从前从前 有个人~ 小学篇

小学。冼都华小。天真无邪。

每天上学的日子过得好开心。没有烦恼；只有欢笑。朋友和老师总是那么的和蔼可亲。

早上班。五点钟便得起床。记得我以前都非常醒睡，只要妈妈拍拍我的屁股，我便会自然的起床，从来没有怨言。洗刷完毕，换上校服，妈妈一定已经把早餐准备好。小学的早餐一般上都是半熟蛋或者是一杯 Nescafe。凌晨的夜空还是非常黑暗的。我很喜欢抬头，静静的望着天上闪烁的星星。以前老师说过，星星是有很多颜色的。只要你定着眼睛凝望着一颗星星，你就会渐渐看见它的颜色。有红色，蓝色，白色，还有五颜六色的。感觉上，红色的星星才是最热的，可是其实并非如此。蓝色还比红色热呢。老师还说，五颜六色的是卫星。好奇妙。

一切准备就绪后，妈妈就陪同我们到我们家排屋的另一端去等巴士。还记得，巴士司机是住在我们家的后面一排，所以每天我们都是第一个上巴士的。我每一天都会坐同一个位子，好像是巴士的左边第三行。然后就‘霸位’给我当时的‘死党’。记得他们的名字叫黎佩仪和黄雪珊。有时候一上车我便会合上眼睛呼噜呼噜的继续睡觉，巴士的座位，仿佛是舒服的被窝；有时候我们会叽叽喳喳的讲个不停；有时候突然发现当天有听写或是要背的课文，就大家一起背了起来。小时候的记忆力非常强，一百多个字的散文，在短短的一小时里就可以背起来了。回想起，还是历历在目。


在学校，每一个同学都是我的好朋友。我们最爱的就是玩跳绳。 下午班时，上课前的时间大多数都是玩各式各样的跳绳游戏；有跳高式的，不能碰到跳绳；有一种叫‘国王皇后’的，跳过绳子时要喊那些皇亲国戚的称呼；有一种比较斯文的，跳绳要绕着两个人撑着，然后玩的那个人就在中间跳各种各样的玩意儿；还有一种，就是最普通的，跳绳从脚踝，膝盖，盘骨，腰围，肩膀，一直到头顶，高难度的，还可以去到头顶上加一个拳头，两个拳头的高度，然后大家要一一跳过。细节我已经忘记了。如果你跳得厉害，大家就会想抢先选你进入他们的队。理所当然的，我就成了‘抢手货’，都拜我的一双修长的腿。一些男生也爱玩，而且蛮厉害的。印象中最记得的是林江豪。他是个童子军，而且也是田径健将，所以跳绳也成了他的专长。应该是这样吧。

除了跳绳，我们在休息时段也爱玩"One-Two-Som!" 大家玩得投入时，可说是出神入化！两人一直出招，每一次赢，自己或者是‘助手’就会在沙地上加一瞥，一画，画成一个房子，最先画完房子的一方就胜。大家都非常熟悉笔画的顺序，而且出招非常的快！有些同学，还被认为是高手，因为他们通常都会赢。回想，这些高手不是练会了判断对方出招的规律或模式，就是硬撑，欺骗，有胜没胜都加一瞥。哈哈.

我小学时不爱运动，尤其讨厌体育课。有一次拿成绩单时，老师对妈妈说，我不善于参与体育，说我不配合及听从体育老师的指示。说实在的，当时我的确是那样。体育课时，老师都爱叫我们做体操式的运动，比如一个人弯下腰，双手撑着膝盖，然后另一个人就得按着那个人的背，跳跃过去。我想，应该是我畏高吧呵呵。小学的老师们和校长，我想他们想也没想到，以后的我会投身体育界，并代表国家比赛吧。

四年级以前，我在运动会最多只参加‘倒退顶豆袋’项目。好好笑。好像那第二吧。五六年级，我才开始参与运动。一开始是参与星期六的课外活动，篮球班。虽然没有很高难度，可是带球上篮的基本动作我还是学得不错的。六年级代表6A班参加班级篮球赛，也赢了第一。最糗的事，第一场比赛一开始（我当然是跳球的代表啦），我队得到了球权，队友把球传给我，我就非常‘勇’的带球往蓝底前进，一路上没有人阻拦，一路顺风。当时的我超得益，以为对方追不到我了，就来一个熟练的带球上篮！球进了！！我的第一个进球！我想你也猜到结果了吧。对，我竟然‘大头虾’地投错蓝了！天啊！

