A day at Kg. Gumum, Tasik Chini....

Our Pahang Legal Aid Centre under Pahang Bar Comittee had an outreach programme on Saturday 31/10/2009. This time we headed for Kg. Gumum located by the famous Tasik Chini.

This is a small orang asli village which comprises of about 100 families, located about an hour drive away from Kuantan. Our 20 strong team comprised of 15 practising lawyers, 5 chambering students, our executive officer, Shikin and her assistant Hayat. Project co-ordinator is Amalia.

We all met in front of LAC building at 7am. Had breakfast at Taj and immediately left for Tasik Chini. I brought Hilman along with me, so that he could experience the kampung life of the people in Kg. Gumum. We both travelled there in Shikin's car while the rest distributed themselves into 5 other cars.

we reached the balairaya at Kg. Gumum about 9:30 am

Well you can sight all the pictures of our activity there on my FB.

It was a whole day event there. We started out by visiting all the houses to do a survey about their problems and to gauge how far they are familiar with the laws in our country. Whether or not they have dealt with the police, courts or lawyers. Whether or not they know about the laws that protect them as indigenous people, their environment and their traditional knowledge.

Don't want to ramble on indefinitely. I know I can. I have a knack for that, yes!

Just wanted to share with you readers some experience from this trip.

For a starter, a little boy made me cry there.

this little boy....

We had organised some games for the children there in the afternoon. The were telematch kinda games that involves getting sweets out of plates filled with flour. Relay with lidi and rubberbands. Fancy dress styling with newspapers only. Mummy wrapping, and many more.

In the middle of one of the games, I saw a boy, slightly bigger than this little one, hit him right smack in the face and ran away. I quickly went up to him to ask him if he was okay. He immediately teared up in his eyes and being embarassed, I guess, to cry in front of me, promptly pulled up the front of his round neck t-shirt to cover his face.

I hugged him me and could feel his little body quivering, from holding back a sob. He gulped a few times and realy tried hard not to cry. It was as if he was ashamed of crying, of giving in to the pain and hurt. It was as if it is just not done, crying on a staranger's shoulder. I kept coaxing him to pull down the shirt front, putting some sweets and snacks into his hand. I asked him why did the boy hit him.

He broke into a big sob and I heard muffled, from under the shirt, he said full of emotions and anguish, "Mentang-mentanglah kita ni duduk numpang chalet datuk dia, macam ni jer dia boleh buat kat kita"

Awwww.... that just broke my heart! When a little tyke like this spills his heart out like that, you can't help but feel the sadness that comes with realisation that even kids as small as this are aware on inequality and injustice. I wanted to cry with him, holding him tight to me. But that would cause another bigger scene. So I passed him on to some other volunteers who kept soothing him with balloons and pencils, and I walked off to somewhere I can't see or hear of him. The tears were just dying to roll off my eyes and I kept glancing up to the ceiling to prevent the spill.

I try to imagine that kind of statement coming from my own children, and the thought just squeezes my heart more. To be able to understand discrimination at such a young age is indeed sorrowful and I do admit my own kids lead a very sheltered lifee in that sense.

But, true to a kid's spirit. He was up and about after a while and I saw himchasing some friends around in full camarederie. All the pain and tears seems to be forgotten. I  thought to myself, he's over it already, why am I still not?

I took that tinge of sadness back with me to Kuantan and till the day I wrote this piece, I still have that faint feeling of sadness for that little boy and what he went through.

I also learnt the art of sharing from the kids in Kampung Gumum that trip.

We organised coloring contests, games and lots of competitions for them. Winners were given small hampers of food and stationeries. There were broken up into groups of six. In the hampers, the were some foodstuffs, like snacks, biscuits and soft drinks, packed randomly to be a mix of everything.

When we handed over the food hampers to the winning group we did tell the older ones to open it up and distribute it to the smaller ones. And I thought that they would do it the way we usually do it, a packet for each members.

But, I saw that they did it differently. Their spirit of equality and sharing is much more comprehensive and just. The older ones will open up the food hamper, and then they also opened up the packs of biscuits and food inside and then they divide it equally among themselves! Everyone then gets everything!

see how they use the plastic hamper wrapper to collect all and then divide all

The older ones, showed their sense of responsibility when after the division has been made, they tore the plastic hamper wrapper into smaller portions and wrapped the divided food up for the little ones.

This way, the are ensured that they get a taste of everything, albeit in small amounts each.

Seeing them in operation, I noted to myself that instead of coming here on a mission to 'educate' them about the so called outside world, I received a form of education myself. I learnt that sharing means that, sharing in equality. I learnt that even if the things to be shared is small in number or amount, it still can be done, fairly.

It is an eye opener and a humbling experience to learn from one so small and yet so wise and honest. If anything, I would say, this trip actually benefitted me more that them!