A little village in the jungle

by Caro

I could only watch as my feet slid on the mossy rocks, and sent me tumbling into the Papar river. Oswald, our guide, stifled a giggle: “Jaga, ia licin”.

That warning was a tad too late, and he hauled me up ungracefully.

Squelching in my soaked adidas kampong while he tripped along lightly in his stylish brown shoes, we continued along a narrow jungle path which I could barely make out in the dim greenish light filtering through the trees packed densely together.

I walked in front, going by the theory that leeches won’t have time to get their act together to jump on me after their radar detect our presence. I’m not sure about that but I didn’t get a single bite while Oswald picked up two. Of course, I was also wearing leech socks, much to mirth of all. The puffy socks do look like the costume of a court jester but hey, it works.

We had been walking for an hour by then, with another 3.5 hours to go before we would reach Kampong Buayan.

Kg Buayan is one of the 10 jungle villages along the ‘Salt Trail’ in the Crocker Range of Sabah, which can only be reached on foot. It’s built on an undulating plateau, amidst the greenest hills that form a ring around it and under the biggest skies.

We were going there because my former colleague Roy persuaded me to. Or as he remembers it, it was I who persuaded him to. Whichever it is, I’m glad we went. It’s a whole different world from Kota Kinabalu which we left just hours ago.

Our journey started with a river crossing, followed by a short walk along a logging road before crossing a swaying suspension bridge that led us to the edge of the jungle. There were numerous river crossings and bridges along the way but the jungle walk wasn’t too hard even though the path is narrow and winds around trees, and goes up and down a lot.

There was only one freakishly steep hill where we huffed up for half an hour, before descending on a very narrow path that ran alongside a deep ravine. There’s no handhold as the path is lined by mossy boulders, and there’s often just enough space for half a footstep at a time. I inched down like a snail, and was utterly grateful to reach the bottom intact.

Four and half hours after we started walking, we reached Kg Buayan. I was overjoyed because I was exhausted but also because it is beautiful. And it was about to pour.

The sky was heavy with dark clouds as we climbed the last hill to the village, and the rain started to come down in blinding sheets soon after. We hurriedly made tracks for the pretty blue kampong house where we stayed the night.

After an icy-cold shower and a change of clothes, I sat down with a coffee on the bamboo floor in the cosy kitchen lit by a flickering wood fire. The fire was down to its last embers but danced to life when Angela, the lady of the house, poked the firewood around to cook our dinner.

The rain was still pouring down, and we couldn’t go anywhere.

Oswald told me a little about his life growing up in Kg Tiku, a two-hour walk away from Kg Buayan. He is now 21.

These villages sound like an amazing place to grow up. Barely a few feet beyond the last few houses, the jungle begins and will not end for miles and miles. Their only access to the outside world is via the ‘Salt Trail’ which people of old used to get to the tamu to exchange their produce for salt and other items.

Kg Tiku is still pretty much what it used to be but Kg Buayan is now a little more modern. The Internet has arrived, thanks to a rural ICT project set up by Unimas two years ago, while electricity supply comes from a micro-hydro system and solar panels. But phone reception is patchy, at best.

Self-sufficiency is still their ethos. Every item in the village has to be handmade like furniture or houses, or carried in on foot, or hunted like the mousedeer we had for dinner, or gathered like the jungle vegetables also for dinner. Piglets and chickens run free about the village of 500 people, mostly Dusun farmers who plant rice, pineapple and rubber on the hillslopes.

The Dusun are the largest indigenous community in Sabah, and are closely related to the Kadazan.

I was curious about how their lives might have changed with the Internet. Oswald says he doesn’t use email a lot but is keen on facebook.

The next morning, the sun was shining so splendidly that I made everyone gobble down their breakfast so we could visit the school. Saying goodbye to Angela and her husband Alex, we stopped by to see the 39 children taking their exams in the community hall as their schoolhouse is being rebuilt.

The school is in a lovely setting in a field that doubles as a helipad for VIPs. Helicopters are also used to fly in large items like glass for the house windows, and to fly out villagers in case of medical emergencies.

I met a little girl who was flown out after she became ill with dengue, and walked back home when she was discharged from hospital.

We said hello to the teachers and smiled at the kids who giggled back.

It’s such a different world here, in one of the remotest corners of Sabah. And it’s left me with a hankering to come back for a longer stay.

A dream for another day.

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