Ramadhan in Trengganu

I don't know how it is now, but spending Ramadhan in Trengganu was a lot of fun to me. Perhaps it was because I was a child and need not have to worry about what to cook for iftar. tee hee.

The beginning of ramadhan is marked by the sound of the cannon (from the top of Bukit Puteri?). The sound would usually be followed by someone or other saying "hoh! Esok Posa" (hoh, tomorrow we start fasting). I guess the end of the fasting month would be marked the same way, but I never know because we were always somewhere else, either in Merang, where my dad's side of the family lives or in Besut, where my mom's side of the family lives.

Iftar (the breaking of fast at sundown), during Ramadhan was almost always done with special fare, though not necessarily with Trengganu food. My mom's offering during ramadhan would include western dishes like Chili Con Carne, beef stew, these meatballs with peas eaten with bread, and spaghetti bolognaise, things she doesnt normally cook throughout the rest of the year. Once in a while we'd have malaysian food like rice and noodles, but it's those special dishes that we look forward to (and still crave for till now) every Ramadhan.
Hm.. was there any special food that Trengganu folks eat during Ramadhan? I'm not sure.. as far as I can remember, the food was great throughout the year, so I can't recall anything special for the month of ramadhan. Except maybe for Air Nira and Nekbat.
Air Nira is the nectar from palm flowers. Expert climbers would climb up a palm tree, cut a bit off the flower and hang a container of some sort to collect the dripping nectar. The collected nectar is sold by the roadsides at small wooden stalls, and my dad would not fail to stop if he sees one.
Nekbat are these tiny oval shaped cakes made of flour and eggs, I think, and it is usually served cold in clove spiked syrup sauce. They are cool, soft, creamy and sweet at the same time. Just the thought of them makes me drool. Unfortunately I couldnt find any the last time I went home.
The above 2 items are available throughout the year, but somehow we only have it during ramadhan, perhaps because they are considered to be quite indulgent food, and we could only have it as a reward for fasting.

I started learning to fast when I turned 7, I think.
Like all kids, I started fasting for half a day first, breaking my fast at noon instead of sundown. After awhile though, you get tired of the taunts "Posa yang yok, pagi pagi bukok puyok" (fasting you're not, early morning opening the pot) and you would try to fast for the whole day. Achieving this was okay when school is in session, but when the school holiday starts and we go back to my grandmother's place where all the other kids are also on holiday and they ask you to come out and play and you play all. day. long, it's quite a feat to keep yourself from breaking your fast. I must admit, there were a few times, after a session of rounders or deghghak (walking around) somewhere, I would come home and sneak a drink from the payyang koko (the brown earthen vessel) at the foot of the green steps of my grandmother's house (Sorry, Papa! *sheepish grin*). The cup may just be a chetong made out of rusty milk tin, and the water may just be un-cooked well water put there to be used to wash your feet before you come into the house, but at that moment, it tasted like the cool nectar from heavens.

I loved going back to my grandmother's house during Ramadhan. Aside from her ttuppat sutong (Stuffed squid) and the numerous friends I could play with, there was also Malam Tujuh Likur, probably the highlight of a child's life in the month of ramadhan. "Malam Tujuh Likur" is celebrated on the 27th night of Ramadhan. During this time, most of the houses would be busy preparing eid cookies and the night air would be filled with the sweet smell of baking. People would begin decorating their house for eid, by hanging lapu nynyeceh nynyembor (them twinkling lights), if you can afford it, or just the pelita, lanterns made out of milk tins filled with turpentine and a piece of rag or string as a wick. You'd get to try on your raya clothes for the first time. You'd get to walk around with your friends with lanterns, either the milk tin kind or the storebought paper ones with a birthday candle, to light your way while you deghghak meghata (walkaround everywhere).
Fireworks haven't been banned yet when I was growing up, so we would also light the skies up with them. There were the long thin ones that shoot multicolored balls of fire (together we would all count out loud how many there are), there were ones that would release a parachute at the end of the explosion, and then there were milder ones- like the hand held bunga-api (sparklers), or those shaped like a snake and would leave a crumbly ash in a coil when it goes out (macam ubat nyamuk). For those of us that can't afford fireworks, we would go around, lanterns in hand, and look for ppurong (Coconut shells). We'd stack them up on a pole (erected by an adult for that purpose), then when we've covered the whole pole, an adult would light them up in a tower of bonfire. Doesn't sound like much now, but at that time, it was like the best fire show ever. I guess there's a tiny closet arsonist in all of us.

I wish my kids could experience all this, but unfortunately the environment nowadays is different from what it used to be when I was growing up. I would never let them walk around in the dark on their own, unless it's in the compound.
ah.. the good old days. *sigh*