Gail - Sarekei

From Gail Email 9/8/2014 10:46 PM (see one more added below)


Dear friends and family,

I continue to feast on fruit - lenangs, papaya, pineapple, jackfruit, melon, fresh coconut, along with the others I mentioned previously, plus some that I've forgotten. It is a paradise for fruit lovers like me.

Yesterday, Judy's son, Bryan, drove us to Sarekei, a town downriver closer to the South China Sea and famous for its seafood.  Bryan wanted to go for a special dish prepared only in Sarekei, but I wanted to see my old house again.  From 1952 - 1957 we lived in a newly built Malay style house.  There was a center room, two rooms and a bathroom on each side of the center , a raised area for a dinning room and a kitchen in the back.  The house was on stilts and at the bottom of the stairs from the kitchen was a huge concrete cistern to catch rainwater.  A kerosene pump was used periodically to pump the water to a tank in the ceiling so that we had running water, cold, of course.  No need for a hot water heater in this climate.

There was no electricity in those days.  Every night we pumped up the Coleman lantern and watched as huge moths, cicadas and other insects were attracted to its light.

It was during the time I was living here that I first met Judy's family.  Her older brother, Lawrence,  was a member of our MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and he taught me how to play ping pong.  He is still the champion senior  ping pong player in Houston, Texas!

One early morning in 1953, he came to our house and told my parents that his mother had just died in childbirth.  Since the family was very poor, his father was planning to sell Lawrence's three little sisters into slavery, an illegal practice under the British, but very common.  Lawrence begged my Mom to talk to his father.  So she did and persuaded the father to let the three little girls live with us until the dorms at the new school could be completed.  So, little Judy, Lilian and Natalie became part of our family.  After we went back to the States on furlough, the girls went to live at the Children's Home in Sibu until Lawrence was able to take them to his home.  Judy is now the principal and CEO of the Methodist Pilley Institute (MPI).  Lilian and Natalie are U.S. citizens and live in Texas.  In 2010, I went with the three of them and Natalie's daughter, Cyndy, to Sabah, the other Malaysian state on the island of Borneo.  There we visited Kinabalu National Park, saw a wildlife sanctuary and went snorkeling in the South China Sea.

Back to Sarekei, we made a quick stop for me to take picture of my old house, now very decrepit and sad.  Mom used to have bougainvillea climbing over the steps and other flowers in the yard, but now the Iban Conference has possession of it and they, having little financial resources, have let it succumb to the ravages of entropy.

We had lunch at Bryan's favorite coffee shop.  Starting and ending with a coconut pudding, we enjoyed his favorite dish, spicy prawns cooked with tamarind and other spices and served with noodles in a large coconut husk.  It was messy eating, but oh, so good.  The coconut pudding helped to cool my mouth after the fiery hot prawns.  The pudding was made out of fresh, immature coconut meat, cooked with coconut milk and cooled with gelatin.  It was smooth, cool and refreshing.  Our server was a young Indonesian girl who had on a t-shirt with the stars and stripes and the words, "I love the USA".  I took her picture and will send it when I figure out how to on this computer, or when I get back home.

It took us an hour to drive back to Sibu, a journey that used to take 4 hours by river launch.  A much quicker journey, but not nearly as exciting as chugging along up the wide Rajang River, the longest in Sarawak.  The Rajang, which used to be clear and supported crocodiles and other wildlife, is now muddy all the time, a reflection of the development and logging, both legal and illegal, that is occurring all the time in Borneo and devastating the rain forest and its inhabitants.

I've started to pack for China.  We leave early Thursday morning.

Cheers!

Gail

Gail Email 9/10/2014 1:49 AM

Hi Bonnie,

I saw Ida the other day.  She still lives next to Judy and is quite frail and doesn't get out much.  I gave your greetings to Judy and asked her to tell Ida that you said hello.  I doubt that I'll see her again.  Ida has an Indonesian helper that takes care of her and her hundreds (?) of flower pots.

Judy and I leave early tomorrow morning for China.  It's been a great trip so far!

Love,

Gail

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:45 AM, 'BONNIE M' ... @frontier.com [class59] <class59@yahoogroups.com> wrote:   



Oh, Gail, such memories of Sibu and Sareikei! Fruit, "putt-putt" motor boats on the Rejang, green coconut meat straight out of the shell, and all the other fruit, and of course walking around your old house on trip together. Did you get to see Ida Mamora--do say hello to her for me if you see her and  do give my greetings and best regards to Judy and her family, too.

Have a great time in CHina!

Bonnie