love is a battle

Rumahku di Laut.

I went to the island of Borneo recently. Sabah, to be exact. It was my first time. I’ve been to Sarawak before, but never Sabah, so this was enlightening. It was a brief trip, but there was so much there I want to go back and explore. As this is my year of being fearless, and embracing my Asian side (yes, I decided this early in January, and there are a list of goals), Sabah made me feel like I was on the right track. I suspect, where visiting Sabah and Borneo is concerned, dreams will come true this year. 

My first experience with the Bajau Laut was in school, in the tattered KBSM books of yore. I’m not sure if it is still taught in History class, whether in secondary or primary school. But, I do remember wanting to be Bajau. Namely, a Land Bajau, because they were expert horsemen and warriors. I mean, seriously, expert seafarers and expert horsemen, which little girl wouldn’t want that? They’re like the Rohirrim people in LOTR! Really.  

So, in Lahad Datu, we met a group of Bajau Laut that had docked their boats, their traditional handmade lepa, near the sea, on a landfill. They didn’t pile on the rubbish and it served as a good place to dock when it was low tide, but the locals had believed they were responsible for the rubbish pile and they were not very welcome in town. The situation between the Bajau Laut and the local Sabahans in town is a bit tough to explain, and I’m certainly not going to do a disservice to either group and try and explain it. 

The first two children to run up to me, the cutest little boy with a shirt on, no pants, happy as a clam. We played with his small, broken toy car for awhile. Then hide and seek, since he liked it. He was blonde, it could have been from the sea, it could have been from malnourishment. Most of them only spoke Bajau, so it was a bit hard communicating with them. 

I met a number of young ladies from the three lepa that were docked nearby. They were still nomadic, and had been on land for but a month or so. Some of them spoke broken Malay, so we sat down and had a chat with them for awhile. 

They all wanted pictures of themselves taken, which is the only reason I took them. I hate intentional exploitation, so I wasn’t going to partake in it. But that’s a long, ranty post for another day. I couldn’t take it in a more different setting, but this is as honest as it gets I guess, them, their lives, living in small boats, families of 8 or 10, with very little, except the clothes on their back. 

The little girl on the right, at the back? Awesome. Such a character. Told me how she was going to go to school when she grew up, and how much she wanted to learn how to read. I asked her casually, not thinking about it, “How old are you?” And she looked at me with a funny, quizzical expression, as though I had asked the dumbest question in the world. “I don’t know. I don’t know my age. Most of us don’t know our age.”

If you look into the issues affecting the Bajau Laut, documentation might be one of the biggest. They are nomadic seafarers, so they live in the surrounding areas of Southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. The island that are popular with them include Tawi-Tawi, Bum Bum, Semporna and much more. So, I mean, you’re Bajau Laut, you live on the sea, you fish, you hunt, and they do a lot of work in the coral triangle in Borneo, it doesn’t really occur to them to go and register births. Or think of vaccinations. Or healthcare. Or education. I don’t think for the longest time, and even for about 150 remaining nomadic families, state borders are something that they are concerned about. So this creates some problems, as you may have guessed. But, really, I’m summarizing all of it. A lot more issues, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, so it’s not some journalistic opus I’m writing on my tumblr, ok. :P

Tough man. Told me he could carry me if he wanted. 

Her name was really, really long. She asked me to call her Rina, and I spent a lot of time with her, because she spoke the most Malay and she was really friendly. She kept hugging me, touching my face and calling me kakak. She loves watching Hindi movies and listening to Hindi music when she is not at sea with her family. She does this at some local shops sometimes, when she has a few ringgit to have a Coke. She gets headaches and feels nauseous when she is on land, so she tries to sit in the boat when she isn’t exploring the town. She thinks she is about 13. She is not sure. She has the most beautiful collection of freckles on her face. She wanted to re-tie her sarong before the picture and straighten up her hair. It is the second time she’s had her very own picture taken. She wants to be a singer when she grows up. She asked me right before I left, if I knew any Bollywood songs. I said, No. Then she asked if I was Malaysian. I said, Yes I am. I am from KL. Then I asked her, Rina, where are you from? And she replied, 

I am from the sea. 

***

For way better coverage and pictures of the Bajau Laut: http://jamesmorganphotography.co.uk/photo-essays 

1 note
Leave Note / Reblog