Scary Stories

One day, about a week ago, I woke up and went with Wak Nani, one of the girls I live with to collect cassava leaves for lunch. On our way, she casually mentioned that just about everyone in the village was going back to their home village – Kampung Baretchi, about an hour’s walk from Ampangan Woh – for a few days to have a ceremony. My host father, a healer, had, about a month before, called upon the spirits to cure a sick neighbor, and so they were having a multi-day sewang, or traditional ceremony, to thank the spirits (or ghosts, or demons, as various people refer to them). Wak Nani told me that I was welcome to come along, if I wanted to, or stay behind. Thrilled to be invited to a traditional event, I asked to go along.

Some Background

You might remember that a few months ago, when I first came to Ampangan Woh, I was reading a book about the Semai people, written by an American anthropologist and linguist who had spent most of his life studying Semai. One of the most fascinating chapters, for me, was his chapter on Semai religion and spirituality. Semai people will claim that they have no religion, but what they mean is, they do not participate in any organized religion. They do not attend any religious services, nor do they belong to any congregations. However, they are very spiritual people, and they do believe in an all-powerful being. They do not consider that this being is either good or bad – he exists to maintain balance and order in the universe, ensuring that wrongdoings are met with proper punishment. Semai people also believe strongly in ghosts and spirits (and demons, but without the negative connotation that English gives the word). These ghosts and spirits can either help or harm humans. “Healers,” like my host father, and my host mother’s brother, are people who have the ability to communicate with the spirit world. A spirit can choose to visit a human in a dream through a melody, which the human, if he (or sometimes, but not often, she) is willing, can choose to accept and learn. The human then becomes a healer, and is able to use the melody to call upon his spirit “familiar” and ask it for help, in curing someone who has fallen ill, in protecting those he loves, or in any area of life. The book I read discussed in detail the process of holding a sewang and calling upon the spirits. I’m glad I read about it beforehand, as it made a lot of things a lot clearer to me, in terms of what was going on, and what we were doing. As I describe what happened, I’ll draw partially from what I learned through reading, partially from what students and friends explained me, and a great deal more from what I saw firsthand. Incidentally, the author lamented that he was unable to witness a sewang himself, as Semai people no longer permit outsiders to join. I guess I’m not an outsider anymore.

We left Ampangan Woh around 2 in the afternoon, and headed through the jungle, taking a different, less steep route than we had to the farmhouse. We were essentially following the river, so the land remained relatively flat. After about an hour of walking (occasionally scrambling over rocks and fallen tree trunks), we reached the place where we had to cross the river. Ordinarily the crossing is pretty easy, and the water level low, but the recent rains had transformed it into pretty rough water, with rocks and drops that made me think it was less than wise to cross on foot. Fortunately, those members of our group with more ability to navigate a safe path took the lead – and my arm – and we all made it safely to the other side, wading through knee-deep, rushing water. Another half hour on dry land, we arrived at the village, with the leech bites to prove it (the bees have stopped attacking me, but I’ve now become a magnet for leeches. I prefer the bees). We all went to shower at the (freezing) river, and then gathered in the house of several of my students. As we waited for dinner to be ready, a few villagers told me a little bit about the sewang. Apak, my host father, and Ros, one of my students, would invite their spirit familiars to come, but opening this link to the spirit world could make us vulnerable to any other ghosts that might be around. One of my students specifically mentioned the “tiger,” which is the most powerful, most feared spirit. As a precaution to make sure we were safe from him and from all other ghosts, the door had to remain closed and no one could leave until the sewang was finished. (Whether the door and walls made of bamboo leaves would stop a demon tiger from getting into the house is still questionable, in my opinion.) We all ate dinner – rice and cassava leaves, and some fish the boys caught in the river – everyone went outside to use the bathroom one last time, and then we got started, about 9:30.

