My Longkang

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Yours truly here had a wonderful time, although it rained on the eve and on Christmas day.

I was invited along to a Christmas day evening concert. There were many items but yours truly bungled up with the photography so I have only the pic of the choir. Don’t they look lovely? I found out they took a long time to prepare for the item but they sang like angels .

On Christmas Day itself we went to an Iban longhouse about two hours from Sibu. The trip itself was uneventful although it was a bumpy ride and I had to hold on a my seat to make sure I arrived in one piece rather than pieces.

Pic shows a small shop where we had a ‘piss’ stop.

The kids welcomed us at the long house with such sincere smiles I couldn’t help but be touched.

This pic shows the Selebang Longhouse somewhere between Balingian and Setapang.

To climb up the longhouse, we had to climb up this plank. This little chick thought I was going to throw some food to it and rushed over. There is a pail of water so visitors can wash their feet before climbing up the stairs.

This is the convoy of vehicles we used to arrive there.

Christmas day celebrations started with a simple worship. Articles of worship etc were all very simple, and some were made from polystyrene and tinsel paper. The Christmas tree was made of polystyrene pasted on the wooden wall. Half way through the service, it fell off. Everyone laughed but it was put up again without any fuss. It was weird to sing Iban carols but I could follow because their spelling follows the pronunciation. One of them started to talk to me and when I tried to explain I didn’t understand Iban, he looked at me in disbelief because he had heard me singing in Iban.

Pic shows two elderly women content to watch the world go by. They were very generous with their smiles and obviously well-liked and respected in the community.

Pic shows a kind lady teaching the children how to sing. The children adore her.

This is a game where one uses a fishing hook to catch a duck.

The rules are written in both English and Iban. Iban for the long house folk and English for the visitors from Sibu.

Darts improved extremely popular among the residents. Surprisingly, they proved very good at the game. I wonder if is because of their good eye-sight or they have been hunting before or…. . but they won many prizes at this games stall.

Coupons are given and each time they play a game, it is struck off a list. Every one young and old enjoyed this activity..a break off their usual routine.

This lovely middle-aged Iban lady had a lot of fun. She came to enjoy herself and she did. When she left, she had a whole bag of prizes.

This stall was manned by a delightful couple from Sibu. I don’t know who enjoyed the game more, them or their customers. They seemed to be enjoying themselves so much.

The residents were very disciplined. No queue-jumping at all. No loud voices.

Pic shows a woman who loves to play games but you wouldn’t know it from her expression

Pic shows the leader of the group from Sibu playing darts. I didn’t know if his aim was good or not : so I decided to keep out of his way and take his pic instead.

I took this pic because I was fascinated by the intricate, detailed tattoo on his chest.

Before we left, we were served a meal by the longhouse residents. Every family prepared a dish. We had Iban vege, jungle bamboo shoots, chicken curry with potatoes and bean curd skin, another unknown to me jungle vege and deep fried fish..ikan tongkol I think it was. Everything was so fresh I wouldn’t be surprised if they had harvested it just before we came.