school... during early days in sua.

Saddling back the memory lanes... I remembered back in1984, when i entered standard one, my dad sent my eldest brother Ilham and me to school on the first day. My brother is in standard three at that time. Where is the school? Back then it was known as SRK Kg Klid/Plajau Dalat... located at Kampung Klid Dalat. My class teacher was Cikgu Abdul Rahim, a Perak lad. The only Muslim family around at that time. And happened that at that time the school compound is still flooding. I don't know any other school as prone as SK Klid to flood or not, the school compound will flood even if there is high tide. Elevated walking path were properly built around school compound to tackle this problem. During actual flood however, this elevated walking path is fully submerged underwater and we have to move around school compound by sampan. As we stayed at home, we had to paddled our sampan in a group of four from our kampung to and from the school everyday. It took us around an hour to reach school, and as we go against water flow, we used to missed first class of the day, or if we are lucky, during mid of the first class. It is our routine till a hostel was ready for all of us to stay at school... do not remember when is it, likely in the year of 1984 as well.
There is no school at Kg Sua. The number of children available is just not enough to make it... Even SRK Kg Klid/Plajau is so uniquely named because during servay carried out before formation of the school had to consider available children from Narub, Klid, Sua and Plajau in order to make up the quota.
After its formation, children from Plajau usually end up enrolling at SRB St John Medong, as most of villagers from Plajau are Medong people who just stayed up at Plajau to work at their field. At my time in the school, number of student never reach 50. My class I think is the least in number of pupil in the history of the school. We started with 9 pupils. After 4 years, we settled at 8 pupils... Igat, a brilliant classmate had to give up his study to take up job at logging camp to help his parent, hmm, his mother is a widower with 5 or 6 kids to look after. Pity him cause on the year he left he already moved up to 2nd rank in the class. There were 3 classes, one class for standard one, one class for standard three and one for standard five. On the next year, there will be no new intake. The three classes will still be occupied by the same pupils, only there were upgrading to the class standard. Each classes will move one standard higher. Movement of pupils to the next class will only take place after every two years, when pupils from standard six completed their elementary years and enrolled to secondary school.

Kampung Sua Dalat

Hi... so the first words... what do we expect? Well, Kampung Sua Dalat is located by Batang Oya banks, somewhere about 40 minutes travelling using 15 hp outboad motor from Kampung Medong. Not so sure on km, but from Dalat town, it will take around 1 hour and 10 minutes, again travelling using 15 hp outboard motor. There is no proper road laid to the kampung at the moment. The nearest possible access by road is only up to government water pump house at Lebachau, about 10 minutes from Medong, if travelling by boat. The road actually linked up from Medong tar road ant its a gravel road all the way to Lebachau.
Sua considered a small sized kampung, with number of villagers likely just over 50. Number of houses in the village just 4 houses shy of 20... or closer to 20, but i doubt there is more than that at the moment. The village spanned from border of Plajau to border of Klid, maybe about 10 km along river banks. Villagers are mostly loggers and farmers. However since the recent economic crisis, most logging camp no longer operating, leaving loggers wondering on their next job... which obviously none... Farmers operate on small scale, often just enough for daily consumption. Mostly housewives will do gardening... so, categorically not fit to consider them as farmer... Fishing are quite difficult as catch is limited to some type of fish and prawn. Except for prawn, fish catch are unlikely to boost anything from economic view as volume is not there. Mostly are just enough for domestic consumption... Sago cultivation become main income generator to most families around. They either depend on their own limited sago cultivation area or working with few wealthy landlords to cut down their sago trees... an option for most ineffective loggers to make a living.