Lauk Ayam

Although we rear chicken at home, having chicken for food is still something rare and being looked forward to. When instruction is out for us to go catch a chicken for slaughtering, a few of us would round up the chicken so we may catch one. We always choose the biggest. Even though these chicken are raised by us; feed them everyday; still they are not easy to catch. As soon as we catch one, we call on Abah Rahman to 'sembelih' the chicken.

After the proper 'sembelihan', and when the chicken is dead, we put it into boiled water so that we can peel off the feathers easily. Once all the feathers are pulled out, we burn the chicken over a small fire to burn off smaller feathers still on the chicken. Kak Ngah will then cut them into proper pieces and would normally cook the ever delicious 'lemak chili api'.

Since there were many of us; when food is served, Kak Ngah will present each and everyone of us 'one piece' each of the chicken. Since there is just enough to go around, you cannot have another, but you may have the gravy if you wish. The best part of it all is getting a piece of the 'hati ayam'; the most delicious part of the chicken. No matter how small, we will all get a piece of it each. Now - we can have a chicken each to ourselves!

My Motorcycle Joy

In the kampong we learn to ride motor cycles as early as 9 years old. The one that I learned with was a Honda 90, plate number ND something something (4 numbers); which I could not remember. Nevertheless, that motor cycle was owned by Abah Rahman - uses to ride it to take him to work as a 'Field Assistant' at the "Rancangan Tanah Pinggir" at Sungai Layang; about 10 km from Senaling (on the Tampin main road). Since motor cars cannot enter the rubber plantation (of muddy tracks); the motorcycles was the other mean of transportation besides the usual bicycle.

As we have to go back and forth to do our bud grafting or weeding at the rubber plantation, I learned to ride those bikes from as young as 9 years old. The motor cycle have only 3 gears. All front flicks and you are on the way. It becomes my main transportation to go to further places when the bicycles is a little bit too far to use. At times, going to 'Godong' would be a fun ride even thought it is just 2 km away.

As we live in the kampong, the motor cycle was without any road tax or insurance at that time. It is only used to go to our small holdings in Bemban or to use to go to Sungai Layang to buy latex. At times, I used to ride it to go deep into the rubber plantation to do my normal regular rubber bud grafting or checking on my rubber seedlings and new sprouts after bud grafting. I never has and have never attempted to take a motor cycle licence (even until now) as now we realised that riding motor cycles carry higher accident risk than other transportation.