Ros, Apak, and the men of the group were gathered in one corner of the room, closest to the door. The women were seated in a semi circle around them, with heavy wooden logs in front of us. Ros, facing the door, away from us, started chanting. He started laying tall palm-like fronds against the door and the walls, even tying one to the support beam that rose up from the floor to the ceiling just behind me. No one was being particularly reverent – most people were just chatting amongst themselves. Then Ros took a bundle of strong-smelling leaves, dipped it in water, and started sprinkling it on everyone in the room. He was still chanting in Semai, and although I only caught a few words, I understood it to be a prayer for protection as we called the spirits. Apak was lying on his side in the corner, also chanting, but more quietly, as if to himself. The women were each given two hollow bamboo poles of different sizes and started banging them on the logs in front of us, like drums. Each note was slightly different, but they made a kind of eerie melody. When everyone was satisfied with their pipes, the flashlight was turned off and the candles extinguished (there is no electricity in the village). The only light came from the last few embers of the fire, and from the occasional pinprick of light from someone’s cigarette. Apak started to really sing, and the women kept the beat with the bamboo pipes. They also started to harmonize, their voices high and spooky. The song went on and on, sometimes fast, sometimes slower, and although I was trying to stay alert, the repetitiveness started to make my eyelids droop. Zamni, one of my young adult students, about my age, was sitting next to me, and she handed me a pillow and told me to lie down, and that everyone who wasn’t drumming would be lying down. I felt the space beside me to make sure I didn’t lie on top of anyone and stretched out. I lay there, listening to Apak’s melody and the drums, dozing a bit, but being jarred awake whenever the rhythm changed. Eventually, I sat up and felt weirdly disoriented – I couldn’t find the support beam I had been leaning on earlier, and as I felt around in the dark I couldn’t find anyone else. I could hear the drums and the singing, but I couldn’t tell what direction they were coming from, or which way I had been facing earlier – all the sounds seemed disembodied. I was relieved when someone turned the flashlight on after only a few minutes more and I found everyone right where they should have been – evidently my hands had been just missing them in the dark. The candles were re-lit, and I checked my watch – 1:00 am, over three hours after we had begun. It was a bit like waking up from a dream – everyone was just talking and laughing. Suddenly, everyone screamed and pointed to the door. I saw nothing, but apparently everyone had seen a ghost trying to get through the door. Ros went outside to check on things (once the lights come back the door is allowed to be opened) but he came back almost immediately – he hadn’t found anything worth worrying about. Soon after, we all went to bed, everyone still pretty shaken from the ghost sighting.

