Roaring Fires, An Everyday Thing and Upcoming Stuff n' Stuff. - justin_guber

Roaring Fires, An Everyday Thing and Upcoming Stuff n' Stuff.

So on Wednesday I had to go back to my dad's kampung (village). They'd left the day before and met up with a bunch of my relatives on my mom's side to go camping on our land. I can just imagine what the relatives on my dad's side that actually live in the kampung must've been thinking.

UNCLE: What aren't they staying with us?
AUNT: They said they wanted to camp out in the field.
UNCLE: Are they mad? There's snakes and chickens out there. Nasty bugs and things.
AUNT: I dunno. Some city thing, I suppose.
UNCLE: I spent my entire life working so that we'd have a nice house, a nice brick house with toilets you can sit on, and they want to spend the night under a piece of plastic propped up with sticks. Nutters.

Of course, it would sound a lot different in Malay.

I drove there in my dad's Mercedes under strict instructions that I do not make such a long trip in my Kelisa. I don't see what's the problem with my Kelisa, but my dad feels safer knowing if I do crash, I'd be wrecking his expensive German car and not my local tin can on wheels.

Like I said, my family isn't much in the logic department.

The second I got there at 5pm I found my father, two of my uncles, a bunch of my nephews and cousins and my brother all swimming in the mud infested lake that they had been draining. My brother had been in the water since 9am, and the sight of him paddling in two feet of muddy water reminded me of days long gone when I didn't give a fuck whether the water was clean.

"Jump in!" cried my dad, "Join us!"

"Are you mad, these are 500 dollar sneakers!" was the reply I had in my head. Instead I simply shook my head. Was I so stuck in Western ways that I couldn't see the fun of jumping into a pool of mud? I guess. There might be leeches. Or those fish that swim up your urethra and lay eggs. There could be fish shit. Or chicken shit. All kinds of shit.

Goodness gracious me I'm a city boy.

The land I was on will soon be inherited by my brother, but for now it serves as our own little playground of gardening. Rough and rugged, with no visible pathways. Weeds ant hills and snake holes surround the ground. Trees of durian (spiky Malaysian fruit that smells something fierce), cempedak (not so spiky Malaysian fruit that doesn't smell as fierce but still puts me off) and rambutan (furry Malaysian fruit that's like lychees, but better) are your only hope for shade if you're not under the two huts built for chilling out purposes amongst the bushes of cili padi (tiny chilli's. The name literally translates to 'fire chilli's', and with good reason. Like our banana's and other fruits, more often than not they're quite small but intensely potent). I have no idea of the size of the land, but it's quite big, and right at the front are two lakes filled with all kinds of edible fish.

My parents empty out the two lake/ponds every year. I call them lake/ponds because they're not big enough to really warrant calling it a lake, but calling it a pond wouldn't do it justice. 20'X15' isn't exactly big, but it's not small either. And why do they empty it? To catch fish.

See, first we put some fish in, feed them merrily and allow them to fuck like rabbits for the whole year. Then, we empty out the lake/ponds and go at them with nets, which will work for a good 9/10th's of the fish. The last batch must be taken by hand when the lake/ponds are completely empty, because that last 1/10th are the toughest sonsabitches of all.

Catfish.

At least, I think they're catfish. They're called 'ikan keli' in Malay. Is that catfish? They have whiskers.

Anyway, those little bastards are slippery and can survive quite a bit. Once all the water's gone they hide in the mud where there's still moisture, so you grab them from out of the mud, which is not an easy task. Try holding onto a fish, any fish, even a goldfish, and the fucker will slip out. Now add mud into the equation. Once all the fish are caught, we give them out to anyone in the village who feels like having a bit of fish for supper, or to keep as pets.

Like I said, catfish can survive quite a long time. Even when you leave them out in a bucket with no water. They won't move, but the second you touch them they'll spring to life. They just don't die. Even when you repeatedly thwack its head on a rock (which is not a fun way to spend a Wednesday afternoon).

