Chapter 5 " Ahoy-there - a Durian coming"

Beside swimming in that river much of their time were spent lying under those coconut less trees,enjoying the breeze blowing there.It was always a cool atmosphere.Many a time the whole gang were there,but most of the time only Fabian and brother,Francis.

Come Durian season,the jetty further upstream (about one odd meters away from their playground) workers will sometime unload fruits produced by the "kampongs" in the rural areas where there were little or no transport at all.

Durians,rambutan and mangoesteen were unload from boats at this jetty.Unloading Durians the workers had to pass from the boat to the jetty by hand as all the fruits were not brought in by baskets,but lumped together in one side of the boat thus saving space.Baskets were also rare in the rural areas then and costly.

THe workers were all very capable in passing the fruits from hands to hands.It was a very thorny issue and a small slip might hurt one's palm.Leave the workers alone they were all very skillful and most passing were very,very accurate.In any case there was always a minor margin of failure.

That could be fatal,not for the worker but the Durian,as a miss pass meant that they lose the fruit and it will definitely land into the water below and floated away very fast.What was one fruit the workers will not waste time swimming after it to retrieve it.

That particular Durian will flow down stream.That Durian coming down stream would not miss the watchful eyes of Francis and Fabian.On seeing that fruit,a shout of joy will ringed out through the ears."ahoy there,there comes a Durian".

Without hesitation Fabian will rushed off the banks and dived in to swim vigorously towards that fruit.Well.being an improved swimmer that was "Sup,sup.Siow" for Fabian.
"Sup.sup Siow" meant in Chinese "Very little bits or very small things nothing to bother"or maybe better "No problem".

The fruit was then opened up and shared among all present."Kampong" or village Durian had many seeds of fresh, so enough for everyone present.Poor boys those days were too poor to buy Durian and to pluck one from the river was a grand occasion,and everyone enjoyed that treat.

It is not every day that they had those fallen fruits,sometimes none will float by,but workers were workers they do make mistake,that will depend on the boys' luck.

Well those were the days.