In the morning, we woke up slowly and had a long breakfast of fried cassava chips and coffee. Then I went with a couple of the girls to collect lunch (bamboo and cassava roots). We returned to the house and cooked together, and then passed the afternoon hanging out with the kids, napping, picking fruit, and making dinner. It started to rain in the late afternoon, and almost as soon as it got dark, the thunder started – good weather for calling spirits. We all gathered in the house again for dinner, and then we started all over again. This time, someone asked if I wanted to try drumming. Of course I said yes, so I took the two pipes I was handed. Wak Nani quickly showed me how to hold them and how to bang them against the logs for optimal sound, and then we took our seats. There was no introductory chanting or prayer this time – the lights went off right away (but there was no stopping the lightning from illuminating the sky and occasionally the faces of people in the room). At first I was very focused on my pipes, trying to copy the rhythm I heard around me. Given that I learned in the dark, I think I did pretty well. After that, it was pretty much the same as the night before. Once I got the hang of the pipes I could listen to the melody as well. We finished at 11:30, and turned the flashlight back on, and got our cooking fire going again to really get some light. Then it was time for dancing. At first two women – one student of mine, and one I did not know – were the only ones dancing, just stepping in time to our drums and swinging their arms and bodies. Suddenly my student’s movements changed. She began to throw herself violently around the room, even falling heavily to the floor, and running into everyone still seated around her. Wak Nani whispered to me that she was “crazy,” “not herself,” and didn’t know anyone or remember anything. She was in a kind of trance, apparently, and although I am reluctant to believe that, it was very convincing. I know this woman quite well, and don’t think she is the kind to be pretending something like that. Her long, frizzy hair had fallen out of its ever-perfect bun, and was wild. Suddenly she fell on the floor and lay completely still. Two other women picked her up and carried her away to the bedroom. She emerged a short while later looking completely composed and as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I danced for a while, with my friends to assured me that I couldn’t go crazy like that because I am not Semai. But when Rajina (another adult student who is generally very sweet and soft-spoken) started throwing herself around, we all sat back down, out of the way. Suddenly, my host mother had abandoned her one-year-old granddaughter who she had been caring for and was in the center of the circle, not dancing but moving grotesquely, on her hands and knees and writhing on the floor. Her daughters and the kids were howling with laughter, and I was trying to look as though this was not strange, and the women just kept on drumming. Rajina kept running toward the fire, attracted to the red embers – red being the color of demons – and (according to Wak Nani) hoping to eat it. Fortunately, the men had encircled the fire, to prevent just this kind of thing. A branch of a traditional plant was placed in her hand, and she held it over her eyes, peering through it to find her friends (also according to Wak Nani). When she spotted someone she considered a “friend,” she would drag him or her to the center of the circle and they would dance together, until the “friend” managed to get away. At some point she became angry that there were no other ghosts around and just sat pouting on the floor, tears streaming down her face. Eventually, she, too, lay down on the floor and was carried away. At that point, everyone seemed to think it was time for bed (it was around 4 in the morning). When we awoke, there was a little chatter about what went on the previous night, but nothing to suggest that our party had been anything unusual. I returned home with a few villagers after lunch, and returned to class that afternoon. All the women who were temporarily possessed have gone back to normal, and their English language skills continue to improve. So all’s well that ends well, I suppose, and it was certainly one of the most interesting things I’ve been a part of since coming to Ampangan Woh.

I suppose this is why the call it the rainforest

I guess there’s no denying the rainy season any more. The days are cooler and the nights are freezing – I mean sweatshirt weather – and like clockwork the sky darkens in the early evening and we get a couple of thunderclaps and then the downpour starts. It’s really cool to look out the window where we can usually see the road and the hills behind it, and see only a cloud of grey fog. When the rain is accompanied by a thunderstorm (it generally is) we can almost guarantee a power outage, and even when the power stays on, we turn off all electricity, because the family is afraid of lightning-induced thunder. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I suppose in a house where the rain comes in through the gaps between the bamboo slats that make up the walls it’s a good idea to turn off the outlets. After one storm the other day, one of our three computers stopped working. I can’t be sure it’s related to the rain, but the timing makes it seem likely.

The rain also keeps students out of class, as the walk to the house/school becomes a muddy and slippery mess, and for the students whose walk from the part of the village that sits below ours can take about an hour, demanding attendance in a thunderstorm is simply unreasonable. When the power goes out, too, class must be cancelled. Unfortunately, this has resulted in our holding only half of our classes last week. Fortunately, I am finding things to do. Elma is a teacher in training who spent eight months in the southern state of Johor, actually not too far from Chaah, training with another American teacher. After the classes there graduated, she decided to finish out her contract – another two months – here in Ampangan Woh. Elma is from a village similar to this one, on the island of Borneo, and so she feels right at home here. I am benefitting from her comfort here by tagging along and learning from her. When we can’t have class, Elma and I spend our time building our relationship with the community, another important part of our job. With Elma here to play translator when necessary, I’ve been able to become a lot chattier with the family I am staying with.

We’ve also spent a few mornings walking a short ways into the jungle where we can pick some things for lunch. I am of little to no use in gathering plants to eat – everything just looks green to me – but Elma knows enough about plants from her village to be helpful. We’ll be walking back from a river bath and pass a plant that I wouldn’t have looked twice at and she’ll say “oh we can cook this” and an hour later it will be lunch. Last week we were invited to walk up to a fruit tree to help bring back fruits to eat and sell.

