When I was young....

Lailatul Qadar will be coming soon. It will  happen in the last ten nights of Ramadhan. I would blog about the Lailatul Qadar later, but today I would like to share with you about my life in kampong in the early 70’s.

There was no electricity in my kampong, and by 7pm, the whole place would be dark and quiet. The only noises would be coming from crickets. We used oil lamp to lighten up the house. So at night, there were not many activities for us, kids. 

Most of the time we spend our nighttime studying or we went for Quran reading class. Walking in the dark to the Ustaz could be very challenging and scary. I was lucky that the Ustaz house was just across the main road.

Every evening, before it gets dark we were already at the Ustaz’s house. Well, there were more than ten of us, and we had to take turns to read in front of the Ustaz. While waiting for our turn, we would recite it first over and over.

The Ustaz was a fierce man. He didn’t like us to talk or play. If anybody caught playing, he would smack you with his cane. Hahaha…. Everybody would sit as far away as possible from him. Those who came in last would be the unfortunate one to sit near him.

We would not leave until he gave us permission to leave. In other words, we can only leave once everybody has finished his or her session with him, and normally, it will be after eight. By then, it would be very dark.

Since our house was only about 500 meter, we just ran across the road without any lights to assists us, but there were two sisters and a brother who lived quite a distance from the Ustaz’s house.

Since there was no road lights to lit the way, they used the dried coconut leaves to help them see their way home. The coconut leaves would be tied together, and they would light it. It’s their torchlight.  They would bring three of it and would light it one after another.

They didn’t mix much with the rest of us, and because of that we liked to tease them.  When we were half way to our house, we would shout at them, “Hantu……” or “Ghosts…” and ran as fast as possible.

The three of them would be running and screaming down the road with the burning coconut leaves. Every time they screamed and ran down the road, we would be laughing, until one day, their grandfather came to the Ustaz’s house and warned us.

From that day onwards, we didn’t tease them anymore. Furthermore, not long after that, they lost their mom. I didn't see them much after that. I wonder what happened to them now. I have not heard about them for so long. Maybe I would take the opportunity this Raya to ask my aunty or cousins about them.