This few days (or weeks?) have been rainy. Small continuous rain, sometimes it stops for a while, to fool you to walk across the lengthy traffic light without umbrella or to happily put all the laundry, shoes etc out and in a minute it will buzz buzz buzz rain, make us like ayam dikejar monyet or wet like tikus kecebur got.
Back then, this kind of rain is a bless for children. It’s not hard enough to make parents yelled at you and not mild enough to make it less enjoyable. Playing in the rain, where had it gone? Children used to gain new friends in the rain. Kids from neighborhood, kids they had never talk to when it’s dry. When the rain stop, they would say, See you in the next rain! Because they don’t recognize each other when there is no rain.
Got sick? Nahhhh.. sick is not a popular word at all, unless some other kids throw brick at you, there is no sickness in our dictionary. Kid's immune system was actually very amazing compare to now. I remember we liked to visit our aunt, whose place is only at the next block. Her house was special because she has this private ‘river’. She would do laundry or washing dish and for us, kids, we used it for swimming pool.
Actually, the river is horrible, it’s more like a gutter, maybe a 3-5 meter wide water body that flow don’t know to where. Even then, I thought it was scary. Because we can’t see the bottom, who said bottom, we can’t even see our own leg. The water was brownish although it was not dirty, or so we thought. There are millions of snails on the ‘river’ walls. I think it’s golden snail, that has the pinkish egg. So that is our swimming pool.
There was an empty plot in front of our house also. Me and my brother liked to roam there. It was full with various plants, insect and small animals. There were even eels as big as us caught between our house and the ‘jungle’. We had one rambutan tree which was very huge and we could enjoy rambutan every season. Too bad it grew too big we had to bring it down. I remember my dad, my uncles, neighbors and a lot of people gathered at my house just to pull it down. It was sad day though, I liked the rambutan tree, the rambutan, although I didn’t like the ants that live in that tree and the big bee nest that hanging in there. I didn’t remember how they got rid of the bee nest.
But it was my fun childhood, we ddin’t have many things that anything was precious to us. We had to wait long and hard for a toy, but we treasure them that we kept them until we grew up. We learned to be creative to play with things that is actually not toys at all, like playing in the nature, hiding place, river, tree or playing in the rain. As the result, the children are healthy, happy, creative and brave. I really think so. We hardly found any body went home crying to their parents. Anything we have to settle ourselves. Like when we got bad marks at school, we had to crack our head to find a corporative adults to sign them for us, or we hid it until it was rotten inside the tree hole. That was me and my big brother time, look at the bright side, we didn’t think to go as far as to forge the signatures. But my younger brother could do that.
The kids may be dirty and naughty, but I think that is what a childhood should be.
It’s uneasy to see how kids nowadays have to many things on their disposal they don’t appreciate them anymore. They get bored with toys after a week; get new one, and the toys piled up in the house so fast. Every time I go to the toy store or any store that sell a bit of toys, on the checkout line we hardly see kids without new toys. And maybe worse of all, kids or parents forget that there is a world outside malls and computer games.
Although at least there is a new type of attraction, I forget what it is, it’s on the tip of my tongue, arghh! It’s those animation game that kids can play on the floor, step on moving frog or chasing after stuff. I think it’s good, kids should be jumping and laughing, not crying and screaming. Now there is also many games that involve physical exercise, one of the example is Nintendo Wii. There is another type that is better when you can actually jogging virtually and jumping across the barriers or kicking the butt of the virtual guys etc.
It’s something we could do for free but if indoor is the limit, than that is the substitute?
At least now, I like the weather. I always like it rainy and windy in the city, it’s cooling and beautiful. I would prefer bright sunny days in the beach, but in the city, this is my time of the year. Yeppie!
There are three ways to get something do get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
- Monta Crane
The wildest colts can make the best horses.
- Plutarch, Greece
If you want to see what children do, you must stop giving them things.
- Norman Douglas