A favorite story in my family that gets told and retold at every appropriate opportunity involves a ski trip we took once when I was maybe eight years old. If that. I have no personal memory of the event, so if the details are off, blame the retellings. The gist of it is that up we went – my cousin and I trusting our parents to get us safely down and suddenly we were not where they thought we were and the only path down was a slope much too advanced for our young ski skills. I made it down only by sitting down in the snow and scooting down, shouting, “it’s impossible! It’s impossible,” until I found myself on even ground.

I don’t have jungle feet. I have city feet. And walking down from that fruit tree felt just like that ski trip – I slipped down the whole way, staying upright only by grabbing onto bamboo and banana trees the whole way. On the bright side, the intervening decade and a half has allowed me to see the humor in the situation and I was able to laugh right along with everyone else as I clung to tree after tree to try (sometimes successfully, sometimes less so) to remain upright. City feet. No one can blame me.

Last night we had a social night in the village. Part of my job includes community development and engagement projects each month, so sadly, that had to involve some kind of party. To build confidence, another important part of the program here, my kids’ class performed four songs they have been practicing in class and, as though the people of Ampangan Woh need any encouragement to work together, we had everyone help to cook. We made fried rice and fried noodles (I cooked solo in a wok for the first time) and although the organization provides a budget of approximately 100 USD monthly for such events, I was amazed at the generosity of the people here, who took it upon themselves to collect money from each household to fill in the gaps on my shopping list. In a place where money is so lacking, I was overwhelmed by the kindness and self-motivation. Although in true Malaysian manner the evening got underway about an hour late, and people continued to arrive four hours later, we had a great time, playing games – which the adults were as excited as (perhaps more than) the kids about – and eating and watching the performances. At some point, someone asked if he could get his guitar and he and his friends could play, to which I answered “of course” and then the social night dissolved into a dance party for the whole village. We danced until around 2 in the morning, when Amek worried that some guests from another village might start a fight and ushered us back to the house. A few friends gathered there and ate more fried noodles, and then we headed to bed. Today we have no obligations, as it is Sunday, so the family is just relaxing and munching on leftover food, with regular brewings of coffee and tea.

Only the most dedicated students study by flashlight!

Computer class continues, despite being down one PC

The team of DJs at our September Social Night

Guests gather for the Social Night

Kids' class performers

Dancing kids - Wak Ina (left, in yellow) and Viriana (front, in blue, age 6), and Elma

The rainy season brought a new roommate

A Jungle Walk

Over the last few weeks, members of the Ampangan Woh community have been traveling back and forth to their farm houses, which are located deep in the jungle. I’ve mentioned before that most of the villagers here are (relatively) new arrivals, who moved here in the last ten to fifteen years to give their children better access to the school in the town below. The farms are further away, and it’s there that most of the food is grown. While the jungle that surrounds us provides us with enough for dinner each night, the farms were described to me as sprawling plots of land where food was grown large scale. My impression was that they were all somewhat near each other; the sense of community here gave me the idea that to grow food separately would be ludicrous. Unfortunately, reaching the farms requires quite a hike from the village, and generally at least one night’s stop there, so the trekking to the farms has been met with quite a drop in my attendance (as low as 3 out of 17 students on some days).

I was thrilled when Amek and Apak – my hosts in Ampangan Woh – invited me to spend a weekend with them at their farm, and I was warned that it would take about an hour to reach the other house on foot, and a rather strenuous hour at that. So I donned my good walking shoes, and Elma – the Malaysian teacher in training who is staying with me – and the family put on their flip flops and we set out.

We walked through the short row of houses, with students hanging out their windows, beside themselves to see their two teachers heading off to the jungle, and soon turned into the trees. The path (for lack of a better word; merely branches and plants trampled down into the dirt by last week’s pilgrimage to the farm, and the occasional cigarette pack perched atop a stick, which I can only presume marked the way) almost immediately turned upwards, so that I was at times using all four limbs to scramble up, and even the more seasoned jungle travellers lost their footing at times. By the time we were fifteen minutes out, we were all sweating and panting, and took a moment to rest and admire this view:

Whenever I remembered to look up and around me rather than directly at my feet, I was amazed by the surroundings. When the path curved around the hill so that the trees cleared, we could look out and see the endless mountains of Perak, and when it veered back into the jungle we were engulfed by bamboo and banana trees, shading us from all angles so that everything was bathed in slightly green light. Every so often we came to a place where a stream flowed, and we dipped our feet and hands and faces into the water to cool off. One of the boys caught a shrimp and inexplicably put it in his breast pocket. Unfortunately, the shrimp did not survive the trip to the house.

