Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Day Fivewas awake upon arrival at Solo. cudnt sleep properly. mohd turned in his seat to tell me "sleep on the floor better". haha. we lugged our bags out and were greeted by khalati ijah and ami ahmad at the platform. they were so overjoyed to see us. khalati kept saying "ya Allah" as though to mean dear God thank you for letting me meet my darling relatievs. emotional. i mean. shes never seen us in her life. it sort of made me feel really welcomed. however i was too sleepy to feel happy with her. so i just smiled politely. plus. i was holding in my pee then. i simply refused to go into the rocking toilet of doom on the train.
there were men everywhere! in the railway station. outside the station. around the cars. everywhere! freakyness. i tightened my grip on qadirs hand and told him "dont complain if im squishing ur hand too hard. u wouldnt want to get kidnapped would u?" we all went to ami ahmad's house in two spearate cars. since i was all drowsy and too weak to make conversation with anyone, i looked out the window to keep awake. view: kampung. kampung. kampung. kampung. wartel (warung telefon). kampung. kampung. rubbish dump. (ew?!) kampung. turn corner. more kampungs. glorious mosque. (in comparison to the kampungs) kampung. kampung. kampung. rubbish dump number two. (wic had baby goats walking ard in it!!) by then i really needed to pee. but looking at the kampungs scared me. i mentally prepared myself to haf to pee into a bucket at ami ahmad's kampung.
we finally arrived in front of a red gate. we were greeted by jiddah arfah. i smiled at her and then i looked beyond her and nearly fainted. that pretty house i was looking at was THE kampung that i was told to be prepared for?? i was supposed to keep comments abt this beautiful thing to myself so i wouldnt insult those people?? THAT was the house with the hole in floor with bucket underneath toilet?? it was even bigger than ami salim's house!! except ami salim's house is double storeyed. we were introduced to khalati's two sons muhammad [fifteen] and alwi [twelve].
we then all had breakfast:cake, bread and more flowershit tea -_-' then we rotted in our room (which had a computer!! *faints* kampung my foot!) there was a calendar in the room. the month now is maret. haha. funneh. anyways i fell asleep. at last. comfortable lying down position. woke up at around 10am to find more people in the house. a couple of ladies. for some reason, informing me their names was not regarded a necessity.
"ah yang ini anak mah. namanya aishah"
"oh iye? udeh besar ye"
and uh.. am i supposed to guess their names??
apparently everyone had eaten their lunch while aman and i were asleep (what kind of lunch happens before ten?!) we were supposed to go to the graveyard. *shudders* so i quickly showered (a real shower! with hot water!! -but to expect toilet paper was too big a dream)
anyhoos we went to that graveyard. was my first time ever. the drivers are remarkable. i really admire them for being able to recognise the different roads in their little town. they are all identical. to me at least. and there were no outstanding landmarks or anything either. view from window: paddy fields. we stopped somewhere to get flowers to put on the graves. there were soil covered tapiocas at tt shop. qadir pointed at it, "yuck! crap!" haha.
so we finally arrived. we visited kubur jid taha bin mohsen alsagoff (jiddah arfah's husband and baba's brother) we baca-ed tahlil. and put the flowers. not a happy occasion. apparently that graveyard was reserved for arabs only. a grasshopper landed on ameera's head. she told me one of the nameless ladies thwacked the thing off her scarf. *snorts*
we got back on the mini van thing and travelled to another kubur. i wanted to RIP my scarf off the weather was KILLing me. the next graveyard was locked up. cause its closed. some guy went to search for the key to let us in. i noticed that under the gate someone scratched 'rumah masa depan'. ee. we couldnt find baba's father's grave cause the names were all worn off the tombs. so we just sedekah-ed fatihah to them all. then we went back to khalati's place. because everyone had to pray first. i thankfully removed obstructive headgear and rotted in baba's AIRCONDITIONED room. aircon!! ohh bliss. shortly afterwards, i realised that the lunch i thought was lunch was actually pre-lunch cause we were supposed to have lunch then. the kuah lemak had beanstuffs in it. i was initially quite apprehensive but it tasted good=) after tt mama and khala went to shop at kedais with the nameless ladies while the rest of us rotted at home. faizah and i were on the carpet outside talking to khalati ijah and pretending to understand the malay speaking spongebob on tv. discovery: faizah has the ability to communicate with lizards. hahaha. when the shopping gang returned we packed our stuff and left for tawangmangu! those "not well off" people own a villa. at the top of that mountain. villa!
the car ride was disastrous. if my butt could have yelled in pain everyone else in that car wouldve gone deaf. the car seat i was on was like a BATU. ameera was whining about a hairy head tt was at her butt. the head turned out to be a feather duster. silly. began to miss abah alot so i smsed him. i love my daddy=) we stopped at some shops area to buy ahemahems but the specific shop was closed. it was so coldd outside the car. kinda cheered me up. but i was still sore about the rock hard seat. so doodeedoodeedoo we arrived at the villa. it was HUUUGE! and aircon like! we sat and watched mr bean while having dinner. i was so thankful that even though mr bean didnt really speak, tt he spoke in english anyway. began to feel sick. excellent night. extensive sleep area with bantal peluks EACH plus perfect weather. wonderful.
vocab: kebin-biscuit
-blogged on 20/3/05
-aysha