Welcoming Dinner for Alan Vest

25th January was a very special day for my friend, Thomas Low. 

It was his first time to attend a dinner at the longhouse with the community in Bario. It was also the first time he met everyone in Ulong Palang. It wasn't just a simple dinner but a dinner reception to welcome Alan Vest into Bario. 

The dinner was held at Apoi's place, which is the Nigmat Homestay. Earlier, he went with Uncle Gerawat to our primary school to photograph Alan who had been giving a football coaching clinic to the school team. 

Alan Vest was a football coach for the Football Association of Sarawak (FAS) in the 1990s and he'd been dubbed as the 'White Raja Brooke' of football. If I'm not mistaken, under his coaching, the FAS team won the Malaysian Premier League, the Malaysian Charity Shield and the Malaysian FA Cup! 

Before the dinner commenced, a group of children from our primary school performed a traditional Kelabit dance for Alan. Thomas thought the children were so adorable when he saw all of them trying to squeeze nicely in the narrow longhouse. His two children are already teenagers and he misses seeing young children in his house! His daughter does ballet and he wondered how she would hold the Kelabit fans in her ballet. 

Then, a group of women including Aunty Connie and Aunty Dora sang a 'Toast' song to welcome Alan. After the song, they served him 'Tuak', our rice wine.

Then, dinner was served! 

People of Bario

We Kelabits here are all related to each other.

When I walk around Bario, I can be meeting with cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunties, distant cousins' nephews and so on--we are one big happy family! When there is a wedding or a funeral or a birthday or a name-changing ceremony, everyone in Bario goes to the event and celebrate or feel the loss of a loved one.

So we all know each other.

Have you met my uncle Gerawat?

The kids think he's a very cool guy because he likes to tell jokes with a straight face. His wife, Janet, is also a pretty cool lady, they say.

Aunty Janet always makes the best Kelabit donuts. The donuts are basically just milk flour, butter and sugar mixed together and rolled into a ball before it is fried. Sometimes when I come over to visit them, she'll always serve me those donuts and honestly, I still can't get enough of them. They're really good! Aunty Janet is also soft-spoken and very motherly. You feel warm and at ease around her.

When you first meet Uncle Gerawat, I'm sure you'll find that he's a very funny and laidback man, especially for somebody his age. He likes to 'mess' with people's minds and tell them stories that aren't always true. Morever, he does it so effortlessly that some people do get easily fooled by him. I almost fell for some of his stories too! Sigh! Uncle Gerawat!

He's also hardworking because he's still working in the farm after he retired, harvesting the rice annually and doing other farm work. He and Aunty Janet also love to drink coffee.

Out of curiosity, I once asked Uncle Gerawat how he met my Aunty Janet.

He told me that they met through a traditional ritual, which led them to an arranged marriage to each other. In Kelabit culture, when a young woman is of age, her father will give her a rice pounder. At the Rice Harvest Festival, she will have to beat the rice with it and it will produce a loud 'BOOM!' every time the rice is pounded.

The louder the sound gets, the better it is for the girl as it is meant to attract the girl's future husband. If he shows up, their families meet and an arranged marriage is on its way. It shows the girl is capable of farmwork and she is strong. Aunty Janet, who was sixteen at the time, performed this ritual and Uncle Gerawat happened to hear the beautiful sound and followed it. That was how they met and the rest is history. Now, they live happily ever after. (Do you believe this?)

Besides them, there is Uncle John Terawe.

About forty years ago, when Uncle John was ten years old, his father was the Pemancar of the village. He was in a helicopter with a few of his uncles and the Pemancar to Miri. Unfortunately, the helicopter crashed. Uncle John was the only survivor. When Uncle John woke up from his coma, his whole world changed. He realized that not only did he lose his father, but Bario also lost a leader who was very committed to making life better for the villagers. Over the years, he committed himself to develop Bario like how his father would have done so.

His mother, Sinar Terawe, became a single mother to six children. She worked in the rice fields and collected jungle produce to feed the family.

At eighty two years old now, she's still planting rice!

Eventually, Uncle John was picked as a community leader for the e-Bario project by USM. He developed the first homestay in Bario and he convinced us that bringing tourists into Bario will bring more development for all of us.

Below is a short video of three of the most well-known people in Bario.