:: home is where the heart is::

So, yesterday and today,my parents and i went back to the house in b.a.
Our house wasn't affected as it is located further up from the site of the landslide.

Because of the on-going renovation of the house, i haven't been to that area for about 5 months until yesterday.


Now, i haven't been there for quite a while and have been trying to avoid to go and visit the house since the full-fledge renovation started about a year ago. There's just something unpleasant about watching the house i grew up in,- with its tiny bench, pretty garden with small japanese roses, and guppy fish- turn into some construction site, with cigarette butt strewn all over what used to be the garden and the tiny bench is now covered with bricks and sacks of cement powder. Even the van gogh reproduction that hung in the living room is now covered with thick dust.

However, the landslide made me miss home.
When i heard about the news, eventhough i know that none of my family members were at home, and that the landslide happen in bukit mewah-nowhere near my housing area, and eventhough i had gotten assurance that everyone i know who live there are safe and well, i can't help but still feel inexplicably sad. As if i knew the victims personally. The whole day, i was glued to the tv, and god, i was gloomy.

Somehow, that day, everything i love and know about the place just played and played and played in my mind and i wanted to be there more than anything.

i wondered about the victims of the houses that i passed by probably thousands of times during the 11 years that we've stayed there.
I wondered about the red house which seemed like a mansion to me when i was around 9 years old, because then, it was truly, the grandest house i've ever seen.
I wondered about the house with the blue roof which i used to think as my favorite house in that row of houses.Until, that classic-american style house was completed about 4 houses away.
I wondered about the house that had a name which i've been trying hard to recall but can't seem to remember until now. I know it had two words.villa was the second word.
i can't remember the first word. I tried so hard.
i just cant remember.

I wonder,is the balinese style house which was featured in a interior design magazine when i was in primary school affected by the landslide?or is it still standing?

And there were these two guys.Siblings.They live in one of the houses, the same row as the red house, the blue roof and the house with the name that i cant recall. They used to stand by the roadside in front of their house and hitch a ride from those who are heading to the main entrance of bukit antarabangsa and from there they would take the cab. Those who live here would know how hard it is to get a cab anywhere in b.a. and it was easier to wait for a cab at the b.a entrance.
One of the siblings writes poetry and will try to sell them to people whom he thought would be interested-usually to those who offered him a ride. My dad bought one of his poems.
it was about chicken rice and a couple(i think)-typed on a white A4 paper, folded and placed in the standard white envelope for letters. Yours for 10 ringgit.
Oh you bet i've read the poem. It was...well, he's not exactly A. Samad Said, if you know what i mean. But it was not bad either. It made me smile you see. I thought the poem was cute.
I heard my neighbours said that the guys was harmless but "tak betul sikit". I thought he was just an eccentric. And an interesting,poem writing eccentric at that. He had me at 'chicken rice',-I would never dream of calling him crazy.
I haven't seen them around for a while actually, but then again, i have not been there for quite a while too. I wonder if they still live there, and i wonder if they're alright. I really hope, with all my heart, that they are.