"Just slit its throat!" I exclaimed, "Kill it! Put it out of its goddamn misery!"

"We can't, we need the head."

"I'm not gonna eat the head!"

"You're not gonna eat it anyway! You're going to concentrate on the chicken."

They had me there. Eventually, we came to a compromise. My mom would slice off its nose. Not much of a choice there really, if you were a catfish: beaten on a rock or have your nose chopped off, Mr. Catfish? Ooh, I'm not sure... Jimi Hendrix has an acoustic blues song in the John Lee Hooker tradition where he sings the lines, "I wish I was a catfish, swimming in, whoooaaah! The deeeep blue sea." If he spent that afternoon with me he'd probably change the lyrics. Unless it was a cover.

The sun was setting, and my bro was still in the lake.

"B! Get out of there!"

"No!"

"Please?"

"No!"

"If you don't come out I'm taking away the bike I bought you!"

"Take it! It's too slow!"

"That's 'cos you're not strong enough to pedal fast!"

"No! It's because the bike's no good!"

Cheeky little bugger.

"Fine! I'll take away the train set Diana bought you!"

"Take it! The train's don't move fast enough!"

"Ok! I'll take your drawing table!"

"Fine! It's got a hole in it!"

I swear, when that kids old enough to take a beating, I am opening a serious can of whupass.

On this particular occasion, we were going to have a barbeque. All the relatives had brought mass amounts of food so on top of catfish and other fish, we had squid, prawns, chicken, lamb, fried rice, fried noodles, chicken pie, sweet pie, chocolate cake and pringles. You haven't lived till you've got half a barbequed chicken in your hand and you've no fork and knife, just your bare hands. Ripping into a chickens flesh and holding its carcass up to your mouth brings out the primal in you, harking back to caveman days, except with the modern application of black pepper sauce.

Before all that, I spent the sunset raking leaves and picking up twigs. We were going to have a bonfire. By the end of our little sweep up I was stood infront of a good seven feet of logs, twigs and dried leaves.

"Can we light it now?" I asked my dad.

"Not yet. It's not totally dark yet."

Five minutes passed.

"Can we light it now?"

Finally, I took out my lighter.

"You sure this lighter will be enough?" I asked.

"Just light up the leaves underneath and stand back."

I do so, and watched as the flames licked and twirled, rising up till what was seven feet of dried wood and twigs turned into 15 feet of flaming heat. The edges of the flames shot out in bursts, sending tiny red ambers into the sky like fairies whilst the fire spun within, causing the smoke to float up in a spiral. I watched, astounded.

I can't remember the last time I had a bonfire. I'd almost forgotten what fire looked like except for my lighter. This was not my lighter. These flames were alive, crawling around the logs, climbing over twigs and eating up leaves. I just sat and stared, half a chicken in my hand, chucking the occasional log on.

Before I realized it, I had been staring at the bonfire for over three hours straight.

Whilst my parents spent another night sleeping in tents, I went back home, and the next day I spent cleaning my room in Taman Tun from 2pm till 10.30pm, taking a one hour break in between to grab a bite with my girlfriend. I rearranged my room, rearranged my comic books in chronological order and organized my CD's.

This was the kicker. There must've been RM150 worth of unlabelled CD-R's, and there was nothing of any importance on any one of them, just mix CD's and random data I'd transfer from one computer to another. That's a lot of fucking CD-R's. I chucked them, together with a lot of random empty packets of porn VCD's and useless magazines. Next week I'll reorganize the magazines, take out whatever articles or pin-ups I want to keep and chuck the rest. Waste of fuckin' space.

The rest of the week was quite relaxing. Watched Constantine (which I've reviewed in the Comics n Movies n Guitars section), spent some time with my girlfriend, spent some time by myself and slept like a baby. Now I'm back in the office and they've called me over to check on some FA's, but my brain is still in bed. Tonight it's valentine's, exactly one year since my first 'date' with my current girlfriend. And I have no idea where to buy roses. And my migraine's returning.

Ah, well. At least there's no mud.

14.2.05 08:56

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