Old House and A Year Gone

Not many people live in this type of house anymore. This is our grandparent's dwelling for over 50 years. Our grandpa had long gone. Our grandma has just passed away a few months ago. We normally came visiting to this house in a big group during hari raya to offer greeting . This coming hari raya will be different and somewhat hollow. We will probably just come over to the house regardless, the place where I played and lived when I was small.

We are now already well into the second half of the year. Time really fly. Today is also exactly a year since we came back to Bumi Bertuah after an absence of three years. Things have really settled down and we are into new routines and Holland is already a distant memmory. Workloads have definitely taken much of our minds and attentions this year. We have not done any proper long holiday except for a short hops here and there. Hopefully this year we could see other places which we have not been. In a month time I hope to make a journey that I have always dreamt about. Time will tell.

Fruit Season?

It is supposed to be the fruit season, time of the year when we feast ourselves with durian and all sort of local fruits. But alas there were nothing much on offer except for rambutans and a few offerings of durians here and there.

We even went to Labi and Lamunin but were left dissapointed. Indeed much of Bumi Bertuah and Sarawak are having a poor season this year, most likely due to the wetter than usual drier spell during this time of the year. The rains that has been lashing lately are more reminiscence of the rainfalls in January. There has been flooding and landslide in many places. The world has gone crazy. Blame it on climate change.

The Start of Ramadan

It's the start of Ramaḍān, marking another year has passed in our life. Indeed we should be thankful to Almighty Allah that we have live another year to see yet another Ramaḍān again.

The recital of the surah Al-Baqarah marked the start of reading the entire verses of the holy Quran by Imams for the next 30 nights. For Bumi Bertuah it is even more special this year as 40 more would-be Hafiz or those who could completely memorize the Quran have been assigned to various other mosques. Indeed lets pray that this will give more blessing to our Bumi Bertuah.

As usual, the tedarus or group reading of the Quran after Terawih is still very much alive in our local mosque. The first night saw 26 people altogether, old and new, a good turn-out in today's perplexing world.