About Ju

Ju owned Daton Ngawi’ Freshwater Fish Farm. After having worked for a Federal Government Department for over thirty four years, he was happy and pleased to retire. His duties at work must have always been tiring for his brain, at one instance, was worked to wish, “When I retired, I would sleep the whole day!”. Sure enough, on the day when he should stop work and take his earned leave before retirement, he was still on active duties conducting a language training course for teachers of the Kadazandusun Language of the Bunduliwan dialect at a course centre in Telupid. His work used to bring him into contact with Primary and Secondary School teachers when he led teams or in team with others, conduct meetings, courses, workshops and seminars for language teachers, language teacher-trainers and language trainer-trainers. The language he was involved in e few years prior to his retirement was the Kadazandusun Language. Before the end of his first year in retirement, he was admitted to a Government hospital for Diabetes and Hypertension. He decided to move to his kampung outback where the desire to go from point A to point B would have to entail physical limbs movement. The availabilities of basic infrastructures at his outback in Kampung Tintap in 1999 was still at a “no! no!” condition. With no road for transportation facilities, he had at that earlier year put up a 20’ by 16’ dwelling house on stilt and extended the whole electricity supply to light his small dwelling place. He had also applied for the supply of a fixed telephone line to his Sulap Tintap. Now, after eight years of BN continued rule, Kampung Tintap had been by-passed with a sealed road and an electricity supply line. There was also a corporately erected mobile phone transmitting station to ensure handphones’ full bar connectivities. Prior to retirement there had been arranged for four 30m by 60m fishponds built on his Tintap outback. When he retired in 1999, he settled the loan taken to start the fishfarm project together with all other financial loans taken from the same source. Tintapland on which Daton Ngawi’ Freshwater Fish Farm was built on had been dissected into 3 portions by the Babagon-Timpango road and the Jalan Babagon Indah which led to the Babagon Agriculture Station. In phases and stages, mainly due to the avaiability of funding, new numbers to the original four fishponds were added. The number for a long time now stood at 11 and there had been no further additions to that number. At a glance, the farm did not positively impress any onlookers. It should manage to negatively impress anyone as a farm sorely neglected! There had been a few, four Temorese to be exact, changes of workers at the farm. The main reason as to why the workers did not stay long was that, they said, it was a bit lonely a place to stay – there was no other nationals of theirs for miles away, apart from the fact that Tintap was not on the main bus route. In fact, there was no regular bus service plying the route to town. The only public transportation available were the “pawong” mini buses which are not licensed and insured to carry passengers. Ju, the proprietor of Daton Ngawi’ Freshwater Fish Farm, lived alone in his farm. He used to wonder as to why, at such nearing the golden age, he had to live alone. He had been years ago diagnosed a diabetic and suffering from an acute case of hypertension. Because of those illnesses his heart had weakened and his kidneys impaired. His eyes, at times, failed him, especially when his insulin was high due to his careless ‘home alone’ food intake style. But he was very regimental in taking his tablets. He was on the following medications: Captopril 25mg 6 tablets per day Metoprolol 100mg 2 tablets per day Metformin 500mg 3 tablets per day Amlodipine 10mg 1 tablet per day Asprin 300mg ½ tablet per day Allopurinol 300mg 1 tablet per day Both his legs, in recent months, failed him. He could not walk out of bed in the morning. When he had exercised his limbs a bit by forced movements, he could then limp around. After some forced limpings doing his domestic chores and farm rounds, the limpings improved, not amounting to normality. The doctor thought it could be gout and sent him for uric acid test. He recorded 700 on the unit count. He was then put on Allopurinol. There was a case when he had food poisoning. At that time, he was still under the care of Klinik Luyang. He had to stay the whole day at the clinic finishing the numerous tests normally undergone by a diabetic patient at mid year period. He had to take his lunch in one of the eateries around. He had very poor rating of the food available, yet he took them all the same. It was at about 1.00 o’clock in the afternoon. When everything at the clinic was over, he went home just in time to do his fish feeding rounds before it got dark. There was no one at the farm the whole day! Dinner that evening was rather scanty but rated excellent by Ju’s standard. At about 8.00 p.m. or thereabout, he felt his tummy tightened. He knew it was stomach ache. The inner and whole stomach muscles cramped. He fought each bout remembering the cold sotong dish he had taken about eight hours ago. He felt strong to withstand the often repeating cramp-ache bouts. Then the poisoning turned aggressively cruel and he had to throw out those rejects. They were coming out as rejects from both ends! At 11.00 p.m. he felt exhausted and too weak to fight the generally felt stomach pain anymore. He had to stay at the loo, sitting on the throne, longer than necessary. He rang the switch board of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu and he was put through to a Kadazandusun medical officer on duty. Ju explained that he was in pain and wondered whether the hospital provided para-medic services and ambulance. The information provided were both in the negative. Ju thought there was no need to be angry with the Kadazandusun fellow at the other end because he was only doing his duty. He was also remotely thinking that should he not survive the night then there would be no additional minus signs for St. Peter to see on his imaginary report cards. That Kadazandusun man was very sane because he wished Ju well and that he should, in and for his condition, look for other alternatives. Ju rang for Dolis, his sister, knowing that she had close ties with the Sabah Foundation Ambulance services and para medics. It was past 11.30 p.m. and there was no answer. At that time, the stomach pain was not intermittent but rather continuous and it was at that time that he felt a general coldness enveloping. There was that general feeling of surrendering in mind and spirit coupled with physical tiredness to the extreme. The last few precious moments felt was intense freezing coldness and the sense of sleeping …falling down… sinking down… down and asleep. Ju woke up in the morning, at about his usual waking up time, feeling very weak because of the previous night’s episode. At hindsight, he might even have forgotten to thank the good Lord for looking after him during the night, not allowing yet death to take over his mortal self. When he was receeding into oblivion the night before, a little thought of the good Lord did not even cross his slipping mind. But, as provened in many previous incidences, the good Lord was consistent with his goodness. Daton Ngawi’ Freshwater Fish Farm did not make good money. It could just manage to break even. One of the facilities provided for by having the farm was that there would always be fish dish available if friends indeed came to visit.