Fruit Season Again

Salam, hello, hi,

Here I am sitting in my quiet office enjoying a bunch of "rambutan" and some "dokong" fruits. We took a lot from my mom's village yesterday. Normally my family and I would go back to see my mom once a month but since the fruit season started we have been going for almost every week! I feel kind of bad because it seems that eating her fruits is more important than seeing her. But then again, she would insist that we do just that. I think this past weekend would be the last time we go back until sometime before "Eid" which will be around the 11th of September. Anyway, the "durians" are almost gone but "rambutans" are a lot more on the trees. I think the "dokong" will be gone soon too. I forgot to check whether the "mata kucing" were still intact. I am not surprise if the bats have clobbered them all. Wild boars have been having some feasts over durians as well.

Lately, I have been neglecting my blogs as well as my emails and FB. I have a lot to do for my classes. I prefer teaching EOP to EAP because I can actually relate my past experiences as an administrator to my EOP class. But it's a good learning experience for me.

My kids are growing fast and soon Harris will be as tall or taller than me. He hasn't been back home every time we went because he was busy with school activities. He will be sitting for his UPSR soon. I hope he'll do just as well as Danial and Yasmin. I wonder if the Government is really going to abolish UPSR some day. Well, it doesn't make that much difference to me because none of my kids will go to boarding schools at the age of 13! They are still too young to be separated from us. Once they leave the house they will be gone! I want to keep them for as long as I can. Also, with or without UPSR, Malaysians will still be crazy about exams, grades, and tuition classes!

Danial has entered 2 debate tournaments and a spelling bee contest since the last time I wrote an entry to this blog. Yasmin has entered a corral speaking and public speaking contest in Terengganu. I am quite envious of my children because they are so active in school. Hannah has not participated in major events yet but maybe she's a late bloomer. She loves to draw and she is still going to the piano lesson regularly. I am curious how Najla will turn up once she goes to elementary school. Speaking of school, she is no longer in kinder garden but she re-joined her nursery where she doesn't have to learn anything in a formal way. She said she was bored with the kinder garden because she knew most of the activities they asked the kids to do. We are not too worried because she can read and write in both English and Malay. Lately, she said she will go back to the kinder garden after "Eid" so that she will be qualified to walk on the stage to get her kinder garden certificate at the end of the year.

We are all excited about our new house. We just saw it this morning. I think it's 80 percent ready. I was told that it could be finished by October. We really hope to be able to move in by November or December. That will be the perfect time because the kids will have their school holidays. Hopefully they will help packing and unpacking the stuff. Argh ... I hate thinking about moving, again! The aches and pains from our recent moving are still very much alive in our muscles and veins. But we hope, this time around it will be different because we are finally moving into our own home!

Juan’s Visit to Our Kampong

We have been going back to the “kampong” quite often lately because it’s fruit season. If we don’t go and eat all those fruits, who else is going to do that? However, last weekend (18 July) was special because we had a guest, Juan, a wonderful medical student from Mexico. He plans to do a practical training in the US so he met with Steve a few times to get used to the American accent. We didn’t travel to the kampong together because he was in KL the day we drove back last Saturday. He arrived with his parents around 7.15pm. That night my sister had a gathering at her house so Juan got to experience a kampong style gathering. He ate all the hot and spicy dishes (masak lemak cili padi) and had no trouble eating rice with his hand. The next morning, Steve, Najla, Hannah and I sent him to St Joseph Church (SJC) in KP but it was closed. We drove to the nearby Methodist Church in case if the Minister knew when SJC would be opened. We were told that the mass would be held at 11am in Bahau instead of KP for that weekend. Since we still had plenty of time, we headed to the nearby stall for breakfast. Juan and Steve ate “nasi lemak”, Najla and Hannah ate nuggets, and I ate curry puffs.

After we finished our breakfast, we decided to play tourist guide so we took Juan to the Sri Menanti Old Palace. We didn’t stay long, just enough to take a few photos, so that Juan would not miss his mass. Since we are not too familiar with Bahau, we asked the policemen who were standing outside of a supermarket. Two of them started their motor cycles and showed us the way to the church.

We went back to my mom’s house at lunch time. We wanted to take some fruits but it started to rain really hard. We all took a nap until the rain stopped. Then we took some “manggis”, “langsat”, “duku”, and “mata kuching”. Steve also took Juan to the durian orchard across the river and they got 2 big durians. We cut one up so Juan could eat it and he really liked the taste because it was fresh from the tree. We hope he had a good time because he seemed to blend in well with the kampong folks. We’ll miss him when he goes back to Mexico.

Najla posed by the river while waiting for Steve and Juan getting durians

Getting ready to get "mata kucing" behind my sister's house

Eating dinner at my mom's house before we headed back to Kuantan

Fruit Eating Galore

Durians, the King of the Fruit

Sometime during the week, my mom called to let us know that the durians have already started falling and she had gathered a lot for us to eat. Since Steve and I love durians so much, we didn’t need to be persuaded more. Friday night (26 June), Yasmin and Danial had “qiamuallail” at their school so Yasmin could not go to her art lesson that Friday. Steve made arrangement so that Yasmin and Hannah could attend the art class on Saturday morning. Coincidently on that Saturday (27 June) our piano lesson was moved from 9am to 11.30am. So Hannah and Yasmin went for their art class from 10am to 12 noon. I had my piano lesson at 11.30 and Hannah had hers at 12noon right after she finished painting and drawing. After “zuhur” prayer we all went back to my mom’s kampong to enjoy the fruits – “durians, rambutans, manggis, duku, nona, rambai, jambu air, and kundang”.

Rambai

Yellow Rambutan

Langsat

Kundang

Limau Kasturi

Nona

Durian, just fell

Wow! Steve tried hard to get those manggis

Yummy manggis

Poor jambu. Too much competiton! They just rot...

What a big durian!

Red rambutans

Najla's always excited in the kampung

Not only fruits are in season, flowers are too.

Fruits from Our Backyard

This morning Steve plucked 6 papayas from the trees just behind our kitchen. I cut one up for dinner tonight and it was delicious! We will have plenty more to enjoy for the next few days. We also have a lot of young mangoes

on the tree in the back yard. They should be ripe in a few weeks or 2 months.

Belimbing Buluh

These tart fruits are delicious to cook “Masak Lemak Cili Padi” with fish or “daging salai” (smoked meat?). I have quite a lot of them at the back of my house. The tree is still small because Steve planted it quite recently. I think this is the first time the tree bears so many fruits. I have to confess that I am not too fond of cooking so I am afraid that they will end up rotting and falling off the tree. I wonder if there are some friends who would like to take them before it’s too late. What a shame.