It was early 1970's at Pasir Gombong rice mill, Cipeuyeum vilage, my birth place. I could remember when I was 3 or 4. My parents lived there with my 1 year older sister Lisa. Ruthje, my 6 years older sister, was staying in Jakarta with her grandma and auntie from my dad's family, so she can go to decent school there. There should be a public school nearby where the local kids went, but I think it was not up to my parent's expectation, as they grew up in well off Chinese-Indonesian family where better private school was preferred.
The place was a 1900's Chinese-Dutch colonial relic rice mill, where the local farmers used the service to process the rice from padi (rice weeds) to beras (rice grains).
On the left of the dirt road was the front main gate made of chain link. To the right was a small river and a piece of land full of wild bushes and fruit trees. From jamblang, the sweet sour purple fruit the size of a thumb, to kedongdong, the green-yellow sweet fruit with bristle brush-like seed inside. There were also a lot of poisonous snakes. The river separates our house from those snakes, but from time to time some of them managed to swim over for a visit. My parent used to smack those unexpected wanderers with 1.5 meter black wooden stick, and my mom told us that she even saw a cobra one day.
To the left of the gate was the garage for an old black Plymouth, the car my dad used to drove us to other cities on the good days when it allows its engine to run. Behind the garage there was a typical Sundanese village bamboo house. It was mang (uncle in Sundanese) Azhari's house, the keeper. His wife, we called her Umi (mom in Arabic). They have 5 or 6 children. 1 or 2 older boys (I don't recall their names), 2 younger sisters, Kayah and Etih, used to work as our nannies from time to time, and a girl (forgot her name too) and a boy, Kurnia, which was about my age and my sister Lisa.
In front of their house there was a "kulah", a large pond, where their whole family would took bath on open air. Next to the pond was an outbuilding, the "kantor" (office), where my uncle and others would conduct their business. It had 2 teak desks and a set of chairs, and has a small booth opening, where the mill's worker would collect their wages daily. Across the office was our house, a Dutch styled mason house with terracotta tiled roof. In front and on the side of the house were 2 large yards separated by the dirt road to the mill. The yards were paved with concrete, where the workers used to dried the rice under the sun. Behind one of the yard was the mill, a huge building with corrugated iron roof and some old Dutch machinery to process the rice.
Across the largest concrete fields was a field with sugar cane, coconut, cassava, mango, star fruit, jambu trees, also a large fish pond and some hen houses with occasional occupants of chicken, duck, geese, swan, and turkey. During rice harvest season, the place always filled with the pollen from the mill that makes your skin itch, but it was our bowl of rice.
Behind the mill was the diesel generator house, the only electricity source for the house, which only started at 6 pm to 6 am. On the quiet evening when the sun start to set, the sound of the generator gradually started brought light was my favorite sound. One day the generator broke down for couple of days. During those nights, we used kerosene lantern. In the morning all of our nose's insides were black from the lantern's smokes.
The mill used to be own by my dad's uncle, but sold to another person when I lived there, runs by his brothers, encek (younger fraternal uncle in Chinese dialect) Eng Tek, used to be the director, encek Eng Liang, who took over the director's job, encek Eng Tun, the part time mechanic, my dad, the all purpose person, and 2 other guys of his family members, engku (younger maternal uncle) Cun, Empek (older fraternal uncle) Bem. Some of these names was somehow adopted by the employees to their liking. They refer to the director as neng (Sundanese referral to someone in higher social cast or employer, as it was impolite to refer someone older or such with their names directly) Kawasa (Sundanese for authority). As for engku Cun, he was referred as neng Engku. My mom was referred as neng Istri (wife in Sundanese). The exception was only for my dad, who insist to be called as pak (normal Indonesian referral for older man) Jaka, from his Indonesian name Zakaria, instead of his Chinese name Eng Siang. My dad and us lived in this house, and engku Cun also lived on the "loteng" (2'nd floor). The rest commuted daily from Cianjur or Jakarta.
There are dozens of men and women worked at the mill. I could recall only some of them by names. There were mang Salim, the most trusted person in the family, used to fetch water from the well for our bath and play kecapi (Sundanese harp) when my dad played the violin, mang Kateng, the mandor (foreman), and bi (Sundanese for auntie) Amah, the fair-skinned lady who used to nurse me and Lisa. I even remember for some reason she used breastfed us when mom was not around.
It's a long walk on dirt country road from this place to the main road. The only clue to detour from the main road to Pasir Gombong's road is the railway crossroad, next to Cipeuyeum train stop. It's approximately halfway between Cimahi and Cianjur. I was told the dirt road leads to Bojong Picung village, and could eventually ends up at some mountains or seashores on south of Java island. We never had a chance to took the daily public train when we lived there. The train was the less popular means of transportation due to its less frequent and never on-time schedules, compare to the public buses which picked up passenger where ever they found ones along the main road. We used to hitch a ride on public bus to Cimahi in the east, where my mom's family lived, or to nearest city Cianjur in the west, where Lisa took kindergarten. She told me she used to take a shortcut through the rice fields with dad or Etih. It was a shorter journey, but you'll end up with a lot of dirt and rice weeds all over your clothes. Unlike her, I didn't take kindergarten, instead mom taught us to read at home. Thanks to the homeschooling, I could read at age of 5, although always struggle with my ugly handwriting.
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