and as a child

Awake to the sounds of crowing roosters, awake to the cold mountain air ...

... to the smell of fresh charcoal in the early dawn. Last night seems to be just an hour ago.

I often start thinking of an array of good food served below. Shivering, I'm always one of the late ones. Tayung comes in already dressed in her baju tremen. Her excitement fills the room as she wakes me up before the sound of the church bell.

"makat bohh.. mo bigawai inya" her sentences will still be imitated till I have my grandchildren.

I lay awake watching her get dressed, as she puts a few coins for the church offering in a wrapped exercise book page. "tinulis ganan tayung yuh. Nan sidakah da girija"

I wrote the words, a promise. Janji. That was her name. My color pencils were already worn out.

I slowly walked out, grabbed my yellow mickey towel on the stair rail and peek at the morning view of my kampung. The toilet is always occupied. As I waited, I stay seated at the kitchen with my mum cooking bihun. One by one, my cousins are mostly dressed. As years pass, my cousins off springs joined in and I became not so young in the family.

It's always the case. I wake up late and after my shower to be faced by visitors in my towel or back from church to find my kampung house already overflowing with them. Either way, I always enjoyed the warmth of having visitors in. Not the part that I have to sit for hours washing dishes squatting in the bathroom. When it comes to home, there's always something super good.

A day of celebration for my people to mark the end of the harvest. Alongside rice wine, bambooed rice and cultural biscuits out of rice flour, those still having their own paddy field would give away a packet of rice or so as a sign of good will.

As Bidayuh maidens walk the village street in after a night of Beauty contest, the sound of gongs will never go wrong. The heat of the sun will always be there and a sunburn will remind us for weeks we were present.

My Tayung might not be around anymore. But there's always a place in our hearts that will remind us that Gawai will always be her day of enjoyment.

Though far away from home, I am of my Bidayuh roots.