Helping Out ...

Cheers...

It's the month of March and it's harvesting time for the folk back in kampung and as usual my parent is among the few who still carry out the rice planting & harvesting tradition every year. I missed helping out last year due to my busy working schedule, so this time around when my mum asked for help, I promised them that I would help out during this weekend.

Supposedly, I planned to drive straight back to kampung on Friday night but due to the heavy rain and 'banjir kilat' somewhere along the Telipok area (which I only knew when I got stucked in traffic jam when I visited my friends at Putrajaya), I decided to make my journey early morning on the next day.

Somehow, maybe due to sleeping quite late last night after the gathering with friends, I woke up quite late and only started to move from home around 8:30am and I managed to reach Ranau around 10.30am. It's not as early as I wanted, but at least I'm back in kampung. By the way, my dad has been calling me twice while I was still on the road asking when I'll be reaching home since they wanted to wait for me. As not to waste time, I told them to go ahead since I'll be arriving quite late. So, after dumping all my stuffs at home, I quickly got into my 'working suit' ( baju & seluar khas untuk kerja sawah la ni) and drove down to the Kg. Marakau to join them.

For years, I'm not exactly sure how long already, but as far as I can remember, my parent, especially my mum has been working on the field ever since that our whole family moved back to Ranau. It's a family land on my father's side, shared between siblings and my parent has been planting padi on our own lot to supplement our source for rice every year.

I was told that my other aunties also joined in the week before, but there were only three of us this time around. Thankfully, the weather was good during the whole day yesterday and though the sun was quite hot (jarang berjemur bah ni..hehehe), it was cooled down by the occasional breeze of wind. I even managed to take a nap at our recently extended 'sulap' after having our lunch before finishing off the left over work at the padi field. I left earlier with my dad since he got something to do elsewhere. My mum continued with the remaining work before she came back home later that day. I admired her for her spirit and determination working on the field to support our family all this time. Thanks to my parent, I can enjoy having free rice supply whenever I came back to kampung. Thanks mum and dad... Hehehe. It's not that we couldn't afford to buy rice, it's more to do with continuing the family tradition that has been going on ever since we were young. Furthermore, it's a waste to leave the land undeveloped.

Sometimes I do wonder, who would continue carrying the torch for this seemingly dying tradition as I and my other siblings, nowadays rarely have the luxury of time being at kampung to help out start from the beginning until the end. We are all pretty much scattered all over the place with my brothers being in Peninsular Malaysia and only me and my sisters are in Sabah. Mmm... It's tough but somebody has to do it someday.

All in all, though it was quite a tiring day, (panat bah melalapos padi & angkat 4 karung padi balik ke sulap), I'm glad that I made the trip back home and had a good day helping out my parent in the field. If nothing urgent, I hope I'll be coming back home to help them out again next weekend.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to take some pictures during my 'break' time. Enjoy!!!...

Green among the golden ones...

'Golden' rice...our must have food...

Dragonfly... A coincidence encounter with this fella
while I was squatting on the ground for shots...

The recently extended 'sulap'... peaceful resting place...