Education - Part 5 - Schools and Social Life
Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Pusat Kuala Ibai(SPKI)
Life during primary school at SPKI was not fascinating. Studying at primary school those days were boring and not exciting. We do not have cellular phones and computer games like what the pupils having today. We have only one blackboard in front of our class that we have to focus every day. Thus our mind were purely focused on what we heard from our teachers and what we saw on the blackboard. Since our mind were not even exposed to modern media technologies like today, we were getting used to the modes and systems implemented those days. We can understand and learn easily, day after day.
Those days, we used to walk to school. If it rains, we will take off the shoes and carry it along and walked bare foot to school. We will wear the stocking/socks and shoes when we arrived in our classrooms. We did not want the socks and the shoes to became dirty and wet because wet shoes were difficult to get dry. Besides, shoes were expensive too. I have only one pair of shoes for each year. I never kick hard objects when wearing school shoes because it might easily got torn off and caused a hole on the toe or frontal part. It was a bad habit for those kicking the stones or woods each time they spotted them on their walking path. Thus, their shoes did not last longer.
I remember how my shirt and short looked like on every Sunday morning ( state of Terengganu has Friday and Saturday as weekend. So, school will start on every Sunday as well as government and private sectors too). My shirt and short will be soaked into a light starch liquid. After getting dry, my mother will iron them. It may allow the short to stand by itself. The ironing device made in copper or seterika as we called it in our mother tongue was powered by the coconut shell charcoals. The seterika itself was heavy, weighing more than a kg. So, it took some energy in ironing process and time consuming too for the charcoals to heat the seterika. All pupils must iron their clothes for every Sunday assemblies to sing our National Anthem and to hear our headmaster speeches. I presume all parents of the pupils have seterika at home at that time.
| image of the seterika powered by charcoal |
Those days, primary school boys wore white short sleeve shirts and dark blue shorts whilst girls wore dark blue skirt and white short sleeve shirt. Funny wasn't it? Yet we have not heard any case of outraging modesty among the pupils, what more a rape case at that time. We have not been poisoned by yellow culture yet because no multimedia waves applicable in our society that day. We knew what was sex but no one dare to speak or talk about it in public. We have a love feeling against our opposite sex but that was just to the extend of self feeling only. Looking to the eyes of the loved one was not easy, what more to speak to her/him.
We do not have electricity supply at schools and homes. So, no lights and ceiling fans available in our classrooms, what more air conditioning systems.We have no night classes, tuition or any sort of night revisions at school. We will have to study by ourselves at home under the lantern lights or pelita what we call it in our language. It was not good to our eyes, but then it was the only choice that we have. Our eyes actually got used to the environment and we always have had our dinner under the light of just one pelita. Amazingly, only one pelita was used as night light for our house when we were sleeping.
| pelita |
I remember, my parent's house did not have toilet either inside or attached to the house. But, the house is a wooden house where the floor was made from pieces of hardwood nailed together on the supporting woods set to the wooden pillars of the house. They had a kitchen standing on the pillars too but a bit lower compared to the main house. There was one corner where we can piss at night. This section had a rarely nailed floor woods so that the water can go through or drop faster. There was a big earth ware jar called tempayan in our language which was always full with water for our use. It was my job in the late evening to ensure that the tempayan will be filled with water every day. Sometimes my mother replaced tempayan with another earth ware product called pasu or vase or oval jar. We did not bring or place a pelita at this section because we did not want naughty boys peeping at our sisters or young girls when they pissed. Yet, our eyes can adapt the situation even though the pelita was placed in the middle of the house.
It was our typical life style that we were used to defecate or discharge our unwanted waste material just inside the bushes. The only thing was to ensure you were not stepping on other peoples' products while lurking in the bushes to find a strategic location. Sometimes we have to reverse and find other location because there was somebody already there given warning about his/her presence.
I remember that in the year of 1968, when I was in standard six the government subsidized the toilet bowls to villagers and my parents have one. Still, the small defecating toilet was constructed far from our house, but still on our land. They just dug a hole approximately 7 to 8 feet deep and 4 feet square wide. Then they made a wooden floor and fix the bowl on it. Some family used cement mixture to fix the bowl like the one done by may father. So, there will be a permanent tanker for the shits below the toilet. We have to bring a pail of water each time we want to discharge.
No problem at all. We have our own happy living even though without electricity and its devices. We did have a small transistor radio made in Phillips powered by batteries. The radio lasted many years thereafter. The radio was the only contact that we ever had with the outside world at that time. We heard news, Hindustani songs sang by Mohammed Rafi and Lata Manggeshkar...or local singers like P. Ramlee and Saloma, A Rahman Hassan, A Halim, S Jibeng, L Ramli, Hasnah Haron, Ismail Haron and many more. We also listened to the Egyptian singers like Oumi Kalsoum and Abdul Wahab. Sometimes we gathered around to listen to the dramas or series of radio dramas performed by our local casters.
Next post is about my out of school activities or sports.
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