JUNE 2005 CCHMS SARAWAK TRIP - SPECIAL MEMORIES

Vivid memories. Of how simple life put reflections in my thoughts. On how the simplicity was content enough for those small kids, those bare souls, who hanker not over money, who think of life as a simpler issue, who commit less atrocities. Simplicity was life, was pleasure for them. How can I forget.

Village life was tremendous for us, as in, we go "how can i do without clean water and this and that, common shortages and stuffs, the classrooms in the village school was so simple so rundown so dirty." WE go like that, THEY DONT. They have three or four different uniforms in that school. There wasn't so much thought on how different they looked, they had a simple purpose, which was to study in school, and that is a SINCERE PURPOSE. We dont do so; how many of us in singapore go to school to study, we go to school because we have to. Most of us that is. Isnt that something very regrettable, very sad, and reflective on us? So regrettable that crying does not make up for it.

They lived on simple food. The beef was tough, the rice was very wet, the drinks were plain. The small village school had a room specially for their lunch, it was just like any other classroom there. The kids squeezed with each other and dug into their food, it was very, contact. Yes contact. They were super, they enjoy themselves in school, they do not quarell the childish way we do. And I always remember, I will always remember, that green piece of thing. Done by the hands of two boys, two remarkable boys. Brown tan skin, little hands, they picked two leafs, and transformed it into a ring, a banana leaf ring, which they presented to me. How special that feeling was. More than anything like an iPOD or whatsoever. Heartfelt. Joanna cried, cried very very badly on the last day I remembered. Six girls, took the effort to find straws, alot alot alot of yellow and green straws. They made some big big big big pineapple out of these straws and it was super, very very super. Pretty and magnificent; they presented it to joanna with some note that addressed her as 'sister'. She was so super touched she cried, cried badly. I remember, me , LIM XIANG YUN TORI, yenberg, jonathan and a few more, including mr chuachorloon, were in charge of organising games and activities for that day, pretty remarkable, how we did it, we had s0 much trouble finding mr chuachorloon's room-.- and the hotel lift was always faulty. Okay, that was the "going there" part. We were afraid of many things initially, like how they might understand what games we were going to play, and I even came up with the lame idea of "ji go pak". ( Cold water splashes from everywhere ) The next day, it was a pretty good thing, we were most glad they enjoyed themselves thoroughly, not just them, all of us. Pictures, signatures of our little heroes. Little collections of everything. And it was so cute, I still remember, how the village school staff, went to find some ladder, to take down their school signboard, to put aside our school banner thing that read " CHUNG CHENG HIGH SCHOOL(MAIN) SARAWAK GEOGRAPHY TRIP". Something like that.

After that we proceeded on to actually stay in a longhouse. Yes, traditional longhouses tribal people live in. That kinda stuff. I think we spent three days there, yup. Three super days. Now notice how many 'super's i ve been using in this blog post. Heh. Went to watch some performance at one of the "theatres" there, all sorts of different performances they amazed us all. (although there was one point at which I fell asleep) I remember one showed the accuracy these tribesmen could perform by using bamboo shoots to burst balloons. And one used his teeth to carry tremendous amounts of weight. Hmmm. The bathing part was very funny of us. 'Cause there's just this bigbigbigbigbigbigbig tank of water and a scoop thing. And we were supposed to bathe just like that. Hmmm, I remembered we spoke till 4 in the morning before I went to bathe. And the guys were talking all about the crushes they had who who in the trip also. Heh. Lotsa secrets. Hmmmm. And Revvo was super obsessed with this traditional drums thing that could be found at the souvenour shop. But it was a little expensive I guess. And it was heartbreak for me, during games, kenneth accidentally stomped on the bananaleafring, it broke and it was in the grasses, couldn't find it. :S Ah, sorry fellas. I miss you two.

And AHH, the special cave trip. I can't remember the exact name of the cave, but I remember it had something to do with "wind faeries" and that kinda stuff. Very, very eye-opening(direct chinese translation from da kai yan jian). Heh. It was a super huge cave and there were these natural transformations that led to them looking like some deities and faeries, and the terrifying number of bats inside. It was also very slippery and we were all led up this stairs, with broken steps inbetween to an small area of clean air outside the cave. THAT PLACE HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AROUND IT. And everyone started being sarcastic as each group came down, we started telling each other "best view of sarawak, super view. super nice" that kinda stuff. And everyone went up with the -.- thing in the end. And our group, led by mrchuachorloon (we were split into different groups, cause the stairs were super narrow and only allowed one person on each step) was led to that "had nothing around it" area by the light coming from outside, and then when we were going back doon, back into the abyss of darkness we realised that none of us, yes none of us had a flashlight with us. Then mrchuachorloon was like "hey who last-man, switch on torch". All of us were like "eh dont have". Then he went something like " wah win liao." Haha. Eye opener.

And the last part of our trip was super horrendus!(the staying part, and the fact I lost my dear camera) We took this boat trip to some 'ulu ulu' island, which had wild boars running around and green snakes on trees. And poor yuxin was attacked by mosquitoes, there were like 40 plus mosquito bites from her upper body, we sorta counted or something like that. And there was this night trip, where the guide asked us to look out for some bloody red eyes in the dark and all that happened were shrieks from girls who accidentally fell off the pavement, and in the end the tour guide gave up looking for the red eyes and asked us to look at the plants which could glow at nihgt. -.-'' Hmmm. At night, most of us were contemplating on how we were to bathe, CAUSE THE WATER WAS ALL YELLOWISH, AND VERY YELLOWISH. And poor yenberg, staying in the same room as mrchuachorloon had to bathe with that water cause he was constantly encouraged by him I think, by the knowledge that the water had countained minerals and iron that came from the mountains and slopes. Yes, THAT KINDA STUFF again. I used the bottles of mineral water to clean myself up that night and I think sharlyn showed how singaporeanly-kiasu we are! She bought two or three huge huge huge 1.5 litres mineral water bottles. Hah. Hmm. We also visited some mangroves and the ground was awfully light and quick-sandyish. Oh, And I cant forget the 'hike' up the mountain and onto the plaetue (I FORGOT HOW ITS SPELT. Pronunciation being 'PLEH-TU') The ground and the soil at some parts of the hike was super soft, squishy and had the very hollow feeling. It was most probably hollow and I started jumping on it like some brat and miss lai decided I could never grow up. ha ha. And poor miss wee kept slipping at the rocks we had to help her alot of times. But the end result, we ended up at some shore. IT WAS REMARKABLY BEAUTIFUL. The sky was overcast, but it never looked to rain. Crabs and tiny tiny tiny crabs were all around on the sand. And there were rocks which had holes in them, these holes, filled with water, was home to alot of small small organisms that looked to have the most brilliant surroundings. Boat trip back and soon we were back in Singapore again.

Had been one of the highlights of my entire life so far I guess. It may seem simple, some common geography trip, but the interaction with people I never got to experience, was superb. I saw kids who were content with what they had, made new friends with people I always see at school but haven't really made an effort to know them more and better.

CAN ANYONE ORGANISE A TRIP BACK TO THE VILLAGE WE VISITED? I MISS THEM AWFULLY.