Rungitom Journey: Banggi Island 3

Keywords: life story, journey, banggi island, chapter 3

I know I kinda suck in story-telling and text composition; I may not be the best in town, but I tell my story nonetheless… Rungitom style.

Chapter 3: The Island
4:00PM

This was my first chance to roam the jetty area and the surroundings without time constraint and restrictions. My original duty was to go deep into the company’s office site but it was cancelled due to CEO order. So I’m just going to pass my item in delivery to one of the office staff; that was actually in charge to bring me to the office site.

Before starting off to do some works, we head to the restaurant to get some meal. I’m kinda hungry(again) so I might as well dig in Banggi Island cuisine. Today’s special is Nasi Goreng Payau; yep, Payau a.k.a Sambar Deer, a wild animal that thrived in this island.

Its a source of food and good meat around whe all resources are out, you just have to hunt them down or just buy it from the locals that sell Payau meat. After a good nom nom nom, my CEO and Ap went to meet someone while I joined Khiong to logging work-site.

Hitching a ride on a small pick-up truck, I took my camera once again to capture the scenery along the way. According to Khiong, much have changed over the years in Banggi since our company started projects in 2007. Proper asphalt road has been made, fancy seeing MyVi and Kancil rollin’ past us .

And thanks to Banggi island solar powered electricity, vital areas around Banggi now enjoy 24/7 electricity; developments are still in progress, housing, agriculture and so on to make sure Banggi Islanders enjoy a modern life.

5:40PM

Arrived at the logging project site, and they directly started off loading round logs to the truck; while I too some pictures for company records. After 30 -40 minutes or so, the truck is now good to go, from here on Khiong went on to Base Camp while I returned back to Karakit.

6:50PM

Its getting dark now, but the work must be done; contract workers came and load the logs from the truck to our ship. In this case, I am in charge for registering all logs that have been put on the boat. Its not an easy task because the wild sea water current and strong winds blowing. With only a pen, a paper and a torchlight, I worked hard so that every single logs is been checked and confirmed before moving on to the next loading.

In between, I chatted with the captain about the tragic incident in Banggi waters last year; somehow at that specific time we chatted, he said that is the time where the people noticed that the boat has not arrived in time. And thats when they set out to look for them, found some of the survivors, and reported the incident to mainland officials.

8:30PM

All loading-in work is done, checklist is done but from my findings, a log is missing. Did I miss-calculate or something? I don’t know; its better to check it all out again the next morning. Its too dark for me to recheck it all back again, so I just wrap it up and meet my friends who is resting at the restaurant.

Time to cool down.

Ordered another glass of Kopi C Ping and have a great chat; we had a good laugh which is good for de-stressing my mind. My CEO tells is a riddle which is hard for us to think out the answer; the ship captain blurted out some hillarious answers, and I add up the damage with more hilarious thoughts and explanations.

10:00PM

After wrapping up those drink and joke session, we lodged in a rest-house that was booked earlier. The rest-house was not far from the jetty Took a bath to wash off the dirt and grime off my body. Long after that… a good night sleep, preparing for the next day to come.

Its better to work hard rather than to work stupid – Rungitom