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!
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