Hardship (The Prequel)

When my mom was a little girl, she lived in a village in Pasir Mas, Kelantan (Malaysia's East Coast).

Her parents were paddy farmers. They had their own plots and worked the land.

She learnt from young how to plant paddy, harvest it and process it into rice and rice flour.

The whole supply chain is done by humans: her parents and her siblings.

Grueling work is probably the way to describe it: they toiled under the hot sun for planting and harvesting, they used a large mortar-and-pestle like contraption to separate the rice grains from their shells, these are then stored in their granary (Mum calls it the 'rice house'), and they grind the rice to make rice flour (among others). If they want to make kuih, they will pluck some coconuts, break them open with the parang and then grate it manually, seated on a kukur kelapa (like in the photo below). Compared to me who buys rice, rice flour, and grated coconut from stores, they lived the hard life.

Source: Kukur Kelapa

After the harvest and processing, her mum (my grandma) would take the bus to go to Pasir Mas market bringing the rice and some chickens to be sold. She would leave early in the morning and returned home at sundown, bringing home some "kuih" for the children. They would all wait for her on the tree outside their house and would be elated to get some bites of the kuihs.

What I realised from Mum's stories is this: they knew how to live and feed themselves from the plants around them. They learnt to be resilient. They had life skills. Mum learnt about edible plants and fruits; she knew how to fish; she of course knew how to cook; she taught herself to swim; and she knew the nooks and crannies of the forest. Well, technically the village was densely forested and she knew her way around. [In fact, my late uncle when he moved to our housing development, found a lake/. water source in the nearby forest reserve. When there is water disruption, he would go to the lake and get some water there. Now the area has been cordoned off and turned into a reservoir.]

Would I/ we want to live like that now? Probably not.

Would the skills be relevant though? Probably yes.

How would the 2 be merged now, to raise more resilient children and remind parents of the important things? Even if my life now has no similarity to Mum's experiences in the past, the skills and lessons are as relevant as ever, in 2023.