Here I am still awake at 2:32pm. I find myself hard to sleep at night since then. So to compensate for my lack of sleep, why not write a song. A Kaamatan song! For those of you who are not familiar with that word, Kaamatan is basicaly the Harvest Festival Celebration in Sabah, Borneo.

“The Kaamatan Festival is an annual event in the cultural life of the Kadazandusuns of Sabah since time immemorial. In its deepest sense, Kaamatan festival is a manifestation of Creator and Creation relationship, as well as Inter-Creations relationship. It embodies the principal acts of invocation of divinities, appeasing, purification and restoration, re-union of benevolent spirits, and thanksgiving to the Source of All. It is part of a complex wholesome Momolian religious system centered on the paddy rites of passage and the life cycle of Bambarayon – the in-dwelling spirit of paddy.”

Unfortunately since my command of the Kadazandusun language is terrible beyond words, I made a Kaamatan song in English. This may even be the first in the history of Sabah, Kaamatan song in English! Anyway, for those of you who can translate the wordings for me, that will be great!

FYI this song is an acoustic version. The song file here is just a clip. Go to this link to listen to the full song and download if you want to. Just make sure you don’t sell it for profit. This song is entitled “This Is Kaamatan”

*Prefer audio visual? Check out the Youtube version*

Happy Kaamatan Everybody!!

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I’m not sure how the situation is in other parts of Malaysia but man the past few weeks has been really hot and humid. The moment I opened my entrance door that heat wave struck my face like a blast from a furnace. Very..very warm. I’m not really a big fan of the aircon. Not by leaving them overnight at least. I get these ‘dry throat’ kind of feeling. I prefer the good ol’ ceiling fan. But even that doesn’t help much.

So, out of curiosity, I searched the ‘globe’ in search of that mother-of-all fans. Well what do you know, they actually have something called “Big Ass Fans”. Serious! I mean look at the photo of the fan.. a fan like that would definitely fill every ‘hot guys’ wet dream out there. To have the ultimate Fan, will make you cool again…

My recent visit back to my hometown in Kudat had given me an opportunity to try out my sisters new Sony Alpha Series DSLR and also the chance to be a part of the Harvest Ferstival celebration for the Matunggong district of Kudat, Sabah. The Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah, The Hon. Datuk Seri Panglima Joseph Pairin Kitingan came to officiate the event. He came with other VIP’s on their 4wd’s. Sad to say, I do not know the other VIP names.

It was quite a good turnout. My uncle was officially invited for the event and he was also seated among the VIP’s so I tagged along. As for me, with a slightly bigger camera, security personnels sort of ‘allowed’ me to get to the front when other folks were deterred. I was doing all sort of cameraman pose when in fact it was considered my first time handling such camera. I read the manual in one night and tried whatever techniques which I think I did not do correctly.. he he

The turnout was good. There were a number of booths setup. Mostly to showcase some of the small-medium industries businesses of the locals like coconut oil, coconut husks that were made into rugs etc. There’s also the honey products and the famous handmade beads by non other than the Rungus tribe which happens to be my dad’s race.

There were a number of activities on stage too. Singing performance mostly. But of course the highlight of any Kaamatan festival is not just the traditional dance but the ‘Unduk Ngadau’ or the harvest festival queen. The Unduk Ngadau symbolizes ‘Huminodun’, the sacrificed daughter of ‘Kinoingan’. I took a few snapshots of those beauties plus other girls too. I have to say, Kudat has plenty of beautiful woman..ehem-ehem. Oh by the way since it’s in Kudat, the contestants are wearing mostly the Rungus costume.

Well, you be the judge of my ‘photography skills’. Overexposed, wrong aperture settings, out-of-focus are just some of the stuff I would expect from my readers comments. So…let the pictures tell the stories shall we? *Take me to the Photos*

*If you noticed my photo, I definitely need to invest in some exercise equipment soon.

I miss Sabah bah!

To those of you Sabahan’s who are in peninsular Malaysia, Australia, America or even the North Pole, some of you may be wondering how are you supposed to listen to ‘Sabah VFM’ the local radio station of Sabah. (Under the RTM or Radio Televisyen Malaysia). I have not been successful in searching for an online streaming of this radio show. Most of the time it was a broken link. But today I found the link that I was looking for and this time it works. It’s a live streaming I guess. Not the steam cleaners kind of course he he.

Click the logo to listen immediately! (You need a player that supports ASX type of files like Winamp or Windows Media Player which most of you already have) Oh also the bitrate is at 24 Kbps so don’t expect cd quality audio. It’s also in mono.

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