Last visit back to my kampong (Sg. Korok, Alor Setar, Kedah), I managed to snap the above pictures. The one and only ayam I saw. A lonely soul? Yup, looked like one. Not sure who this ayam belongs to. That brings back the memories of our childhood days, me and my sisters. Those days, we had a ‘lau ayam’ (it means reban ayam), and full of ayam. Every morning we would collect the eggs, a lot of them! My late grandparents had a bigger ‘lau ayam’ and more ayam than us. And we also became more rajin to collect eggs from their ‘lau’ as well. Yup, that was not a nice thing to do, but as kids, those were part of our adventure (kampung style)! We even sold the eggs to ‘kedai Tok Ngah Bedah’. ‘Kedai Tok Ngah Bedah’ is the only sundry shop available in my kampong. The other one is ‘kedai Topui’ (belongs to some fat Chinese guy). It was a bigger shop further away from home. Had to cycle there if we needed to go. Cycling to ‘kedai topui’ was also an adventure! Too many distractions along the way and those distractions was definitely fun!. Haiza, if you are reading this, you would agree with me, right? Since most of the time, we had to ‘jalan kaki’, the only shop we frequented was ‘kedai tok ngah bedah’. Hmmm…. also a lot of distractions along the way!! Back to the chicken and the lau story…. Besides chickens, we also had a lau for ducks. But during day time, these ducks would venture out and away 'having fun' in the padi fields behind our house. Quite far, actually. And every evening became our duty to look for the ducks and to get them home. They did, most of the time, fortunately. When arwah ayah passed away in 2004, we still had a couple of ducks and also ayam, minus the ‘lau’, but slowly and finally they all left. Maybe because mak had also left for KL, and there’s no one to feed them. As for me, all these had been a part of my life, my growing up years, the fun time with all my sisters and brothers (consists of generations of the 60s, 70s and also 80s!), and more importantly the life we had with arwah ayah and mak. In all limitations, all these had been great. And I do want to keep those memories alive!!! Hence the above pictures....
----------- "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others"
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