Childhood In The Thirties 1
At that time my granddad took me in his Fiat, heavily laden with his children – I and my brother had to duck meeting a police officer on the road - to his country house in his rubber plantation Sadeng Jamboe a village located near Buitenzorg (Bogor). Among the village huts, this was like a mansion, a palace, white, with huge pillars, half covered behind the trees where the river Cikaniki runs past.
As a warm welcome in the arms of Mother Nature we again saw the so well-known sights of atap palms, the iron bridge, the river, the big pond, then turned left and rode the alleyway. My granddad tooted and village children swarm in welcome, ran after the car or triumphantly jumped and rode along on the back bumper or on the side step.
We again saw the low, wild bamboo hedge, of which we made our fishing rods, the high coconut-, the bald kapok-trees with the boot shaped manyar nests, the huts in the orchard and we then stopped at a rustic small wooden back gate of the house and we, my brother and I ran as happy puppies along the long open corridor to celebrate our joy.
The country house had a wide, open front gallery with white pillars, high, wide windows and doors. High on the wall on both sides of its entrance door were two guardians of bronze. The floor was of marble, there were Chinese porcelain flower pots, tables, high chairs, rocking chairs, big wall mirrors antique Dutch ornamented, an old piano that was out of tune, a gambang ( a wooden xylophone). In another hall was the offering table with a large portrait in a frame of my late grandmother still young and another old woman, perhaps the grandmother of my mother I’d never seen.
The halls were lit with candle like spirit lamps. On the sides of the hall were the sleeping rooms for guests, very high, roomy and each had a square mosquito bed of jati wood. It’s very creepy. They say that it was haunted. Yet I had slept there more than once but certainly with someone.
In one of these rooms the gamelan (Javanese music instruments) was stored, complete with a large wooden chest with wayang golek (wooden puppets). The puppet shows were performed on special occasions.
But no one, no child feels him, herself at home in this palace. All was silent, every sound seems queer, somber, hollow… No one lives here. We ate, slept in the smaller, cozy village house, with large square bricks and played in the open gallery with a view to the once big, beautiful garden.
Wild flowerbeds, wild footpaths with white stones paved, a big empty pigeon house, a “bell-tower”, many old fruit trees, a well and a murmuring, ditch that runs through the garden were what was still there of what was once beautiful from former times.
In the open gallery we comfortably sat, played, chatted on the floor or on a tapang (a large wooden low couch) agreeably, happy with each other. We had no toys. My aunts, still girls could be my older sisters. They read no books, there was no news paper or radio. In the wooden roof structure were hollows of bees and as the sound of a breeze cicadas chirp.
At that time my granddad took me in his Fiat, heavily laden with his children – I and my brother had to duck meeting a police officer on the road - to his country house in his rubber plantation Sadeng Jamboe a village located near Buitenzorg (Bogor). Among the village huts, this was like a mansion, a palace, white, with huge pillars, half covered behind the trees where the river Cikaniki runs past.
As a warm welcome in the arms of Mother Nature we again saw the so well-known sights of atap palms, the iron bridge, the river, the big pond, then turned left and rode the alleyway. My granddad tooted and village children swarm in welcome, ran after the car or triumphantly jumped and rode along on the back bumper or on the side step.
We again saw the low, wild bamboo hedge, of which we made our fishing rods, the high coconut-, the bald kapok-trees with the boot shaped manyar nests, the huts in the orchard and we then stopped at a rustic small wooden back gate of the house and we, my brother and I ran as happy puppies along the long open corridor to celebrate our joy.
The country house had a wide, open front gallery with white pillars, high, wide windows and doors. High on the wall on both sides of its entrance door were two guardians of bronze. The floor was of marble, there were Chinese porcelain flower pots, tables, high chairs, rocking chairs, big wall mirrors antique Dutch ornamented, an old piano that was out of tune, a gambang ( a wooden xylophone). In another hall was the offering table with a large portrait in a frame of my late grandmother still young and another old woman, perhaps the grandmother of my mother I’d never seen.
The halls were lit with candle like spirit lamps. On the sides of the hall were the sleeping rooms for guests, very high, roomy and each had a square mosquito bed of jati wood. It’s very creepy. They say that it was haunted. Yet I had slept there more than once but certainly with someone.
In one of these rooms the gamelan (Javanese music instruments) was stored, complete with a large wooden chest with wayang golek (wooden puppets). The puppet shows were performed on special occasions.
But no one, no child feels him, herself at home in this palace. All was silent, every sound seems queer, somber, hollow… No one lives here. We ate, slept in the smaller, cozy village house, with large square bricks and played in the open gallery with a view to the once big, beautiful garden.
Wild flowerbeds, wild footpaths with white stones paved, a big empty pigeon house, a “bell-tower”, many old fruit trees, a well and a murmuring, ditch that runs through the garden were what was still there of what was once beautiful from former times.
In the open gallery we comfortably sat, played, chatted on the floor or on a tapang (a large wooden low couch) agreeably, happy with each other. We had no toys. My aunts, still girls could be my older sisters. They read no books, there was no news paper or radio. In the wooden roof structure were hollows of bees and as the sound of a breeze cicadas chirp.
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