Memories back at the longhouse...

Ah... my time back at Abel's longhouse for the second time... and for the first time, staying overnight there....
It was such a fun time.... incomparable to my first visit there...
I don't wanna bother telling about what I had to do before the longhouse event...
such a blur now.. too long have not gone around to write this.. hehe!

We came to the longhouse by two buses. A few of us drove there on our own... including Daryll, who, by some misfortune, had a flat tyre along the way.
He finally caught up with us not too long later and down the dirt road we go to the longhouse.
When we arrived to the designated longhouse, we were greeted and welcomed by the families of the longhouse, including the Head of the longhouse and even the Head of the whole village area!
When entering the longhouse, we had to go through a welcoming session so that the Gods or Spirits would welcome us to the longhouse and protect us as they do with the families.
Upon entering, every one of us were given the chance to drink the Iban's infamous, homemade alcoholic drink, Tuak, but just a little, so as we remain normal for the rest of the day.
As the session continued still, we all had to walk along the whole longhouse stretch.. from one end to the other, before we walked from that end to the front of the Head of the longhouse's home, which was at the center of the whole longhouse that had over 20 homes.
We gathered around together and they proceeded with the welcoming session, which is called 'Miring' if I'm not mistaken...

Think ya can find me? Hehe!

After the Miring session was over, we were given some biscuits, local snacks and coffee. After that, we went to grab our bags/luggages from the buses to our respective foster homes.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that every participant that joined this longhouse outreach program were distributed to respective foster families to stay overnight with.

I was distributed to Mr. Pantah, the Head of the longhouse's family, together with Roger, Guan Thai/GT & Hiroyuki/Hiro! Man, I love this Bapak! I'll tell more about him later!

So we all grabbed our own things and have them placed in our own foster family's home, before we proceeded to lunch.

The food prepared were great! Everyone indulged themselves gladly! haha!

After lunch, we got down to some community work, including some labour work around the village, and mural painting at the school hall.

I joined the mural painting group. It took a little while to get things started, but we progressed on and on for hours.

In-between painting, Abel had some of us to practise our dancing to be shown to the people of the longhouse later that night; I, Roger, Iqbal, Lionel, Debbie, Genesis, (our old friend and ex-CV! dance group member) VJ, and even Abel himself.

I spent most of the time at the school hall with the mural painting...

At first, we started off with a number of helping hands, including Angeline, Vivien, Anthony, Alvin, Alan, Yvonne and others.

Hours later, when came the time that we could go play basketball or volleyball, I stayed back, together with Azie, Kimberley, and Wani, plus some people who occasionally passed by.

After a nice COLD shower and a VERY nice dinner, we all gathered at one end of the longhouse, where some amplifier and a karaoke set were already set up for the fun that was to come that whole night!

Hahah! To start off the fun, all of the participants were to only speak in Malay or Iban. Haha! The sole reason for this 'game' was so that people will be forced to drink tuak when they are caught speaking anything besides the forementioned languages... haha!

Some speeches were done and souvenir hampers were given to each of the foster families by one of their foster children.

A couple of karaoke singing by a couple of very young girls from the longhouse, and some dance performances from the kids there too...

We too performed some dances for everyone to see! Haha! Boy, was the floor springy!

In the midst of all the buzz, finally, out came tuak... brought out by my own Bapak, Pak Pantah! hehe!

He even gave half a glass to me first... haha! I have to admit, I gladly took it too!

Tuak is an enjoyable drink honestly, despite how the taste might sometimes be, though most of the time, it's good!

Plus, it's not beer, which I do not enjoy drinking.... AT ALL!!

Everyone of us got the taste of tuak that night... undoubtedly... And naturally, there were a number of us that got drunk.. haaha...

How unfortunate, that they are also some of us that had to catch up with assignments and had to force themselves to somewhere away from the party, turn on the laptop, and start working.

Thankfully, I was not burdened by assignments at the time.. Phew... Hehe!

That night, I drank... probably as much tuak as ten of those small glassfuls...

There was even one point when my Bapak served some of us (me first, damn!!) a tiny SIP of scotch! BOY, was that strong!! After me, Hiro took a sip and immediately he threw himself to teh floor and stayed down.. ahhaha! And he should be better at drinking alcohol, since in Japan, it's normal to drink sake (alcoholic drink) to keep your body warm, if I'm not mistaken...

Along with that, it was a funny experience, honestly... haha...

Two glassful less of the estimated total earlier, I was feeling fine and all, though I was as red as a tomato throughout my body... I actually halted from drinking for a long while...

Then, VJ pulled me to join him, Genesis, Abel, my Bapak and a few others in a circle.

My Bapak happily served me two glassfuls at that time (not at once of course). It was after those two drinks that I really felt the wuzziness, until the point I can't stand upright for even a few seconds.

Now... the reason why I love my Bapak so much... hehe...

Not cause he kept serving me tuak... no no... haha... he's a cool guy! Very fun, but yet he's very caring.. He actually stayed up and stuck around to make sure his foster children got back home safely to rest.

Roger and Hiro had already gone back to call it the night... Guan Thai was just wandering around the longhouse together with Cheryl... while I just stuck around where the main party was...

Reminding myself that I've drank a lot, I decided to stuff my stomach with some solid food... anything that I could find to eat... but thankfully I was able to enjoy lotsa peanuts... oohh.... been a long time since I ate those peanuts... hehe...

My Bapak constantly reminded me to go on back to sleep and rest, worried that I was starting to be drunk... I told him that I was still and would be fine and that I was just going for some late night snacks before I went back.

It was around 3 in the morning, when I and some others headed back to call it the night...

Haha! I can still remember myself not even walking straight or standing up for long, in constant need to lead on something... It was some walk to where I'd be sleeping...

Debbie, who was with me then, even asked me, 'Tiang, are you really all right? I don't want to have to carry you all the way back!' Hahah!

Anyway, surely enough, I got back, took another VERY cold shower, and even joined a group of my friends outside for a bit... before I went back in to sleep...

I woke up.. about 9 or so in the morning... And boy, was my itch really bothering me....

What itch?

Well.... from that night on, I can safely confirm that I am alcohollergic. Simply saying, I'm allergic to alcohol... Thankfully, my allergy isn't serious, and I only get itchy red blotches around my body.

Even before that last two glass of tuak that I had that night, I was already feeling the itch around my body. And actually, just remembering all this is giving me itches here and there already.. haha!

Despite the annoying itch, I don't regret taking those tuak and enjoying myself that night... =P

We returned back to Curtin when coming to noon time... by the same two buses.

On the journey back, Roger, Debbie & I got to talk a lot about our time back at the longhouse...

It was really a hell of a fun time for us...

Just recently, Roger even mentioned something about planning to make a returning visit there again someday during this semester break...

haha! Who knows what's to come?

Some photos that I got from Azie...