(1330) Cultural Part 1

A good friend of mine is a native of Sabah. Her parents were subsistence farmers living on their ancestral land. Somehow they brought up 11 children on a few acres of shifting cultivation agriculture. The father has passed on. The mum is still mobile and healthy.

Six years ago I visited my friend's village. As far as I could see, the family lived in three wooden houses on stilts built by the local Government. These are communal houses allotted to the poor. As long as the families continue to reside there, they are the rightful owners. Once the building is abandoned, then it will revert back to Governement.

The house on the extreme right belongs to the eldest sister, who is a widow. She has stayed there since the house was given to her husband. Her children are all grown up and scattered. She lives with an unmarried daughter and a teenage grandson. The widow lives by selling rice wine, and her daughter is a dressmaker working from home. The boy attends a nearby school.

The house in the middle used to be a dwelling of the second son's family. As he prospered in the city, his growing family joined him there. My friend is the only one who has not bought nor built her own house. During a previous family council, it was agreed by all parties concerned that it will be hers if she claims it. She did. For now, one brother and a nephew stays in the house during week days, acting as caretakers for her. By the time her nephew finishes his secondary school, she probably has to move there to keep the house.

The house on the left was occupied until my friend's father died. It was left empty for a few weeks. Then a newly married nephew moved in. Everything sounded wonderful until I heard that the house has not been upkept nor repaired since I visited it 6 years ago. I was shocked, to say the least. Here I have to explain that cultures vary from place to place. While folks in the peninsular would probably assume the free tenant would repair the house communally owned, in Sabah the expectations are different. After all, the tenant was given permission to stay in the house. This person would never own the house legally. Therefore, nobody would expect him to pour money into repairing the house. I asked, "What if the house falls down in a freak storm?" Well, if that happens, then it happens! There you see the fatality aspect of the local aboriginal life.