May 2, 2009

Great Grand Mother of Rumah Ugap in Kapit






This is Enek. She is a great grandmother and is more than a hundred years old. According to her she was married and already had children before the Japanese Occupation.
With four generations living under one roof and in one "bilik" or family room in Rumah Ugap in Kapit she is one of the oldest in the region.
One might be surprised she is still contributing economically to her extended family. She has since young been a "master" of rubber tapping but as her eyes and strength are no longer as before her job now is to collect the rubber scraps left behind after the latex is collected by her daughter in law and grandchildren. After collecting the day's rubber scraps which may be one or two kilos or more she will separate the wooden parts from the real rubber and place the cleaned rubber into athe green plastic basket. The rattan basket is made by her daughter in law. It takes about half a day to make. This is called a "chapan" and is used for winnowing and drying of vegetables.
The rubber scraps still fetch a good RM3.00 or slight more than AUS 1.00 per kilo!!
I like the way she speaks gently . Her eyes follow you when you make a movement and she pays a great deal of attention to what is going around in the public area or communal area (ruai) of the 23 door longhouse. At times she reminds me of a wise owl watching you.
I was greatly touched by the love and care the whole family extend to her as the revered elder of the family. The other members of the longhouse also love her just as much.
May she live to a ripe old age and stay healthy too!

4 comments:

Daniel Yiek said...

To avoid running out of space again, you can compressed your pics (to reduce the size) before posting. For reading on websites, the pics need not be big size.

I use
Start, Programs, Microsoft Office, Office Tools, Picture manager

Ensurai said...

Thanks Daniel. You are a true friend!
I will probably enjoy writing up a storm for Sarawakiana@2 as I did for Sarawakiana.
Be in touch!
As you see I am spreading out from Sibu from now on...

Daniel Yiek said...

For those pics that you want to keep in high resolution, copy an extra copy first before using the compression.

Another tool I use under Picture manager is "Auto Correct". If it turns out nicer (usually), then click save.

Ensurai said...

Thank you Daniel. I will try my best....I am slowly working on the "face" of my new blog...
But it is so hot here. Is Singapore just as hot yesterday and today? at 36 degrees?

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