Growing Up Part II

My grandmother whom we called Tok Bee, was of Dutch parentage. She was came to this country from Indonesia when she was 9 years old and married my grandfather when she was 12. Blessed with 3 daughters, eldest being my mom, and the others are 2 lovely and beautiful aunts. She also had an adopted daughter, whom my grandfather adopted to look after her.

Tok Bee and my 3 aunts stayed withing walking distance from our house. My brother and I sometimes stayed there overnight there. Where they lived, a large monsoon drain ran along the main road. Eac time when there was a heavy downpour, the whole area were flooded. I used to love it when it flooded, because it was fun to see everyone hoping about trying to retrieve whatever their belongings that floated away.

The latrines back then used the bucket system. Night soil workers would come in the dead of night to take the loaded buckets and replaced with empty ones. They would do this late in the night because I think that they would be very unwelcomed otherwise. You can imagine the stench that followed the workers and the lorries were too unbearable for us mortals. But I had a feeling that the main reason was that they didn't want to be caught replacing the buckets when someone was still using the latrine. That kind of shower, they can do without!

Coming back to the flooding. When the water level started to rise, you could see people chasing and securing those buckets. Some even floated away quite fast and you have to very quick, in calf-deep water, to catch it. The thing that puzzled me until today was how in the world could they recognise their own buckets, loaded or unloaded? Anyway, I can safely rationalise the reason for their anxiety. One was that if the bucket was lost, they have to replace it. The problem with this was how to use the latrines in the meantime. Secondly, was more of being good neighbours. I was very sure no one wanted a fully loaded bucket drifting quitely into their living room or kitchen!

Using wooden clogs were the norm in those days. In the floods, these clogs were like fast patrol boats floating along, twisting and turning as the water took them. I think I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the flooding. I noticed the Chinese shop down the road did roaring business selling those wooden clogs after each flooding.