I received a call from Haji Suhaimi Said, that famed rebellious lawyer of Temerloh, about a meeting with the Orang Asli, or lately renamed Orang Asal or Original People at Penderas, Kuala Krau sometime in the afternoon. Penderas is about twenty km away from where I reside. Haji Suhaimi Said or Haji, contested this State seat of Jenderak at the last election. He lost. However, he managed to cut down the majority by half. He lost by less than a thousand votes, so he has to garner about five hundred more votes to supplement the votes he had to win. Penderas is in the parliamentary boundary of Kuala Krau. He is working very hard to cut down more votes from BN for the next big one. He had been working especially hard this past two weeks along the Krau Valley, whose inhabitants are mostly Orang Asals. So, its off to Penderas.
Left my house at two thirty, I picked up Dide (pronounced dee-dur) to escort me there. It was drizzling as my Satria weaved through the zig-zagging road of Penderas. At three, we reached our destination. Orang Asal is the PR’s term for all the indigenous people of Malaysia, like the Orang Aslis or Kadazans or Ibans or any other earliest settlers of Malaysia. According to Jim Baker in his book ‘Crossroads: A Popular History of Malaysia and Singapore’, the Orang Asal first inhabited Malaya about forty thousand years ago. The Malays only came about two thousand years ago. Therefore, the Malays can be called a ‘kaum pendatang’?
Upon arrival, denoted by a few PKR flags stuck on a fence, we noticed that no one was around, I asked this guy about the whereabout of the meeting. He was hesitant to answer, as if there was a CCTV focused on us. He just said I don’t know. Then I saw Fahmi, Kuala Krau’s Youth Wing head honcho, busy setting up the PA system. He told me that Haji is waiting for Felicia Ling. Felicia is the Cheras Division head. She’s supposed to give a speech. Okay, we’ll wait said I.
I went straight to the meeting hut and there were about fifteen people waiting. We had a chat, and me, trying to be pro-active, start writing down their grouses. A bit later, Felicia, Haji and two others arrived. Immediately they headed to the hut and greetings were quickly hurled. At first I thought that Felicia is going to give a boring speech about human rights and those sort of topics. As it turned out, she was asking the ladies about pandan woven bags. The Orang Asal are good at weaving bags, mats or even their own version of a backpack. She told them that since the PR states of Penang and Selangor had banned the use of plastic bags on Saturdays, she was thinking of having the Orang Asal weave pandan bags for shopping use instead. The ladies were interested. Felicia then told them that she is going to organize a bag weaving competition soon. The best bag gets some monetary reward plus it is going to be a prototype for the others to follow. The rest of the kampong is going to copy the winning bag and Felicia is going to buy them and later market it in Selangor and Penang. The ladies were delighted. Instead of hoping for some government body to set up a promotions and marketing arm to sell the bags, Felicia did it on her own initiative. I thought this was a novel idea.
Felicia having a serious chat with the ladies of Penderas
There was also goodies for the kids. On the day of the competition, there is going to be a story-telling competition for Jahut children. The best thing is, the narration is not going to be in Bahasa Malaysia, as usually the norm, but in Jahut language. Everyone smiled in approval.
It was almost four. I had to go off early because there was football practice at five. The kids will run me down if I failed to be at the school padang. So it was goodbye to the PKR people and the Orang Asals and I left. On my way out, I noticed this 4WD full of people. As it turned out, according to Haji, later, there were more than fifty people gathered and some even filled in PKRs enlistment forms. Driving along the wet road leading to civilization, I couldn’t help but admire at how Felicia managed to give them boats and nets instead of giving them fish. Also, the steadfastedness of Haji, trying to win the hearts and votes of the Orang Asal, are also commendable. Working hard with limited resources and assistance. Well done to two people with originality
Tags: Kerdau, orang asal, PKR, PR, Temerloh
