Ignoring the falling rain, three smiling youngsters strummed their guitar, singing a traditional song which called for the rain to stop.

They looked like any other youngster you could find in Malaysia, jean-wearing kinds killing time by singing songs to entertain themselves and their friends. And also to charm the young girls standing next to them, giggling away on hearing the out-of-tune songs.

However this singing trio - all still below 20 years of age - are not your ordinary kind of youngsters.

Just like all the other youngsters in their village, they have not been to any schools. In fact they have never ventured out of their village. They don't know where Kuala Lumpur is. They don't know what Putrajaya is. And neither do they know Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

They are also in the dark as to what Merdeka means, never mind knowing how many years it has been since the nation gained its independence.

The guitar they had was a gift from the rare visitors to the village, the song a reminder of their links to their ancestors.

These are the children of the Jahai tribe, an Orang Asli commune of about 100 families living in Kampung Bunga Hilir in the Royal Belum forest reserve in Hulu Perak.

The same fate of ignorance runs through the entire community - from kids to elders.

It is hard to imagine that a group of people living just about 400km away from the capital city do not know who their prime minister is.

Even harder to digest is the fact that these same group of people are also not aware as to the significance of this year's Merdeka celebrations.

"What Merdeka? Merdeka from whom?" they asked when malaysiakini recently paid them a visit to coincide with the nation's 50th anniversary.

Bypassed by development

Their village is set in a picturesque location, just on the edge of the Temenggor lake in the Belum forest. It is about a two-and-a-half-hour boat ride away from the nearest jetty in Pulau Banding, Hulu Perak.

Fifty-year-old Dubog (right), the village headman (tok batin) told malaysiakini that there are about 40 huts in the village in which they had been living for the past 20 years or so.

Amid the heavy downpour during our visit, Dubog and several elders of the tribe invited us into a slightly bigger hut which they use for gatherings and idle talk.

Here, perched on a bamboo bench, puffing away the tobacco which we had just handed to them, the elders spoke about how development had overlooked and bypassed them.

With the searching eyes of curious villagers peering upon us, the village elders and some of the villagers as well, said they had learnt to live with the disappointment of being left behind.

In fact, they said they are contended with how they are now.

"We have asked for some basic amenities like proper housing, electricity and clean water but so far we have not received anything," said Dubog.

He added that now the villagers have stopped making any requests to the Orang Asli Department, preferring to continue with their lives as it is.

This means continued reliance on several government agencies such as the army and the marine police for used clothes and at times canned food.

Apart from that they are also involved in fishing and collecting roots and rattan for 'city businessmen' who make a huge profit by buying these off the natives at a low price.

"The money we get for a hard day's work in catching fish or collecting roots would only be enough to buy rice for one meal," said Dubog, who like many other elders, was only clad in a loincloth.

The younger generation was however seen in hand-me-down jeans and T-shirts, courtesy of the army, marine police or the odd visitors. A small number had bought these in Banding after selling their produce to the mainlanders.

Their staple food is tapioca, cultivated around their village. They also collect jungle fruits and hunt small mammals and fish. They don't eat deer as they believe these are their forefathers reborn.

Isn't Nik our PM?

Malaysiakini asked some youngsters if they knew how many years it has been since Malaysia gained its independence.

Some said two years. Even the elders agree. Their reasoning was that it was only last year they had a Merdeka concert organised by the Orang Asli Department. This year another party-cum-concert is also planned, thus their our-second-Merdeka claim.

This village is visited by the Health Department and the Orang Asli Department regularly to keep checks on the natives.

The Health Department also runs a programme in the village where it has sponsored a local youngster to administer medicines and be the department's eyes and ears in the village.

That youngster, Ronnie Lembing, 22, is the only 'government staff' in the village. He is also the only educated person there, being a Form Two dropout (left).

"I am the only one here who has been beyond Banding or Gerik. I have been to Penang and Ipoh," he said, adding that he knew who the prime minister was.

Others in the village didn't know Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. One villager slightly rose our spirits when he said he knew - and he said the prime minister was someone called 'Nik something'.

Unlike others, Ronnie also knew that Umno was the ruling party and that come Aug 31, the nation would be celebrating its 50th independence anniversary. But that's because he has been to the "outside world" and had attended several courses organised by the Health Department, he said.

He however agreed that it looked very unlikely that his village would have the same sort of development enjoyed by some of the other Orang Asli in the southern part of the Temenggor lake.

Ronnie and his villagers live in the northern part of the lake. Unlike their southern counterparts, these villagers are not Muslims. Being animists, they hold their forefathers as their gods.

Village head Dubog said that there had been attempts to convert them into Islam, and by some other groups into Christianity, but they had rejected them all.

"Our guiding gods are our forefathers. We won't do anything to provoke their anger," said village elder Masa, 40.

In fact, he said, one reason why the villagers spurned Islam was because their forefathers would be angry if they did not eat pork, considered illegal in Islam.

No right of education

The villagers here have no sense of date and time - understandably not a hut had a clock or a calender. The village headman however wore a wristwatch, a gift from a visitor but time in his watch stood at a standstill, much like how the village was.

The isolation of the Jahai tribe is not only seen in Dubog's village as the scenario is the same in all Jahai villages further up north, right up to the Thailand border.

The biggest victims of the Jahai marginalisation from development are the children of the tribe - some 250 of them do not go to school.

The nearest school is located in Pulau Banding and getting to school on time is an issue.

"We have asked for the government to build us a school here for all the Jahai children but so far nothing has moved," said Masa, adding that he now took his non-school-going sons to gather rattan and roots in the jungle.

"The Orang Asli on the other side (south of the Temenggor lake) has a school in their village and we too would like to have one," added Dubog.

"But we have not been getting anything from them (government). So for us we think it is better if we just stick to our own ways," he added, puffing away his rokok daun cabang (a type of self-rolled cigarette) and leading us for a tour of his village in the rain.

It was hard to fathom that after 50 years of independence there were still Malaysians who live like the Jahai tribe, partly due to their own volition, but largely because the government ineptitude.

Photos by M Sivapriah


Merdeka special: A tale of two villages

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