Bapak loves to send letters....

In one of his letters to his children and grandchildren, he described how he adores the "taman sayur".

Villa Pijay Padang Rengas
27th May,2003

Dear Anak-Anak,

Since you were around at Villa Pijay things seemed to be moving.. The "pondok" behind the house is almost completed and the area around it is being tidied up. A pipe-line to the "pondok" has also been fixed and the sink is now being used. . We are storing up the rubbish at the back into the "pondok". That piece of the plot of land belonging to a neighbour adjacent to our Kebun Sayur has been ploughed up and I heard a new house is going to be built some time or so..

However,the area is being tidied up and I can now see the traffic plying east-west on the "main-road"! (Lat and I are planning to make the cleared area as a reserved parking ground during Om's kenduri!). Now that the "pondok" is getting fully utilized Yah and I are planning to make that plot of land the Kebun Sayur into a "Taman Sayur" . Your Mak has reserved a small area to plant her intended "medicinal plants".

The wetland area nearer the house across the spring-river has been nicely cleaned of bushes and grass by our hard-working Mak Andak and this area has been now planted with fruit plants, some 30 varieties of them which cost me some $300.00. Some. of them are-budgrafted, of these are a dozen durian trees. The others covered plants like dokong, rambutan, limau manis, langsat, salak manis, mangoes, nangka madu, salak manis, sukun, jambu madu. All about 30 of them. I have wanted you all and my cucus to organize themselves to do the planting "ceremoniously" but it saddened me that you people are not "interested" to organize themselves to do so. So this last 24th Saturday taking the opportunity of the visit of some of my Rotarian friends from lpoh calling over to hold a Committee Meeting at this PJ retreat with their annes and a few children, some 20 of them or so including our Japanese girl Gakko Koukan Sei (Student Exchange) took up the opportunity to plant-up the pokok-pokok buahan each one marking up their personal pokok and also mark up their position so that they may come back over some time to look how their pokoks fair in the orchard!. A few of them had made me promise that when one day the trees bear fruits that their children will be free to collect them!. The plants are caringly watered every day.

The corns are already being picked now. Already we have picked up a lot of them for home consumption. But how much can we eat them? In consultation with your Mak Andak we have already distributed some to our neghbours and saudara-mara around here since my anak-cucu can buy their jagungs easily in the cities- no hardwork!!! My next step is being discussed with Din our neighbour down there that the space beside the boundary with The Technical School now being cleared nicely will be utilized to plant with Limau Bali hopefully with the help pf AH KEE in Tambun,Ipoh (Nun, please take note when you are around in lpoh or when you are coming back to Villa Pijay). I cannot remember Ah Kee's house in Ampang and so can't go as yet to talk to him.

I am very happy indeed with my "Fruit Orchard" here in this Villa Pijay. A number of "people" have been coming around to visit your Mak and me and..some for the purpose to "see" our Taman Sayur and Kebun Buahan! ! You note that I call the vegetable plot "Taman Sayur" and not "Kebun Sayur".

Now I am planning to install a water pipe-line to the Taman Buahan and a wooden bridge from the ridge this side across. We also want to have a small hut the other side as a rest area. Mak mentioned about a variation of a "pondok wakaf' in Trengganu or in Kelantan.If any member of the family wants to donate any of these items and name it after its own family name you are welcome.

Health wise your Mak has been ill for some time but is now almost back to normal except that she still complains of her leg'pain. I seem to be alright nowdays. I do not use the walking stick as I used to so much these days. In fact, since the last three days I seem to have lost one of my walking sticks, a favourite one, indicating that I really do not need walking stick! The pijay SS &Sudut Sembang\Gossip corner) is gathering bigger still but now appear to be moving from one "statiton" to " another" i.e from the old Taman Sayur to the "Taman Pokok Buahan"!
It is a lot of fun being around at this Villa Pijay!

Yours affectionately
Bapak / Ki

Stop Press
This noon we decided to trade off some of our corns and had been able to dispose offabout 5 gunny bagful of them to a trader who came to our Pijay. Tomorrow they will be coming around for a gunny bagful or two more. Despite that we still some off the corns for a small berkelah at the orchard also with laksa from your Acik today! ltulah kau orang tak nak balik.

(Sadly mak passed away on 1 July 2003, just about a month after this letter was written)