Nostalgia strikes...again!

After my last class with my Saturday students, I proceeded, as usual, to go pick Kimo up at Mom's. Since I hardly bother to buy a news copy for myself, I take advantage of my mom's daily copy and read-up every time I am at her place, or rather, the place where we grew up :) After reading the news and whatnots, I started loading up the car with Kimo's things, taking a leisurely way about it since Kimo had trotted after mom to go "help" her get the clothes off the line. Milo, the caramel-colored Doberman, followed me around in his usual crazy manner. And soon Luna, the black-white kitty-cat, came looking for attention too.

Then it hit me. This wave of nostalgia, ever subtle but fairly common this year, my so-called reflection year. It begins like a gentle feeling of having felt this sense of connectedness before, that once you're in the thick of it, you've bridged through space and time. The particular memory that snuck through my mind, this time, was of long school holidays spent at my maternal grandmother's (lovingly called 'Mama') home in the kampung [village]. Every once a year or so, my parents would send us kids to go "be in the kampung", being that we lived in the "city" and many Kadazan parents felt that their kids ought to experience kampung life, and absorb something of their culture. My brother, Terrance, must have enjoyed these school holiday sessions too, because he does this to his kids now :)

Playing in the kampung is one of my favorite memories. We played 'king-king' [hopscotch], rounders, 'guli' [marbles], 'main biji gatah' [cracking rubber seeds], 'main batu' [flipping tiny stones with one hand], among others. And oh yes, we also did the normal stuff - climb trees, swim in the river, forage in the backyard for fruit - bananas were a given but we ate the fruit of the cashew-nut tree, too [buah jagus]. Sometimes, in this kind of flashback, I remember the minutest detail like how warm the sun was and the smells in the air. I also remember things like the emotion of preparing for the romp-around the yard: the adrenaline pumping, the excited calling-out to each other to not forget to bring this toy or tool, or...oh yes, the hidden box of matches in the secret place! Tsk, tsk...the pains we went through to guard the location of our box of matches. Of course, if the adults knew, they would have skinned us through!

Then, the scene of how Cousin Hani [Hannibal] attempted to avoid Mama's spanking (could it be our match-box got found out?) and ran-up the salamai tree [gosh, I do not know the English term but this is a sour and hard-chewy cherry-like fruit]. Up on the tree, safe from Mama's wrath, Hani began to mock-play a guitar while singing, "Oh Mama, kada' posuto' zou..." [Oh Mama, don't switch me please...] to the tune of "Oh Mama, saya mau kawin" (Oh Mama, I want to get married) :) Sigh, priceless memory this...

Terrance said it best, when I asked him what was it that he would really like for his kids to acquire at this point in their lives (pre-teens), especially in terms of exposure to Kadazan culture and all). He said that all he wanted was for his kids to have the opportunity to make memories for themselves to last them a lifetime :) Sweet...