Milo at Tintap

Last Monday morning, before seven it was, I found out that he was missing. I announced my find to CMK, his good friend. She clearly displayed her fear of the unknown. She went around the house calling his name. The shrill of her voice might have been loud enough for dog's hearing further than a hundred meters away. After a while I thought her voice was slowly going to crack. Suddenly the love-call roughened and changed. I turned to see cause. Galloping home fast were Obam and Milo, Milo leading Obam at neck-length. The verbal scolding, in English, poured onto Milo, sometimes vented onto Obam. Their breakfast that morning was not worth the scolding they receive, so to speak. They are presently both contenders to be a top-dog at Tintap. It was found out later that they both came from a neighbor's house whose four-legged female happened to be mengawan.

Mr & Mrs Joe Tangit and Family

Joe Tangit and Francesca Chin, who are both in their 60s this year, twenty10, would be celebrating their forty-fourth wedding anniversary on 20th November. It was on such a rare ocation, though well ahead of 20/11, that all the members of the yet so-far gang, their 4 children, son and daughters in-law, together with their 4 grandsons, were gathered in Sabah in September, and, on September 11, for this natural pose at the Tanjung Aru Beach. Terrance and Violet with their sons, Jonathan, Jerold and Julius, are from Singapore; Trixie and Wendel with their son, Kimo, are temporarily home from Australia; Tania, on a short planned leave from her Pensyarah work in UiTM Malacca, and, Trevor and Jennifer, being in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The youngest member in the photograph is a 4-yearer while the oldest is a 66-coming-67 yearer! Would you be able to guess who they are? Your guess could be as good as anybody else's.

Whose Car is Most Likely to be the next?

Do we have to be reminded of a thing like this?

From the Land Below The Wind to the Land Down Under.

It may be the largest gathering of Kadazans and others, mostly of the Jinu & Tangit Kinajil clans and associates, from Sabah, making it to Adelaide, Australia, for days before and after 17th April, 2010. They respond to Fenella's and Aaron's Australia Wedding Invitation.

TWENTY11 did indeed come for me following 20TEN

It was incredible, quite overwhelming, I mean, the social, financial, and even spiritual situations I found myself in at that time. I realized I had just taken the road bend and had just started walking down the Sixty Seventh Street, figuratively speaking. I found myself thinking hard, reverting every strain of thoughts I could muster to God. I have always thought that He is Love, He is Kindness, He is Miraculous, He is everything heavenly and earthly positive for He is God. With this core realization of God's love, I doubly confirmed my trust and hope in Him. But, I still remembered what someone had once told me that I have a suicidal tendency. It was relatively recent that pressure could not be tolerated. It was during those trying times, too, that the numerous pressures of different sizes and shapes snow-balled into a few gigantic ones. I wondered where they could be leading me to. Those are 'knots' of the 20TEN brought forward to TWENTY11. They should be loosened fast. Time, in itself and for me, gathers tight knots all along the pathway of life.

supports in action

My wife at my side

My father on the extreme right

My mother and son in the center

My mother

When I was the Chairman of the Babagon Parish Council (the previous Penampang Parish Council's set ups) in the 70s and beyond, I had good supports from family members and Parish Council friends. These pictures taken during the Centenary Celebration at the Chapel of Saint Peter and Paul, Babagon, are testimonies to such supports. William Joti's support is always noted.

Taken in Wales bah!

I like this picture taken in 1981. It looked better, of course, when it was newer, or, at least, if it was not started on by some unfriendly termites.

When they were young

A casual impromptu pose of cousins taken more that a quarter abad ago.

New Year Eve a long long time ago

These are very old termites-spared pictures. Note that some individuals in the pictures are not around anymore.

Around 1998 or thereabout in time.

Young Jonathan, in his Dodu's hands, is a monongodu kumoinduvo to my mother but a monongodu kumoinsan to Francesca.

At Bagio, The Philipines.

It was in 1979. As some plane tickets were readily available, I found myself alone joining a group of familiar faces on the 1 week Manila Tour. Francesca and Trevor had earlier gone on the Hongkong one. This pose with my good friend, Range, was taken during the walk-about bus-trip to see an active volcano!

Memories of long ago...

My feature room-wall at the Residence

I happened to be away in UK in 1980-81 and I made my home at Mary Morris Residence, an 18p bus-ride to Leeds University. It's a walkable distance and I had once done the walk prompted by some magnetic incentives.

River Rhine Cruise.

At the end of the 3-months professional course at Lancaster University, England, in 1984, the group of Malaysian matured students took time off for an eight-days-10-countries coach-ride European tour. Hectic days and travel, but who really cared! There were cases of buying postcards in one country, self-addressing some and posting them home in another country. No wonder many did not arrive at all. I was at the organized River Rhine Cruise. The others must be all around the boat, shopping.

You can't believe this!

