The small river

The small river that used to separate the land and the ponds over the other side of my grandpa's home reminds me many of my childhood stories. The stretch of flat land before the river was flat and planted with sweet potatoes leaves for the consumption of pigs. In the early 60s, every household in the village used to keep some pigs, it was not just another source of income for the family and it was also a past time for the older folks. One could see far away from the house the bamboos trees near the ponds, and also the tall white stem trees that eagles like to build their nests above. The bamboo was useful for the villagers especially the time during the lantern festival, they used that to build the frame of lanterns. The colorful lantern with its rotating images were displayed like the " Wayang Kulit" driven by rising hot air of a burning candle was fascinating for a kid like me then. For the children, bamboo was an indispensable material for making kites and then fly them and launching them from the sweet potatoes fields, it was great fun that I really miss so much! They also used long bamboo sticks for plucking the rambutan fruits by tying a hook or a cutting knife at the tip during the fruit harvesting season. Sometimes the thinner and more flexible bamboo sticks were also used to beat snakes.

Just imagine a scene like this:

A neighbor suddenly shouted " Snake! Snake!" and everyone from the neighborhood will take out their own bamboo sticks, rush to the scene and be ready for the kill. From my memory, I could still recall the beating sound of the sticks landed flatly on the ground, a crowd of adults surrounded the poor creature, usually cobra, was beaten to its death.

The winding road passing through the sweet potatoes fields leading to the small river was no more in existence now. Squatters of wooden houses were built on them and the view and its landscape were forever changed. That river was the first place when my brother and I tried on fishing using some wires to make fishing hooks without putting any bait. As kids, we could not reason out fishing needed to use baits, thinking that the fishing rods and hooks could just do the magic of catching fishes!

That small river nearly costed the life of my brother as we tried to cross them after the rain when the current was swift, otherwise the water was usually shallow and safe. We crossed the river to bring food to my mum as at that time the villagers inclusive my mum were doing "dulang washing", a method used to sieve out tin ores from sand and mud, the location of which was situated near some mining sand dunes on the other side of the river, about an hour walk from our home. Tin ore was fetching a good price then and it was a lucrative means of supporting the economy and the livelihood of many families. My brother was drifted some distance by the strong current and then managed to cling on to some weeds near the river side and he was safe, much to my relief! (I still remember this vividly till this day!)

The small river was running with crystal clear water and we used to catch a lot of small fishes, prawns in it. My grandpa used to wheel us down with his wheelbarrow and scooped up some clean sands and then wheeled us back all the way to our home! We made multiple to and fro trips as he used those sands to build the grass road leading from the main tar road to the house that we were staying. Once a while we got to bath and swim in that river with the watchful eyes of my grandpa on our safety, since the swimming was condoned by grandpa, there was no scolding and punishment from my mum (Though we knew that she was not too happy about the whole idea). At that time children were forbidden to swim in ponds and rivers as there were many drowning cases.

This same river, my grandpa and grandma caught a big softshell turtle (labi-labi) and it was so big that we could not keep it in the house and was eventially sold to a fishmonger friend in the wet market.

We used to see eagles circling in the sky and suddently swooped down to the fields and how the mother hens defended the chicks by making a lot of noises. My grandma was always on alert and would rush out from the house and gave a loud shout to scare the eagles away!

Those were the days and the small river !