记得以前的一个麻吉，他也住在Taman Sri Gombak，我们坐同一辆校车上下学，所以很熟。他叫做梁健汉。上午班放学后，我和他，妈妈和一个aunty就会到我们参加的俱乐部去打羽球。我们打双打，记忆中我们还不赖的。

运动只是占了我小学的一小部分。我可是一个文人。巧幸的，我的学校成绩一向不错。我算是非常活跃，参加很多比赛和活动。一年级时，被老师点名参加歌唱比赛。我记得，我唱的歌是‘世上只有妈妈好’。结果，我得了第一名，而我的同班同学，冯文宾，得了第二。从此，我每一年都是歌唱比赛的常客。每一年都有得奖，除了二年级。当时老师给了我一首蛮有难度的歌曲，好像叫做什么什么的果实。当宣布我没拿奖时，我好难过，而且哭了。唉。。。小学期间，我都参加歌咏班。而且，老师也选了几个‘优秀生’接受比较深入的唱歌课。定在每个星期五，我，白祯丽，朱志明，等等，都会聚在歌咏室跟一位黄老师学唱歌。影响最深刻是我和白祯丽合唱的‘秋蝉’。我到现在还会唱那些和音呢。

除了唱歌，还有演讲比赛，讲故事比赛，画画比赛，书写比赛，英文笔试比赛，数学笔试比赛，国语笔试比赛，常识笔试比赛，等等。。。几乎每一个比赛我都曾经榜上有名。常识比赛最有趣。不知怎样，平时不看报纸的我，竟然可以在年级常识比赛里获得第一名！这也算了，可是老师却要我参加常识社团，准备代表学校参加常识比赛。我真的慌了!当初浑水摸鱼了几个礼拜，最终决定了向周彩玉老师坦白，说我得奖纯碎是因为巧幸，我并没有那么广的见闻。老师也答应了。险。

除了以上的节目，我也是班长，图书管理员，还有巡察员（就是老师在开会，巡察员就代老师管理班上的那一种）。三年级和六年级也被选成巡查员团长呢！我何得何能，我也说不上来。那个巡查员团长的牌子我现在还留着呢。

反正风光归风光，玩乐归玩乐，小学真的是非常愉快的。

Before We Take Things for Granted

I usually read a newspaper from the back page. There are a few reasons for it. First, I love sports and usually sports news come with more lively photos, which I like. Second, I usually look for familiar names or faces of my friends that are still active in sports. It is always exciting to know how they're doing and keeping their dreams alive. Third, the back page always starts with good news, so and so winning the grand slam, so and so is the upcoming star... unlike the front page that is always dramatic or sad.

Anyway, I came across this new on Star today. Pardon me for my disgust, but how could this be happening in this world? I've always heard about people in the third world suffering from famine and all, but it is just too much if human beings have to eat dirt to sustain their lives. This news really bothers me, a lot. I am sure there are worse cases, but still. I was having my luch box in the pantry as I read the article, and man, suddenly the tofu and noodles looked like delicacies.

As I flipped the newspaper to the next page, an article was introducing some fancy luxurious restaurants. What a contrast. Some people are living larger than life while some have to be starved to death. Then, I began to think of the Communism concept. At least, resources would be evenly distributed to everyone, instead of the rich getting richer, the poor falling deeper into the s*%t hole.

If karma exists, what had these people done to deserve being born into the wrong part of the world? I wonder.

Before we take things for granted... think again.

Eating dirt
By JONATHAN M. KATZ

Monday February 4, 2008

IT WAS lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a one-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.

No choice: Mud cookies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening,

are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium.But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

“When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day,” Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 2.8kg he weighed at birth. Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. “When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too,” she said.

Hard work: A woman preparing mud cookies.

Rising costs

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertiliser, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well. The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40% in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the UN Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost US$1.50 (RM5). Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs US$5 (RM16.50), the cookie makers say.

Still, at about five cents apiece (about 15sen), the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80% of people in Haiti live on less than US$2 (RM6.60) a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Hunger relief: A woman dries mud cookies in the sun on
the roof of Fort Dimanche, once a prison, in Port-au-Prince.

Cookie recipe

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun. The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.
Assessments of the health effects are mixed.

Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of foetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Hot cakes: A market vendor sells mud cookies at the La Saline market in Port-au-Prince.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

“Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it,” said Dr Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti’s health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

“I’m hoping one day I’ll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these,” she said. “I know it’s not good for me.” – AP

© 1995-2008 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)

News taken from here.