The plights of Kampung Assum

By ROBERT KENNETH
CHILDREN runs around while a group of eight elder folks gathers at the veranda of a wooden house for their evening discussion.
They all looks cheerful, the village’s environment was fantastic. Life here has been wonderful — the people are very friendly to their visitors and among themselves they are very cooperative.
That explained how close their relationship – the typical life style in the Bidayuh villages in Sarawak, Malaysia.
But despite happy with their simple life style, the residents of Kampung Assum in the remote area of Padawan, about 80km from Kuching City centre are putting high hopes on the government to help change their plights.
They had been waiting for so long and are still waiting for the day when they can have basic amenities like what are being enjoyed by others in other villages.
To reach the remote Bidayuh’s village, one has to walk for one and a half hours from Kampung Kembug, the nearby village with access road to towns.
Kampung Assum has 33 families with about 450 residents. In each house there are two or three families staying together.
The village’s Development and Security Committee (JKKK) chairman, Spady Nyamat, 45, said: “We also would like to enjoying almost all the amenities like good road access, school, pipe water and electricity supply.
“When will our village going to be like other villages we still do not know. We have been waiting for all those amenities but it never came to us, and we call on the government to provide to us all those amenities.”
The name “assum” in Bidayuh dialect means sour, and that was what the resident of Kampung Assum are experiencing – sour in their mouths.
Spady believed if the village is connected with good road which is accessible by cars and bigger vehicles like lorry it would definitely change and uplift the living standard of the villagers.
“Imagine if we have good road to our village, we can plant all sort of cash crops that could generate income for the villagers like planting banana and fruit trees because it will be easy for us to bring the fruits to town to sell.
“Now it is so difficult because it will take us hours to carry the produces down to Kampung Kembug where we can catch the transport to bring them down to town.
“Left without any choice we have to sell our produces to the shops in Kampung Kembug and accept low prices but we have no other alternative to bring them to other places for higher prices,” he said.
The present stretch of road is only accessible by motorcycles and the road which started construction last years is not tar-seal or covered with gravel.
If iit rain, the surface get slippery and dusty during hot weather.
According to the sign board erected at the project’s site, the construction of the road started on September 2, 2009 and scheduled to be completed on November 5, 2009.
However the road is not tar-seal and one of the rotten bridges has collapsed and was not reconstructed.
On the electricity supply, Spady said the villagers really hope that the government consider their plight and connect the supply to the village.
“When sun goes down we see nothing, all we have is darkness, no night activities.”
The absence of electricity supply in the village has been seven years now after the generator set given by the government was swept away by big flood in 2003 .
During the flood the village not only lost its generator set by also the paddy processing machine was swept away by the strong water current.
“We cook, we eat, we bathe, we sleep. We wake up, cook, go to the farm, cook again, eat, go to the farm and that cycle goes on,” said the secretary of JKKK Kampung kembug, Bagok Kandoi.
At night the villagers depended on kerosene lamps for the light. Only four household own generator sets but are not connecting the supply to their neighbor’s house due to high maintenance cost.
“Before we used to have the village’s generator set to supply current to all the houses for three to four hours nightly.
“But now to maintain a generator is costly. Every night one has to spend RM10 to RM13 for the diesel, so if we on the TV for four hours, it will cost us RM10 to RM13,” he said.
After the generator goes off, kerosene lamps and torch lights take over.
Most of the villagers are economically productive and depend on agriculture for a living. They have enough to eat.
However, the irony is that in this high-tech age, the village is still without the basic necessity — electricity. Children there study their lessons under the light of kerosene lamps.
About 20 years ago, the villagers did not pay much attention to their homes not being connected to this central electricity supply network but now, with the advancement of ICT (information and communication technology), the lack of electricity gives them a hard time,” Spady observed.
“Technology has advanced a lot but we are still left wondering when electricity will come to our village. Every election we were promised but till today, we are still without power,” he lamented.
For children doing their school’s homework, they have to finish it before dusk or use kerosene lamps.
“Our past and present generations have been living and studying in darkness but we want our children and future generations to enjoy the benefit of electricity.
“They should know how to use computers. Even though I like to buy one for my children, what can they do without the electricity?.
“If we had electricity, they could at least study and learn more with the computer,” said Spady who has three children.
While waiting the village to be connected to the central electricity network, Spady suggest that at least the government provide the village with a brand new generator set.
The old set which was swept away by flood water was given to the village by the late Datuk Amar Stephen Yong when he was the Member of Parliament for the Padawan seat.
The village is under the Mambong Parliamentary seat and the Tarat State constituency is also being deprived of clean pipe water supply.
At present the village depends on water supply from the mountain, but the water get yellowish and dirty every time it rain.
Spady suggested that the government provide the village with water storage tanks where the water can be filtered before it is supplied to the household.
“That is the least the government can do for us,” added Spady.
Meanwhile the village headman Siyang Anak Sayod said many times the villages had requested from the government for those basic amenities to be given to them but until today they are still waiting for it.
He said at least the government should start by making the road to the village accessible by cars.
“We have been supporting the government all the while and I don’t think we should be deprived of those basic amenities,” he added.
The village also need a bigger and better community hall where meeting and activities could be held.
The facilities made available in the village are two units of solar telephones and a village.