BALANCING ACT: Wan balances himself while carrying food stuff along the walkway made of wooden planks and tree trunks.
FISHERMAN Ho Bee Beng and his wife Mating Jenap have been living hand to mouth in their shanty home on stilts out in a swamp since 2006.
Their rickety house, held up by slender wooden poles seven feet above ground, stands alone in the middle of a mangrove marsh, just metres from dry land along the coastal area of Kampung Santubong and is on the verge of collapse.
Rotten wooden planks and dead tree trunks, strung across the ground unevenly, provides a narrow walkway leading to their raised-floor ramshackle.
For nearly eight years now, the childless couple have been living in isolation and experiencing life as a daily struggle, exacerbated by the ebb and flow of the tide.
TRADITIONAL COOKING: Mating stands beside the open pit wood fire at the back of the house.
Their situation – how they have come to live a swamp — is much more complex than meets the eye.
Ho hopes the government will consider their plight and relocate them to a permanent place so that they can lead a normal simple life.
Ho, 47, who speaks fluent Bahasa Melayu, said access to their home depends very much on the natural tidal cycle. The time between high and low tide is about eight hours. After that, the entire tidal cycle is repeated all over again.
During high tide, the water rises and the whole swamp land is inundated, sometimes by over seven feet, and water seeps into the house from below.
FOR YOU: Wan (second left), accompanied by a volunteer, presents essentials to Mating (second right) while Ho looks on.
“If we go out, we must be home before the water rises or else we will have to wait at the kampung until the water subsides which can take as long as eight hours,” the soft-spoken Ho said.
There is no electricity supply, so they use kerosene lamp and torch to light up their house but then again, electricity can be dangerous as the couple run risk of “being electrocuted” when water soaks their home during rainy days, the Monsoon season and high tide.
“During the Monsoon, the waves can actually shake the weak structure of our house,” Ho said, adding that the foundation pillars had weakened and become unstable.
MUDDY AND WET: The surrounding swamp.
Struggling to survive
They don’t own a motorbike or a bicycle, much less a car, but Ho has a small boat he uses to make a living. However, subsisting on Ho’s uncertain and meagre earnings from fishing, the couple struggle constantly even for basic necessities.
“I make about RM300 a month from selling fish, prawns and dried seafood products to Kampung Santubong only,” he told thesundaypost.
“But there is no income during the Monsoon months because I can’t go out to the sea,” he lamented.
Fortunately, they have access to water via a pipe connected from dry land and stretched several metres along the walkway into their home.
Mating, 41, still cooks on open pit wood fire inside the house and meals often consist of daily catches of fish and jungle produce.
Over the years, Ho has also faced a number of health concerns, including heart problem, lack of potassium and mild diabetes.
“I go to the nearby health clinic for check-up from time to time,” he said.
CAN’T GO HOME: Water from Sungai Santubong flows into the muddy swamp during high tide, sometimes up to seven feet deep, making access to Ho’s house impossible.
Hope Place chips in
Hope Place, a non-profit charitable body, founded by Kelvin Wan, who is a volunteer himself, recently visited the couple to contribute two months’ worth of essentials such as rice, Milo, sugar, biscuits and noodles.
Wan had visited earlier but could not get to the house as the swamp was flooded.
“I’m here again to take down the details and evaluate the living conditions to see if the couple is genuinely in need of help. Aid recipients must fulfill our criteria, one being that the net income must not be more than RM250 a month,” he explained.
To date, Hope Place is helping 76 needy families and individuals, including adults and children with disabilities, sick and abandoned senior citizens and single mothers.
There are about 10 regular volunteers but no full-time staff.
“We are very careful and selective because we want to help people who are really in need and not those who are lazy but have the capability to improve their lives,” he stressed.
Every six months, Wan reviews the conditions of families and individuals under Hope Place.
“If they are doing better, we will let them go and terminate the rations but we will inform them beforehand,” he said.
Among the biggest challenges Hope Place faces are operational costs as well as finding sponsorships and donations which can amount to RM20,000 a month.
ISOLATED: This is the only house situtated in the swamp just metres from dry land along the coast of Kampung Santubong.
“We visit the recipients once every two months and leave two months’ worth of supplies amounting to RM250,” he said.
Wan also revealed they were restricted by limited manpower and funds to reach out to more people in dire need.
Supplying 76 recipients now, Hope Place needs 170 packets of rice, Milo and cooking oil; 80 boxes of salt and sugar; 150 boxes of instant noodles and biscuits; 110 packets of milk powder and diapers of different sizes to meet their contributions.
Wan pointed out that continuous public support is crucial to enable Hope Place to help the needy in the community.
He hopes to find sponsorships to pay for the monthly RM1,200 rental of their current premise as well as for a new van to run their daily activities. Their present van is borrowed from a friend.
He welcomes donations in the form of food items.
The public who wish to contribute can contact Hope Place, located at Lorong 2, Jalan Dogan, Batu Kawa (tel: 013-5672775), from Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 12.30pm or Wan at 016-8660711.
UNSTable STRUCTURE: The side of the dilapidated wooden house on silts which Ho and his wife Mating have been living in for nearly eight years now.