Kapit hive of activities during festive seasons

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AN ISLAND: Travelling by express boats remains the most convenient and cheapest means of public transport in and out of Kapit.

KAPIT: The interior town of Kapit literally comes alive twice annually, during Gawai Dayak and weeks before the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

BRISK BUSINESS: Hawkers offering a great variety of food items for sale at the Belaga jetty.

COMMITTED: Cikgu Morgan at Belaga jetty ready to take an express boat to SK Sungai Tunoh.

On these occasions, the town would be filled mostly with locals returning for family unions and also for the reopening of the new school term, where parents accompanied their children to school.

Businessmen love these occasions, with some firms reporting a 10 fold spike in their monthly revenue! It is very common to see furniture and electrical appliances stores, telecommunication outlets, textile shops, barber shops, and eateries jammed packed with patrons.

Since the middle of December last year till now, the hotel occupancy rate in Kapit hovered at more than 90 per cent. There are a total of 400 rooms here, and except for a handful of 2-star hotels, the rest are budget class.

When the school holidays started in the middle of November last year, the express boats also enjoyed brisk business. Kapit is, in a way, ‘an island’ because it is only accessible by express boats from Sibu, Belaga or Putai in Baleh.

A trip to Kapit from Sibu takes about three hours, passing through Kanowit, Nanga Dap, Nanga Ngemah and Song.

As for Belaga to Kapit, travelling time depends on the water level, but in general it’s about five hours journey.

From the interior Putai to Kapit, one can expect to remain in the express boats for three hours.

The food and drink vendors too are smiling all the way to the bank. They know that many longhouse folks, especially those who work in the timber industry, would normally take yearend leave and would think nothing of gulping down can after can of beer. To cater to this group of clients, the vendors would normally extend their operating hours. Wet market Gelanggang Terasang, along Jalan Penghulu Gerinang, is also the spot where a huge crowd of shoppers would convene.

Schools in and around Kapit are also a hive of activity at the beginning of the year as parents accompanied their children to schools to register for the new semester.

There are three secondary schools here: SMK Kapit, SMK Kapit 2 and SMK Selirik. In terms of primary schools, there are more than 40 of them located along the Rajang River, Baleh River and its numerous tributaries.

Belaga/Baleh jetty serves as one of the main gateways to the rural schools and longhouses. Large number of teachers and other school staffs can often be seen waiting for express boats to ferry them to their destinations.

One of them who is often spotted is Cikgu Morgan, who serves in Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Tunoh. To get to the school, he would first have to board an express boat to Sempili, Baleh River, and then hopped onto a 4WD vehicle to get to the school through logging roads. The bone-jarring journey takes some seven hours!

But it’s worst for those teachers and non-teaching staff serving SK Long Busang in Belaga district. They have to take a three-hour express boat ride from Kapit to Putai, and then take a 4WD vehicle from Putai to Long Busang. The journey, which traverses through treacherous, rocky and mountainous logging roads, takes between five and six hours. Hence, a trip the school takes between eight and nine hours!

The sacrifices of these teachers and non-teaching staff ought to be saluted.

Take teacher Mohd Aidifitri Panyau of SK Kapit as an example. Upon submitting a request to serve in the interior, he was posted to a rural area along Baleh River. A trip there would take between six and seven hours. Apart from missing his young siblings and wife who lives in the town, he readily accepted the transfer order to start a new life in the remote interior.

For all their sacrifices, their hardship allowances ranged from RM500 to RM1,500.