Eventually we were not on a path at all, but just walking through knee-high brush. The path suddenly became even steeper – almost a vertical climb – and from in front of me the twins called back, “Teacher! Sudah sampai” (“we’ve arrived!”). Encouraged by the nearness, I scrambled with increased vigor and finally found myself in front of a single house – nothing else in sight but jungle. The house was set a bit above the lower trees, so that in front the view of Perak was clear and incredible:

The house itself was even more basic than it’s partner in Ampangan Woh. It’s floor and walls and ceiling were also made of bamboo and bamboo leaves, but not being part of a village meant less cleared land around, as well as no electricity. It was also much smaller than our house in the village. While to say that the house in Ampangan Woh has four rooms is a bit excessive, there are definitely four distinct spaces, a sort  of counter in the classroom (also bamboo) where the computers sit, and against the far wall where kitchen supplies are kept. The farm house is only one small space, with no embellishments at all except one small round table in the center for keeping food out of the reach of rats. The windows were wide – the full width of the walls from corner to corner, so that when the bamboo leaf shades were opened the walls only stood about two feet high, and above them only gaping space below the sloping roof. Perfect for sitting and gazing out at the mountains, which was about the only thing we could think to do.

We bathed and washed dishes and clothes at the stream that flowed a short walk down from the house, and spent the evening cooking cassava leaves gathered just outside, with rice that the strongest of our group had lugged up from below. When the sun went down at 7:30, we ate by candlelight and flashlight light and played as many games as we could in the dark, then went to bed at 8:30. It was cold up in the hills, and I didn’t sleep well, shivering under a thin blanket laid out on a bamboo mat. The next day, we woke up early and lit a fire to make tea and warm up. Around midday, we set out for the farm itself. The farm is about a half hour walk from the house, again an uphill trek through the jungle. When we finally arrived, sweating and panting, we could barely catch our breath to look around. We were standing in a graveyard of torched banana and trees and bamboo – black stumps rose out of the ground and as we clambered over the fallen trunks our hands and clothes turned black with ash, but tiny green cassava plants rising out of the ground dotted the field, so many that to avoid stepping on them required constant concentration. Surrounding the field on four sides was green, green jungle, and in the distance, more beautiful mountains. We split up, planting various seeds – the family had requested that I bring along the rest of the pumpkin seeds that another teacher had given to me, so I focused on those, and eventually got five to ten seeds each of three varieties in the ground. We’ll see how they fare at the farm (I’m still watching our last remaining pumpkin here in the village – it’s got a nice big yellow flower now, and a handful of buds, so I’m optimistic).

When we’d finished our work for the day, we headed back to the house, where we cooked ferns that we’d gathered on the walk back, and passed the afternoon and evening much in the same way as the day before. The following morning, we washed the dishes we’d used (not many, as we’d been eating in the Orang Asli fashion, from banana leaves to save plates) and then headed back down to the village. The walk back was much quicker and easier than the trip out (although more slippery… trade off of walking downhill). We reached home around 1:00, and spent the afternoon napping and reading and drinking tea, and the following day it was back to the routine.

Elma as we stopped to catch our breath en route to the farm house

Elma and the twins, Jekenny and Jekemmy, age 10

An obstacle along the path

View of the mountains

View out the window of the farm house

Outside the farm house

Mountains in the distance

Bah Deni, age 9, inside

Elma, Jawani, and I, gathered around the fire in the house

Elma, planting at the farm 

Trees cleared to make way for the farm

Bah Deni, Jekemmy, and Jekenny, making their way around the fallen trees