Vestiges - of Hari Raya and Kampung

One more day to Hari Raya - thousands have gone back home to the kampung.  This has always been part and parcel of celebrating Hari  Raya and I hope that in years to come the home of the Malays in the kampungs will always be there and will not have been sold, mortgaged, auctioned and requisitioned by greed, penury, development  and the authorities.

Old Singaporeans like me remember what Malays in the Semenanjung are enjoying today.

We used to have kampungs to live in  ............

The Family's Third Kampung House - Pasir Panjang

In that house Mak would cook ketupat in big cauldrons.  Every year without fail she would make dodol - till today I have not found any dodol that could match hers, for taste and texture and longevity!  We would help in the easy jobs like squeezing  coconut milk from 10 coconuts or so and stirring the brew during the early stages.  The latter part, when the dodol became thick and heavy were left to Mak and Abah.  We would of course be dipping into the kwali when it was all done to get to the kerak which was the most delicious part of this all-mighty Malay treacle-cake!

But we, or rather I, had  more poignant memories of Hari Raya in the kampung simply because Abah had taken photographs of the celebration. This was when when we were living in a rented kampung house just across the river from the house Abah was building - and which we would soon move into.  Because my sister and I were just slightly older than toddlers, Abah would make a special star and banners for his two little girls and later, his little boy Mus.

The three-year-old AsH  posing demurely  with her Abah's Hari Raya stars attached to a blanket.

More stars and a banner.  

Air Oren in bottles were a big Hari Raya treat!

But those halcyon Singapore days are gone because the Malay kampungs have been expunged.  Only memories and photographs in coffee-table books remained - it's almost similar to the way we preserve and observe the life of the dinosaurs.

As for this kampung at Pulau Semakau where most of  my 1967  Menengah Satu kids at Sekolah Menengah Yusof Ishak came from :

Pulau Semakau today has the proud record of being the first landfill and now the only remaining landfill in Singapore, according to Wikipedia.

But,  my nostalgia for those days have been encapsulated by the spouse in this illustration.  It combines the Blogger and the person and he has lovingly included my two favourite flowers - Bunga Tahi Ayam (Lantana) and the Senduduk  and cats as well!   What more could a geriatric kampung girl ask for?

And finally to all my followers and readers and friends and family, here's an old fashioned Hari Raya card.  No Eid Mubarak and other modern/alien terminologies - just a simple SELAMAT  HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI,  MAAF ZAHIR dan BATHIN.