Kampung Sitting

June 1st, 2008

Wow, two weeks in and there is way too much to write about, talk about, or think about. I can barely keep up with it all – 3 weddings, traditional massage and ‘witchdoctors’, teaching English to the adults and children in the village, swimming in the river, early morning invasions by our neighbors, late night ‘stop bys’. Every day has been an overwhelming adventure and yet, I don’t think Ben and I have felt this relaxed in a long time. Ben woke up this morning and said ‘I love the way I sleep here, I have not slept like this in ages’. Coming from a certifiable insomniac whose inability to sleep at night was getting close to a medical concern that is an amazing statement. This really maybe the 2 month rest we needed before returning to the US. Actually, I have to admit both of us have seriously contemplated staying here longer. You cannot beat the quiet, calm and laziness of our lives right now. Plus, the cost of plane tickets is astronomical. If only you could all move to the kampung

With so much happening in two weeks its nearly impossible to give a satisfactory account of all we have experienced, learned, and felt. So, I am going to settle for sharing a few amusing anecdotes from the past couple of weeks and leave the tougher writing to Ben.

- As you saw in our video, we have lots of village animals wandering about our neighborhood but two in particular have taken a special liking to us these past few days. It started about four days ago, when Ben awoke to find a rooster and hen playing around in his comfortable lounge chair on the front porch. They quickly ran off but left a present behind. When Ben went to sit in the chair he found a small single egg waiting for him. We laughed, told our neighbor, who told us to keep the egg and eat it, and thought nothing more of it. Well, the next day, we found another egg, and the next day and today. We have been told that the chicken has adopted us. They don’t know why they chose the chair but we can expect to receive maybe 10 more eggs before they move on to another spot. If they did not make a mess of Ben’s favorite chilling spot it would be a great set up, farm fresh eggs delivered to our doorstep every morning. We are going to see if we can coax her to keep the eggs coming but just not on top of the chair. We will let you know how that goes.

-We have gone to three weddings in the kampung and they are definitely very different than weddings in the US. For one, anyone can come. The whole village can stop by and leave at their leisure and if you are a white person, who speaks a little Malay well than you are truly welcome. In fact, Ben and I are treated as celebrity guests. We are taken to meet the bride in her waiting room, everyone wants to talk to us and take pictures with us, and when it comes to settling down to eat, its like being the popular kid in high school, with people shouting ‘Ben, Casey sit here, sit here’. Don’t worry though, we are not stealing the bride and groom’s limelight because they are the least interesting aspect of the wedding for the guests. No joke, the very idea of waiting to see the bride and groom bores Malays to tears. The first two weddings we attended our friends patiently waited with us so we could see the groom arrive and meet the bride but by the third wedding they weren’t having any of it. No sooner had we finished eating and they were ready to go. They complained that the groom was arriving too late and they could not stand to wait another hour to see him.
So basically, the norm for a wedding in Malaysia is to literally eat and run. Actually, its not literally eat and run, its cook, eat, and run. That’s right in the morning before the wedding begins, usually beginning at 7:30 AM and carrying on until the wedding feast begins (around midday), people from all over the village stop by to help prepare the wedding feast. The women work cutting vegetables, preparing coconut milk, cakes and desserts, and drinks and the men slaughter the chickens, cows, and/or buffalos, carve them up and cook over hot open fires delicious curries and kilos and kilos of rice. Its kind of amazing to watch. There seems to be no director, just years and years of experience to guide people in knowing exactly what to do. Women actually bring their own knives in their purses. Like the wedding itself, people come and go as they please, rest, chat, eat- its so relaxed its hard to believe that by the time the wedding is set to begin they will have prepared enough food to serve over 500 people!

With no experience of life in the kampung, Ben and I find we are often clueless about how to go about doing things here. Like the group effort to cook a wedding feast, life in the kampung follows a social code that Ben and I cannot comprehend. We are always making social faux pas, misunderstanding what people are asking us to do, and often simply missing the point all together. Mostly, I think we are forgiven for our ignorance but no doubt our friends and neighbors think we are indeed pretty ignorant. ‘Why is she taking a picture of a cow? Why are they going for a walk at 3 in the afternoon with the sun scorching above? I told her I would teach her how to cook curry and when I showed up she did not even have a chicken? Orang Putih thinks she can make curry without meat? I told them that they could follow this road home, why are they walking through the field? Do they realize how many prickers are in there, their clothes will be ruined?’ I am sure, we, the ‘village idiots of Kuala Mai’, provide ample fodder for entertaining nighttime gossip. I know at the very least that everything we do, good, bad, silly or ridiculous is broadcast across the kampung telegraph within 5 minutes of us doing it. I can’t tell you how many times a complete stranger has come up to me and told me what I ate the evening before or how early I woke up that morning. Its crazy.

So all told, things are going well and we are having a lot of fun. We have already readjusted to the cold baths. I actually look forward to them. I shower more here than at home. We have given up the idea that houses are meant to be bug and animal free. We actaully made our peace with the ants a few months ago, they are simply a fact of life in Malaysia, but when we arrived in the kampung we spent the first few nights trying to keep the millions of different bugs that emerge at night out of our house. We quickly learned it was no use and now spend our nights marvelling at the new and different kinds of bugs that appear - last night there were two praying mantises. We do have a fair share of house lizards to help keep the bug invasion to a minimum but we pay a price for their help. Every morning I must sweep the house to rid it of lizard shit!

Well, hope all are well.