Few images from my first schooling year kept on flashing either as day dreams or just imaginations over the last few days. As if they were to remind me that Nanga Assam Primary School in Melupa, Saratok should mark its 55th anniversary this year.
Or, is this the result of my meeting with my cousin ‘Mamat’ – I still call him using his childhood name and while in school I was never aware that his birth certificate said or says otherwise – quite recently while dropping by at Unimas, in Samarahan, to check on my daughter Dawn Sara.
I committed to memory some events of 1962; it was my first year in school aged eight. ‘Mamat’ only entered Primary One a few years later, that’s why now he, going by his real name Prof. Dr. Spencer Empading Sanggin, is still in Unimas, as Dean of Social Science.
Our first day at school was historic as we were the pioneers of Nanga Assam Primary School, Melupa, in Saratok – my registration number was 7 (seven). More historic was the misdemeanours of some two scores of boys, young men and girls, many of whom were past puberty, who bathed together at a river stretch next to the school – in their birth suits. As a timid eight-year-old, I was only a spectator and the sights of both male and female genitals, not to mention the mammary endowments of innocent girls/maidens were taken for granted. After all, those were the days when topless Iban maidens and their mothers were a commonly accepted peculiarity. (Come to think of it, the many postcards of then Iban women in topless poses, showing breasts of various sizes and shapes, are testaments of this phenomenon.) Such sights went well with the remote mentality and culture traits at that time. Such images were ones that kept on flashing in my mind over the last few days.
However, this did not go well with our headmaster and sole teacher, my uncle Michael Abunawas, a famed disciplinarian, schooled in the new order of the Anglican Church. On the second day Uncle Abun called an assembly and disallowed boys and girls to bath together. His wife, Auntie Durie, then a mother of eight, came to her hubby’s rescue by giving the girls counselling in protecting their modesty. She scored 10/10 as the first day was the older boys’ only lucky moment where they had a field day stealing glances at their female counterparts’ supposedly hidden treasures that left nothing to imagination.
Parents were called and meetings were held to iron out some of the teething problems including preparing two separate bathing places along the stretches of the river for males and females. Later the girls had their bathing place prepared at the upper part of the river.
“Topless bathing in public for girls is prohibited from now onwards. Boys are not allowed to bathe without their shorts,” Uncle Abun announced with a grave look after meeting the parents on the second day of school. Such arrangement has remained until today as far as bathing in the river is concerned, though it is purely academic as the school now enjoys piped water supply, thanks to the so-called ‘gravity feed’.
About a year ago a few adventurous young girls who tried to swim in anticipation of a high tide at this very stretch, which is the farthest tidal point,
made a miraculous escape from a six-foot crocodile that shockingly appeared just about three metres or so from the bathing party. (This was the first of such incidence/appearance after more than five decades).
Past forward to six months later in 1962, the school held its first Sports Day. One of those flashing images was that of my cousin-in-law Brayun Encharang who threw the ‘javelin’- improvised out of special wood – and landed far beyond the edge of the sports field, among the rubber trees. Some of the so-called field events’ judges had to search for the ‘javelin’ among the rubber trees and made measurement. Luckily, Brayon’s throw was the only one that outdistanced the field edge.
The image of my eldest brother Edward Jelani hurling the shot put added another hilarity to Nanga Assam inaugural sports day, a year preceding the birth of a nation called Malaysia. Educated in Seria, Brunei, Edward, then 20, was trying to show the others the ‘Olympic’ way of throwing the shot put, only that it landed inside an empty classroom after hitting the beam of a classroom window. The throw was disqualified but not without causing few good laughs. Another throw by him landed well but was only good for second place losing to our granduncle Saa who was thrice Edward’s age.
In the evening, the school held its first concert where I debuted on stage with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars’. About twenty students led by my second brother Jon @ Chandi, then 14, put up a play/sketch titled ‘Pemancha Dana Bayang’ an Iban legendary hero of the same name. The lead character ‘Dana Bayang’ was acted by Jon. Many of the players were older than him, with one or two nearing twenty. As a new school, many of the students had been to other schools much earlier but stopped schooling for years and resumed when Nanga Assam started its first class of around 50 students in 1962. Jon also went to school for some weeks in Tandok Primary School lower down along the Krian River at a settlement called Kerangan. But every time the ‘Muto Labo’ a vessel plying between Saratok town and out Kedap longhouse passed by the Kerangan wharf, Jon was always there crying and followed the vessel up to Kedap and finally quit the school with dad’s blessing.
So Nanga Assam provided Jon and many others a second chance. Attired in any shirt or shorts and some without footwear, the hairy legs of many of my Primary One classmates were also images that flashed in my daydreams lately. Perhaps it’s about time that I consult Mamat @ Prof. Dr. Spencer Empading and scores of other schoolmates to plan for an event to mark Nanga Assam’s 55th anniversary. By now, the school has produced no less than 300 graduates in various disciplines. I hold the honour to be its first ever graduate. That could be why the images kept on coming back to remind me lately.