This particular one was taken at the now gone Cathay Theater, Jesselton, (top floor) in 1962. I was a very new tenaga pengajar, a pupil-teacher, at St. Michael's Primary School, Penampang at that time.

Dodu and Aki

with their monongodu and manangaki.

The grand old man

Fwith wsome of his manangaki when they were still very young. Now that they have turned parents themselves, their children are manangaki kumoinduvo to the grand old man.

At the Leeds British Council Welcome Party

Bavang Babagon!

This particular picnic spot of Babagon River had long been wiped out caused by the further up-river, Babagon Dam. Young TMT1 used to enjoy duck-swims in the shallow clear cool water of the stone-strewn popular picnic bank. A little price to pay for development! Terrance was on the suspension bridge over Babagon River when a picture of the bridge was taken for publication in the local daily. The Village Development Committee in those days used to pride in every bit of infrastructure development it had achieved.

With the English Advisory Team leader

In as recent as 1981, from Leeds University I visited the Reading Centre, at Berherside, Skircoat Green, Halifax, HX3 OR2 They had an English Advisory Team operating from that Centre. There were some similarities to the TST (Teacher Support Team, later, Teacher Support Teacher) concept established for convenient groups of schools in Malaysia at around that time too.

In Swansea, England, in 1981.

I was in Leeds at that time. Some younger Sabah students invited me to join them for a weekend trip to Swansea. We visited Robert Gondipon.

A poor show!

What's wrong with this photograph? One may say that there's nothing wrong about it. I agree, there's nothing wrong with it. The photographer wanted to focus on the younger ones only. The older ones ... not that they're not so important, but they were simply not the focus. Just a justifying argument! A display of photograph taking-skill of yesteryears!

More Oldies

Oldies but Goodies!

Of all places!

I met a Kadazan man from Sabah in Lancaster University, England, in 1984. Datuk Verus Aman Sham. We visited the Lake District during one of the weekends.

Their Wedding Day.

It was on a Sunday, 20th November, 1966. Rev. Fr. William Smith, the Rector, of St. Michael's Church, Penampang, allowed it. A Sunday Service coinciding a Wedding Service. A Rector's decision. The wedding invitations were sent out a good fortnight earlier and the regular Sunday Church Service goers were well informed. Marriage Banns and Wedding Days were announced in Church on three consecutive Sunday Masses previously in those days. A good crowd were present for the Sunday cum Wedding Service and nearly all of them stayed on for the wedding group photograph which was taken outside the church after the Service. It could not be done...simply, it's impossible! But, suppose, if the whole episode could be redone, so to speak, the pre, while and post parts of the whole episode, which particular details would they want be done differently? Of all the numerous black and white photographs taken during the occasion, this last termite-partially-spared one is appended as a reminder of an event which happened in the past. It is coming to 44 years old.

The Long-Forgotten Beauty and Usefulness of the Family Dinner

When I grew up in a kampung life-style setting, the evening family meals were almost considered sacred family affairs. Each dinner time was a very important meeting time for all the family unit members. A dinner could not start if there was a missing member of the family. The family head, my mother, for all dinner times, would ask a complaining hungry member to wait for all to arrive. Sometimes someone would be sent out to call any slow comer to come faster for it was dinner time. A kampung call for a brother who happened to be at a neighbor's house or at a game in the field, would be issued aloud in their local tongue, "/ludi:, muhi:, maka:n/" That was in the early 1950s and then onwards in time. Years later, sometimes in and around the late 1980s, the practice of a corporate family meal was still continued and cherished. That was long after the members of that intact family unit that I came to know so well have then gone their separate ways and have then started their own family unit to lead and to guide. The picture appended gives a testimony to such a small family dinner beauty. The eldest sibling would lead the others to organize the setting of the table. The preparation of the food need not be done by the children. Their mother normally did that specialized work, so to speak. The TMTs in the picture are seen around the table ready to partake in a family meal, at dinner time. That was the now-lost happy scenario of a family dinner. Nowadays the sanctity of a harmonious family unit was gravely compromised, if not, grossly corrupted by that anti-Christ red herring, the G games.

Some better days of yesteryears!

Yes, the picture you are looking at says a thousand words! One Confucious of the Orient a long, long time ago once said so, so it was said.

The JETT's Dec 2009 KK Home Visit

While the JETT boys were home in KK numerous sight-seeing trips were actually planned by Tania for them to participate in. All except for just a few fell through. The trip to Tuaran to meet the Orang Utans did take place but the trip to Beaufort to see and be among the early night fireflies was canceled. A Moyog river swim, a short father-supervised one, was enjoyed, while a more prolonged, assured freer Aki-participated promised repeat did not materialize due to the weather constraints. This valid-for-one-year promise is claimable if by December 2010 it is not out-grown and naturally forgotten due to the busy buzz of Singapore City living.