The weekend of 11 and 12 August 2007 must be one of the most hectic for me in recent times. It all started the week before. First, there was my Company's Board Meeting on Friday 10 August. Things went on pretty fine despite the threat of some fireworks before that.
In the afternoon I had to go to my son's school to see their final preparation for the Jogathon on Saturday which I'm unable to attend. When I reached the school, the teachers were busy counting the money they had collected. Everyone looked so excited as apparently they had surpassed their RM60k target by quite a bit. I left around 7:00pm to pick up my daughter from her Kumon class. After Maghrib, I had to go to Giant to buy some things to be brought to the Reunion. By the time we finished dinner and bought the stuff it was almost 10:00pm. We left the house shortly after that and reached Selesa almost 11:00pm.
Three other families checked in early with us. After sending the wife and kids to our apartment, I went back to meet up with Ruslan, Shukri and Anwar. We played cards, "400", until almost 2:30pm.
Saturday started rather slowly. Ruslan's wife, Mawa, prepared a good breakfast for all of us. We had planned to play some table tennis in the morning but had to abandon our plans and started preparing for the big check-in. I had to return to town to pick up my office projector and buy some mineral water. The rest were busy finalising the packing of the goodie bags, checking rooms and others. By mid morning we started receiving calls from friends who were making their way up to Selesa. Among the non-Committee members, Shariff was the first to arrive and he started helping out. The registration process, as we had expected, could cause some problems. We had wanted to do it outside the Reception area but that privilege was given to another group which had a bigger number.
I thought the whole registration process went very smoothly, thanks to Fuzi and her would-be doctor daughter, Hasnor. There were generous amount of goodies, definitely worth more than the RM50.00 paid per head. The scenes at the registration counter were mostly fun but at times emotion filled. Friends who have not seen each other for more than 2 decades definitely have a lot of things to talk about. Some did not even know where to start, themselves, their spouses, their children or careers. Witnessing these happy scenes make all the hard work the Committee had put in worthwhile, and we haven't even started!!
Most of our friends had arrived by 1:00pm. The biggest entourage was definitely Datin Norsiah's and her 5 well built children. My son, Afiq, who was so fired up for the futsal game, told me we definitely had no chance after seeing Datin's sons. After checking-in they were told to assemble again by 2:30pm for the "Ice breaking" session. Shukri, Asmah, and Rohani handled the session very well. In no time, we were all put at ease for the rest of the program. Afternoon tea was prepared by Anwar's wife and augmented by Mawa's sandwiches.
After tea and Asar prayers, the telematches and volleyball games were held. ALL games, from the indoor games, quizzes, to the field games were won by the teams from the 75 batch. Not surprising, since they had the biggest contingent, more than 40.
The men later had their maghrib prayers at Selesa's surau. It was small so not all can join the prayers. Shukri led the prayers while Syed led the doa selamat later. At least some members of the 76 batch managed to make themselves useful.
By now its time for the big one, the Grand Dinner, which was supposed to be the highlight of the Reunion. I must say, I had the jitters. We wanted this to be just right, if not perfect. After all, we worked hard to prepare for it. The fact that almost all of us were on time for dinner showed that they were looking forward for this. We had purposely planned for the afternoon sessions so that all "small talk" would have been completed by the time we have our dinner. But this was not to be the case. To be fair, we cannot expect over 2 decades of stories to be completed in 2 or 3 hours.
We started the proceedings at around 8:45pm, about 15 minutes later than scheduled. When I and Fuzi took the mikes as MCs for the nights, the mike used by Fuzi started giving problems. I personally tested the mikes extensively in the afternoon at the expense of joining the telematches and volleyball games and they were alright. But, we moved on. The customary speeches were held with Anwar (Organizing Chairman); Tan Sri Yahya (founding father of SIUMSA) and Dato' Fatmi (first president of SIUMSA) giving their pieces of mind. All of them can't keep to the expected time limit. Even Anwar got carried away. This shows, given a mike and a crowd everybody will have something to talk about :-).
By the time we were done with the speeches, it was almost 9:30pm. We are now 30 minutes behind schedule. Before we serve dinner, we played a short video entitled "The Making of Saluki Reunion '07". With the background song of "Semalam Di Malaya" by D'lloyd, it provides a fitting start to the video show that is to come. Dinner was served shortly after and I was told it was good. I can see they had a good spread. I did not managed to eat much. When in these situations I will normally lose my appetite for everything.
About 20 minutes into dinner, we played the main video "Kampongdale". This 40 minute collage of photos was prepared by Hassan. I know it was a lot of hard work, not only getting the photos but also choosing the songs and thinking of the captions. The best thing for me is that the songs chosen were definitely most appropriate to the scenes. I think everyone of us (the ex-Salukis) would have been reminded of our times in Carbondale by these photos. For me, it reminded me of some my best carefree years. No wonder Dato' Fatmi remembered me as "orang yang paling malas belajar". The end of the show was greeted with a big round of applause. That applause is for you, Hassan. We completed the slide presentation with a short tribute to our late colleague, Abd Rahim Othman. This also moved some of us to tears, I was told later.
Hassan and Anwar took over the mikes from me and Fuzi for some simple quizzes about Carbondale and gave away prizes, lots of prizes. More prizes were then given out for the winners of the events held earlier in the day. By the time we finished it was almost midnight. Most of us had to call it a day, a long but eventful day indeed. Some of us continued reminiscing a few hours after that. I had to go back to my room as I had given the keys to my wife earlier.
Sunday started very early. I know it started even earlier for Sle, Mawa, Anwar and wife as they had to prepare breakfast. By the time I arrived at the futsal field at around 7:30, most of us were there. My son, Afiq was so fired up for the futsal game that I had to calm him down. He said he wanted to make up for the volleyball game which he had never played before. I pulled a fast one on everybody as I had bought T-shirts for the 76 batch. The others had not thought about this. Hassan must be sore with me. After all he bought T-shirts for everyone, of course he can buy some for his 75 batch. Dato' Fatmi would have gladly sponsored some, but I purposely did not share my plans. Sorry guys, but I have to beat you at something.
The futsal games were good. It was more competitive than I had expected, especially the performance of the 77 batch. I had expected them to be trashed by 75 and 76 batches but Sle and his gang proved me wrong. Had they had more numbers, they would certainly been a handful. After some tense moments and a lot of help from the Convener, Shukri, Team 76 was crowned champions of Futsal. I played for a few minutes and I had a muscle pull. It was an old injury which never seemed to fully heal. We then had our group photos.
The last event was the jungle trekking. Well, it was not much of a jungle. It was more like a stroll in the park. But the kids had a good time in the stream. I should have stayed in my room but I did not. The additional walk aggravated my injury and I can hardly walk when I got home.
Soon enough it was time to say goodbye. I settled the final bill at Selesa and head home. We stopped in Taman Melati for lunch and by the time I reached home I was almost half dead. After Zohor, I went straight to bed and only woke up for my prayers. Dinner was served in bed as I'm not up to walking. I woke up at 11:00pm to watch Man Utd. held to a 0-0 draw with Reading despite dominating the game fully. Reading even had a man thrown out in the later part of the game.
The weekend ended at 1:00pm for me. It was long but definitely memorable weekend. I wouldn't trade it for anything else. For those who missed this event, well, you don't know what you missed. And you know what, there may be another Reunion at another time, but it will never be the same. As they say the first one is always the best and most memorable.
Thank you everyone for the memories. Lets meet again sometime.
Wassallam,
HBO
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