Childhood In The Thirties 2
We played with Acang and Entong, just as old as we are, my brother and I. Kenil, Kitik and Pengki are sisters. Then we have Iyem, a girlfriend of my two aunts (stepsisters of my mother) who were still girls and were love sick with In your eyes is written, Where the orchids blow, Forget me not. While I sang or hummed “Holly, woolly, doodle all the day”.
Iran, an older brother of Acang was teenager didn’t play with us. He goes with my granddad in his Fiat and hurries out of the car to have a big stone or a piece of wood behind a wheel when the car tends to slide backward on a slope.
We enjoyed wandering to somewhere or nowhere. Walked barefoot along alleyways, paths, rice field dykes, the river, to hunt, prey, spy after nothing or something, after the pala, nam-nam, rambutan (means hairy) fruits, a bird’s nest, crickets, dragonflies, shrimps, sweet water crabs, the squirrel, …
Was our picnic provision that we bought ourselves for a cent (usually we hadn’t got a cent), krupuk, (crackers), cheap biscuit, a cluster of pisang jarum, needle or Lilliputian bananas, always nicer than what we had at home of the best quality.
And stepping in a brook or a dip in the river was better than a douche in the bathroom. See a chicken hen with her chicks, a circling hawk, a water spider, cutting a whistle out of a rice stalk, cut a wind mill, … and before you realize, it was magrib, dusk.
And suddenly you became homesick and long after home seeing a burning light far away, the sun set. Birds, returned and found their nests or a place in some tree, chickens nervously walked to and fro, sought their chicken-house, buffaloes, goats their stables.
Hundreds of fluttering little bats appear. They didn’t go for the fruit trees yet, but feasted on the laron (winged termites) that left their nest at dusk, as their breakfast. Then large bats passed by, one after another, slowly flying. Where from? To which paradise of fruit trees?
In the evening fires were lit, nabun, burning garden waste of dry fallen leaves and branches to keep mosquitoes away. How fascinating to see the glowing cinders as glittering stars in the ashes and the fire as the sun at sunset .I vaguely scented the rice field water, I heard frogs “quack” in it, crickets chirp, ga-angs sing “aaanngg”, …
In the main house, the spirit lamps were lit by Nasib a faithful old servant. We collected certain kind of long dry fruits which would slowly burn as to keep the mosquitoes away. How warm, how live that fire was, how beautiful the rising smoke. We played or half dreamed, as happy as the birds without toys or games.
No radio, TV, tape recorder, loudspeaker, videos disturbed the evening. No bright city lights irritated the light of the moon and stars. (And every time today, when it was our turn to have no light to save on electricity, am I not vexed as I remember the happy evenings in the country house in Sadeng Jamboe.)
In my large bed, where we slept together, I heard the soft yearning chirping of a cricket in my tin box courting its mate or chirp triumphantly after a fight. I look at the wonderful, marvelous “breathing” soft light of the firefly in a match box in half dark of my bed. I count the tekehs of a gecko and hope to be granted a wish. I heard the tong-tong (a big hollowed log sounding “tong-tong“ when knocked on it) and the tower clock (bell) that’s struck every hour. I heard the soft buzz of the gas lamp outside and the sound of the rushing Cikaniki river far away and so I fell asleep. That were golden days in childhood.
Remember! This was not just yesterday, but what I still remember almost 75 years ago.
We played with Acang and Entong, just as old as we are, my brother and I. Kenil, Kitik and Pengki are sisters. Then we have Iyem, a girlfriend of my two aunts (stepsisters of my mother) who were still girls and were love sick with In your eyes is written, Where the orchids blow, Forget me not. While I sang or hummed “Holly, woolly, doodle all the day”.
Iran, an older brother of Acang was teenager didn’t play with us. He goes with my granddad in his Fiat and hurries out of the car to have a big stone or a piece of wood behind a wheel when the car tends to slide backward on a slope.
We enjoyed wandering to somewhere or nowhere. Walked barefoot along alleyways, paths, rice field dykes, the river, to hunt, prey, spy after nothing or something, after the pala, nam-nam, rambutan (means hairy) fruits, a bird’s nest, crickets, dragonflies, shrimps, sweet water crabs, the squirrel, …
Was our picnic provision that we bought ourselves for a cent (usually we hadn’t got a cent), krupuk, (crackers), cheap biscuit, a cluster of pisang jarum, needle or Lilliputian bananas, always nicer than what we had at home of the best quality.
And stepping in a brook or a dip in the river was better than a douche in the bathroom. See a chicken hen with her chicks, a circling hawk, a water spider, cutting a whistle out of a rice stalk, cut a wind mill, … and before you realize, it was magrib, dusk.
And suddenly you became homesick and long after home seeing a burning light far away, the sun set. Birds, returned and found their nests or a place in some tree, chickens nervously walked to and fro, sought their chicken-house, buffaloes, goats their stables.
Hundreds of fluttering little bats appear. They didn’t go for the fruit trees yet, but feasted on the laron (winged termites) that left their nest at dusk, as their breakfast. Then large bats passed by, one after another, slowly flying. Where from? To which paradise of fruit trees?
In the evening fires were lit, nabun, burning garden waste of dry fallen leaves and branches to keep mosquitoes away. How fascinating to see the glowing cinders as glittering stars in the ashes and the fire as the sun at sunset .I vaguely scented the rice field water, I heard frogs “quack” in it, crickets chirp, ga-angs sing “aaanngg”, …
In the main house, the spirit lamps were lit by Nasib a faithful old servant. We collected certain kind of long dry fruits which would slowly burn as to keep the mosquitoes away. How warm, how live that fire was, how beautiful the rising smoke. We played or half dreamed, as happy as the birds without toys or games.
No radio, TV, tape recorder, loudspeaker, videos disturbed the evening. No bright city lights irritated the light of the moon and stars. (And every time today, when it was our turn to have no light to save on electricity, am I not vexed as I remember the happy evenings in the country house in Sadeng Jamboe.)
In my large bed, where we slept together, I heard the soft yearning chirping of a cricket in my tin box courting its mate or chirp triumphantly after a fight. I look at the wonderful, marvelous “breathing” soft light of the firefly in a match box in half dark of my bed. I count the tekehs of a gecko and hope to be granted a wish. I heard the tong-tong (a big hollowed log sounding “tong-tong“ when knocked on it) and the tower clock (bell) that’s struck every hour. I heard the soft buzz of the gas lamp outside and the sound of the rushing Cikaniki river far away and so I fell asleep. That were golden days in childhood.
Remember! This was not just yesterday, but what I still remember almost 75 years ago.
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