Jangan cemarkan...

This morning, I woke up with this song in my head. A song that took me back to the year 1993.

Oh sungguh tenang dan damai sungaiku,

Alam indah menawan sekali,

Dan kesucianmu sumber hidupku,

Warisan alam yang tiada tandingannya

Mengalir damai dan tenang,

Dari kampung hingga ke seberang,

Dari hulu jauh ke muara,

Tumpuan kehidupan bangsaku

Jangan cemarkan Sungai Sarawak,

Jangan cemarkan,

Warisan yang tiada tandingannya..

I was singing it while I was doing my morning business, while I was brushing my teeth and I’m still singing it now…The song is written by Mr Kamil Salim and his wife, and our little group from our school was asked to sing it. Madam Allizah made us practice all the cute moves. We sang it 2 times, once in Pengkalan Sapi (yang dulunya cantik) and once in the Kuching Waterfront amphitheatre, for opening and closing ceremonies of “Cintailah Sungai Kita” campaign. I remembered me and my friends’ faces (5 or 6 of us) were in the front page of Utusan Sarawak….but of coursela, my family didn’t keep the newspaper cutting, we’re not sentimental enough to do that…hope my other friends did.

Those were the times when we thought they’re going to clean Sungai Sarawak, provide proper sewage system and good life for people living beside the river….but of course la, few years after, he-who-thinks-he-own-Sarawak turned it into a bottled water business….and people who live beside the river are facing possibilities that they might be relocated to a land far, far away to give way for impressive buildings to emerge, not to mention the flash floods that seem to occur more frequently and severe every time the rainy season comes….the floods that beat even the Great Kuching Flood 60++ years ago….huh!

Oooopsss, I’ve said too much.