Every Christmas me and my family return to my hometown in LIMBANG district - in Borneo SARAWAK state located near Brunei border for Christmas celebration and reunion. My grandmother live along with my cousins, with her house located remotely far away for urban hustle and bustle of city life. Where my grandma live is a peacefull green country side with borderless backdrops of mountain, green hills, breezy forest and blue sky. Her house surrounded with trees which bear exotics fruits: coconuts, lychees, durians, mangosteen, lime, rambutan, mangoes and black pepper. Usually i stay there for a week, good thing the cellphone reception is strong enough to receive communication signal, my main source for internet connectivity over there is via GPRS services on my Nokia NGAGE. Whenever i'm staying at my grandma house i felt total freedom, no car honking, no sounds of machines, no black smogs, polution, no crowds of people, no airplanes and no paperwork behind the desk in the office....its total freedom. All around me is just green lushes of trees, vegetation, breezy blowing winds on top of the hills and true blue sky with white columbus clouds at 12 noons. At midnight i sleep endure dropping cold tempreature around 18-16 degree celcius, by morning at 6.00am you'll feel refresh and greeted with damp cold fog refreshing every corner of the dense forest and the bird chrips sounds make's you feel at home and ease. In the morning i woke up early went to have cold bath and get ready for Church's Christmas prayer which is a few walks a way from local church. Then later went back home for heavy breakfast, my gandma always serve us with naturally made pies and cake made from potatoes, bananas and also include durian cakes. Other include fried bananas, hot fried jackfruit dumplings serve with hot coffee and tea. She doesn't need to pull out a single cents to buy all these stuff because mother nature provide all the just behind her house...pluck it and ready to serve. In the cities you'll have to spit out some moneys just for little decent breakfast..but over here it all natural non-artificial buffet good for health. As usual i eat like kings. Before noon i usually follow my father to stroll around the village and meet peoples, local markets, climb on a boat, explore the forest. The peoples are very friendly, they even help you in any sort of difficulties like together building a broken bridges, build place for worship, make roads, help hitchikers, tow you cars and also exchanges foods. Even the public bus drivers know how to joke around and help their passenger in out of the bus aournd the village. This culture have long forgotten practice in the big cities and i'm glad outside the concrete jungle there's someone really cares about polite social life. It made me realised how sucks to be in the big city where material gain comes first and friendship located at the bottom of the social pyramids. You can easily distinguished between friendship and friendshit when you're in an urban culture especially in big fast developed cities. Ok let's get back to my gandma place.
By 12.00 noon, all family would gather around for a good delicious lunch, what so special about lunch? All served with fresh meat, fishes, sauces, fried chicken and cocnut drinks. You can taste the difference between the food bought from the big cities and the food brought up from local market and backyards. Taste like heaven!. Sometimes 3 of my grandma cats would sit beside us and having lunch on separate dishes. Good thing the cats are well trained and discipline when it comes to table manners. Cats over here is not skinny nor fat because they have lots of space to explore around the country side,,backyard full of dense forest trees and like to run around which makes them healthy and fit....plus lower maintenace because they can find their own food and eat fresh fruits and fish, their fur always soft and well maintained...they know how to swim too. Sometime i'm very lucky to see those cats jumping from one branches to another chasing squrriels/marsupial animal up on the tree early cold morning, they looked enjoyed. You won't see typical anywhere in the cities. There's few reason why we love cats, because they did good job to secure and protect my grandma house not only from rodents but pesky spiders, scorpions, snakes and any harmfull lliving things that crept into the house from the forest. They also the ones protect me when i'm sleeping througout the nights protecting me from creepy crawlies by watching me and stand on guard beside me until i wake the next morning. The dogs helps to watchout for big animal like buffalos or wild animals. Buglars? nah,,everyone around here are nice people. Seldom hit by buglars even in 5 years. True peaceful village. There's no gates, fences or anything to protect the property including 4 cars below the house. Pure peace!
On afternoon me and my father and mother would continue travel from point to points around the country side to look over our land that was belong to the family inheritence to check if our few hectars of our land intruded by other people or any illegal activity on top of our land. Later then we visit another of our family member from my father and mother side. For your information both my mom and dad grandparent and cousins are lived on a same concentrated area, which make its easy to visit our relative nearby. Sometimes i would pull out my bike and cycle in the forest and check out cools trails and hills. Good thing i was born as a mountain biker who love to try out new adventurous trails. In the evening we gather as usual and have dinner with our kitchen windows wide open looking at a birght stars at night plus BBQ chicken and beef. The kids gathers at the living room to watch tv. After dinner i usually stay at the kitchen observing my grandma baking cakes and make a rice covered banana leave dumpling mix with coconut milk and barbequed it on the stove for tomorrow breakfast. For me its a great learing experience on how to make my own home made granma recipe when i return back home soon. Before midnight at 10.00pm i would pull out my portable computers or my NGAGE QD, turn on the GPRS services and checkout my websites, forum and mails just to keep up with the latest news and updates. Grandma cats always walk around me and stood by to watch me busy on the screen. As midnight falls the elders still chatting around with relative at night enjoying drinks, puddings, cakes and hang around for good ol-times stories until its almost day break....its typical way to celebrate Christmas over here.
On the second day we usually return home back to the city...the materialistic civilization. Its a long trip. The scenery outside the card windows slowly turn from fresh green and blue sky to dull concrete silver white and dusky sky of the urban nation. Return back to the wasteland where humans are part of the corrupt system and where money rules. That reminds me when i stay at grandma's country side i only spend $5 a week compare to urban life for $200. Its really make sense now when the god says, "Leave all your treasure on earth and don't worry and think about what you should have"...mother nature provide all neccessity needed. Anyways if i'm rich and wealthy i'll return back to this green country side, make a small decent house on top of the hills and enjoy peaceful life where i can enjoy the wind and the peace under the blue sky.
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