, ‘Cikgu, we boleh get toddy from bunga kelapa.[10] But Muslims, toddy haram.[11] Pak Haji tahu siapa making or drinking toddy, he report police.’ The sap of the flower can be boiled to make syrup. The syrup is processed and fermented to produce alcohol or vinegar, but here alcohol was out of the equation. The water of the young fruit is the purest and most health benefitting water. It provides hydration for the body and natural cleansing of the kidney. The tender white meat melted in your mouth. Adding ice cubes and a slice of lemon would be nice, I thought to myself.

  It was coconut harvesting and coconut oil making weekend. After breakfast of kopi and nasi goreng, rice fried to perfection with eggs, sambal,[12] and freshly harvested cucumbers, the kampong was ready to work. All the basins, pails and pots were brought out. Like a colony of ants, everyone knew their role in the scheme of kampong life. With the agility of monkeys, young men climbed the coconut trees to harvest the nuts. They had coconut fibre ropes loosely tied round their legs to sort of hop up. They wore the coconut husk fibre work clothes, a small machete slipped into their pants. The matured nuts rained down like wartime parachutists into enemy land.

  It was conveyor belt activity. The older children delivered the nuts to a group of men who deftly husked them with an upright iron spike; a group of women cracked the shell with a small machete and drained the water into large basins, then another group grated the meat from the shells with a simple foot-pedal grater. They did this in turns, as there were about five hundred coconuts. Another group of women squeezed the milk out using a sarong – a woman at each end twisted the sarong in opposite directions, then added a little water for the second squeeze. They were happy, singing and telling stories, some of which I suspected were raunchy, as the kids were shooed off to some task, after which there were peals of naughty laughter and singing and slapping and pinching of one another’s body parts. Seeing me guessing their laughter, one explained, ‘This hard work, mesti nyanyi songs, cerita stories. Kalau tidak, how to work?’ The others nodded. ‘Cikgu, cuba lah, come help.’ I did not realise the strength needed to twirl the sarong to squeeze the milk out. The santan was strained through another sarong. Each family took several basins of the precious milk home and left them aside overnight.

  The next morning, together with the call of the roosters, Pak Haji hit the gerengseng, the large bronze cauldron with his paddle sticks and his voice boomed, ‘Bawah santan!’ The women brought their basins. Overnight the santan had split into cream floating on the water. We gently scooped the cream into the three gerengseng, each supported on three large rocks. The water was kept aside to water the vegetables, ‘Banyak vitamins for tamanan,’ Pak Haji explained. Pak Haji had prepared the slow coconut-husk fire that had to be constantly fed by the children. Adults with paddles took turns to gently stir the cream, till it turned into oil. It was extremely exhausting. After four to five hours, the cream had transformed into beautiful clear aromatic oil. The bits of brown residue were gently scooped out and later used as garnishes.

  Now it was time for sharing the oil. Each family brought bottles of various shapes and sizes. Pak Haji scooped a cup and with a funnel poured it into each bottle – one for you, one for you, one for you until all families had one cup. Then the second cup, the third, fourth until ninth, until there was not enough to share. It was poured into several small bottles and kept aside to prepare nasi kunyit, rendang, sayur lemak and other delicacies for Hari Raya celebrations. Everyone was happy.

  The next day the women invited me to learn everything that could be made from coconuts. ‘Cikgu tak tahu apa apa, jadi pastikan sahaja, kemudian belajar.’ Yes I admitted I didn’t know anything, and learning began with watching then doing.

  A few young men had climbed the trees and tapped the nectar from the flowering frond. Two grandmothers were lighting a dried coconut-husk fire under a large pot supported on three large rocks, to make gula kelapa merah, coconut brown sugar favoured in kueh, our variety of local cakes. I watched the process. It was not easy. The women continuously stirred the nectar over a very low fire until it turned shiny golden and viscous. They whipped it quickly to cool it then poured it into bamboo moulds. The acuan or moulds were cut so the bamboo nodes formed the base. There were long thin moulds, short stumpy ones, tiny ones. When the gula hardened the women gave the mould a sound beating on all sides and, plop, out dropped the gula. Again there was much regaled laughter. A woman cheekily teased, ‘Ini dia!’ referring to appendages I guessed. Others joined in, ‘Manis kah? Sedap ya? Bagus ya? Cukup kah? Besar sekali!’ Sweet? Nice? Good? Enough? Large? The banter was all in good fun.

  ‘Our gula very good, best in Malaysia. Money good. Pak Haji sell and buy soy sauce, salt, pepper, kerosene for us,’ the women boasted. ‘You make kueh-kueh, best, tentu sedap sekali. All people like. Best!’

  I was curious why the children were collecting the exposed roots of the coconut tree. Pak Haji explained, ‘Kita keringkan. When very dry we keep. If your skin itchy, you got fever, go jamban many many times, or stomach not good, then boil akar, then not so hot, drink. You become good already. If mouth
also got sakit, very pain, boil and wash mouth, become good.’ The kampong cherished their coconut trees. It is the only tree I know of where every part has value. Pak Hajji promised he would showcase all the things that could be made from every part of the tree.

  After the afternoon siesta the village was alive again. I sat with the women, busy weaving handicrafts all made from some part of the coconut. ‘Cikgu, want learn? I show make sarong ketupat,’[13] the women volunteered. First came the leaves. As a beginner, I split the large pinnate into individual leaves, then split the leaves from the spine. It was more difficult than when I observed the children doing it.

  ‘Cikgu, tarik slow, tak putuskan.’ I had to ensure the little knife was along the spine and drag it down slowly. Finally I got it, a one to eight yield compared to my pupils. The children collected the spines to dry, then bundled them together into brooms.

  Without eyeing but with slithering fingers the women deftly wrapped two pieces of leaves round their palms, weaved here and there and wahlah: a ketupat pocket was born, ready to receive the rice grains within its belly and be boiled into ketupat, rice cakes eaten with satay, sayur lodeh and other traditional celebratory dishes. The little children sat at their parents’ feet and learnt the art. There were tons of leaves, so trial and error was encouraged.

  I repeated slowly, ‘Two leaves, wrap them onto your palm. Place the left side leaf on top of the right one. Then from the right side, insert the leaf from beneath the first checked line. Repeat until I use all 4 wraps.’ Work stopped as the audience watched me struggle – top right, crossed, checked, insert, now insert where again? I was frustrated, but it was good entertainment for all. Jeynab, my Primary 3 pupil, offered: ‘Cikgu I ajar you. Now I teacher, you murid.’ Yes, a teacher does not know everything, there were many things my pupils could teach me. Well, I did eventually manage to weave a few square ketupat, while the experts did rectangular, triangular, diamond-shaped and even bird-shaped ones!