Window to a dream A growing number of Penan kids see education as a lifeline to lift them out of the pit of poverty.
A pilot project – to award scholarships to deserving students in the remotest parts of the country – may well change the life of an entire community.
IT DOESN’T matter to Zuel Sammy, 18, that his village Long Lamai is in the middle of a rainforest.
“I will return and set up our own homestay here. I want to welcome visitors from near and far. I want to help bring positive changes to my community. This is my dream, and one day it will come true,” says the spunky lad. “I love my village; it is peaceful, friendly and fun. You always hear laughter. People have time to share their lives with one another. I can’t experience this kind of kinship anywhere else.”
Zuel’s story illustrates how education can open doors that change lives. In 2008, Mamman George, a visitor from Kuala Lumpur, invited Zuel to stay with his family in the city so that he could finish his Form Four and Five Five education there. The exposure changed his life.
“Our tradition has always been to raise a family and tend to our crops. We never had bigger dreams. We are simple folks from the jungle. When I returned home from KL, my village suddenly seemed so small. I felt very sad that there were still no changes in my kampung, and so many youths continue to drop out of school by 15. One of them is my brother, Eleazar, 16. He is bright but he just couldn’t fit into his new school.
“I want to prove that a Penan can go beyond what anyone expects of us,” says Zuel, citing as his hero early Penan graduate Ezra Uda, who is now a senior civil servant.
Zuel is currently a first-year Tourism and Hospitality student at UCSI University’s Kuching campus.
We accompanied him home on a recent trip with UCSI representatives who are on a pilot project to award tourism and hospitality scholarships to deserving students in isolated communities such as Zuel’s.
Long Lamai is the most remote Penan settlement in the Baram district of Sarawak’s interior, near the border with the Indonesian territory of Kalimantan. To get there, we flew to Miri and caught one of the twiceweekly one-hour flights onboard a Twin Otter to Long Banga. From there, it is either a two-hour trek through the jungle or a boat ride through rapids which may be risky but that is the swiftest way to get to the many Orang Ulu riverine communities along the upper reaches of the Baram river basin.
Sadly, Zuel is a rarity among the 10,000-strong community of Penans, the majority of whom have given up their nomadic lifestyle for jungle settlements. An alarming number of Penan youths drop out of school when they reach the age of 13 or 15.
The nearest secondary school is in Bario; it takes about one week to trek there, depending on the weather. Many students are forced to hitch rides from the timber trucks which operate in the vicinity of their village. This shortens the journey to one day, but sometimes it requires students to stay overnight at logging camps, which makes the Penan girls vulnerable to sexual abuse. There have been cases of Penan girls being raped.
In Bario, schools provide classes up to Form 3. To continue their studies, the students have to relocate to Marudi, a riverine town in the sparsely populated Baram district.
“We very much want our children to be educated so that they can get a decent job,” says Uyang Baya, 35, who has six children aged from two months to 17 years.
Ping Musa, 36, a mother of seven, says life is tough in the jungle. “Everything in the city requires money, which we do not have. Our hope is for our children to have a better future. We don’t want them to be illiterate like us.”
Uyang and Ping echo the sentiments of the villagers, most of whom are subsistence farmers with barely any income. The sad truth is that the youths eventually drop out of school and work in factories or timber companies to support their families.
Suhakam’s Education and Promotions Division assistant secretary Hasmah Abdul Manaf was appalled by the lack of basic facilities for primary school pupils during a visit in 2009.
“The children’s hostels do not have bathrooms, so the kids have to bathe in the river and brave the strong currents. This is against Unicef’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. And they are not getting nutritious meals either,” Hasmah was reported as saying to the press.
“There are over 10,000 Penans, yet our children have little access to schools,” says Long Lamai’s headman Wilson Bian. “They are separated from their families at a young age. Many get bullied as they are shy in nature. They are unable to focus on their studies, and eventually they can’t catch up. We have written to the Education Ministry, appealing for a school to be built here, but there has been no progress.
“We will never see any positive changes as long as the young remainre uneducated, un-aware and out of touch with the times.”
Theth Penans in Long Lamai get by without basic amenities such as water and electricity supply, tele-communications and basic infrastructure.inf Some households use generators but the high cost of petrol deters many as the Penans arear paying RM3 per litre instead of the subsidi price for fuel. Homes are basic shelters of wooden planks topped with aluminum sheets, or within a longhouse. Small vegetable patches are everywhere; the farmers grow corn, eggplant, bittergourd, sweet potato and leafy greens.
The villagers survive on crops of hill paddy and whatever jungle produce they can source. Wild boar is a rare treat as the jungles have been depleted by logging. The fortunate few who stumble upon agarwood, harvest it for sale, and this is often enough to feed the family for a few months.
The Penans are characteristically shy and gentle, with a curiosity about the world beyond their village. They value human relationships. Not once could we have a conversation with a Penan without them bringing out jugs of Milo and coffee, and trays of sweets or fruits. We were touched by their warmth and generosity, given that they have so little.
An old man we met, walked across the village in the dark to bring us some freshly plucked mangoes and a bag of rice which he had grown.
“Please, take it home. I’m sorry
this is all I have to give you,” he said.
It is a misleading notion that the Penans oppose any form of development.
“Of course, we want progress,” says headman Wilson. “But it has to be beneficial to the community. The most urgent need is for an accessible secondary school. We want the youths to be able to study with some peace of mind without having to be separated from their families.
“We may be slower in welcoming change because we need time to grasp new ideas, weigh the pros and cons, and discuss the matter with the villagers. This has often been misconstrued to mean that we are not receptive to changes.
“We need a clinic desperately. The nearest one is in Long Banga, a twohour trek by foot. Sometimes the sick cannot make the journey. We also need water and electricity. It is very costly to use diesel or petrol for our generators.
“Most of all, we need the resources of the forest. It provides for our kitchen, our medicine, our survival. Nowadays we can spend days hunting in the jungle, yet return emptyhanded.”
Long Lamai, which is home to some 500 villagers, has been around since the 1950s. However, it is by no means an ageing community as more than half the village comprises children and teenagers.
In 2009, University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), supported by a grant from the government of Japan, initiated a telecentre pilot project to enable the villagers to access the Internet a few hours each week.
Wilson says that the Internet has opened their eyes to the world outside and to tourism, which many welcome as a sustainable source of badly needed income.
“I understand tourism can bring about changes. There are fears of negative influences, but we have faith that we can manage these changes with clearly set rules. There are many ways to make a project successful so that it benefits the community. We are keen to learn new things,” says Wilson.
Kamsiah Baharudin, 16, helps to operate the telecentre’s three computers during her school break.
“The Internet is so slow here, and we don’t have the convenience of buying whatever we need from the shops. But I love my village. My ambition is to become a doctor someday. I want to come back to Long Lamai and open a clinic right here,” says the spirited teenager.
“When I went to Form One in Bario, my classmates teased me and labelled me the jungle girl. Many nights, I cried myself to sleep. Now I am used to it. It has only made me more determined to succeed. I cannot wait to finish my studies and start earning money to support my parents. They work so hard.
“The one great thing about living in Marudi is that I get to watch television, especially The Oprah Winfrey
Show. I want to be successful like her.”
Zuel’s younger sister Nastasa, 12, scored 2As and 2Bs in the UPSR exam last year.
“I’m sad to leave my mother and sisters behind. But my big brother has done it, and I want to finish my education, too. That’s the only way I can help my family,” says Nastasa, who is now studying in Bario.