Pensiangan, Nabawan, Sabah's Frontier.

I was watching the evening news when the familiar name of Pensiangan in the interior of Sabah was mentioned. The by-election for that Parliamentary Constituency will be on soon, which is going to be an interesting one to watch in the midst of the flurry expected by mid-September when Anwar Ibrahim is touted to get an avalanche of crossovers on the floor of the hallowed Dewan Rakyat to enable him to enter Block A in Putrajaya by the back-door. If entry by the backdoor is as legitimate as any entry to any opening from the back is allowed in politics too, then if the impossible shall happen, we would be the first to have a PM who came in from the back door rather than from the front. In short, Anwar would earn a double whammy, for his fondness of the backside. It should also be given the honour in the Guinness Book of Records whereby the PM of a modern Parliamentary Democracy is born out of the rear swing-door rather than the type where the swaggering John Wayne films always depict the hero as he swings open the Bar entrance and draws his six-shooter before his adversary could even blink an eye. Pensiangan is an ulu place in the district of Nabawan where a confluence of two rivers meet and it was a beautiful sight when I visited it during my days in the Education Ministry. The only access to the actual village would be on foot and crossing the treacherous "jeram" or rapids for those who love the rafting over the waters. I stayed a night in a resthouse in Nabawan before embarking towards Pensiangan, and it was real challenge to the driver of the new Range-Rover which was unfortunately not yet fitted with the correct tyres for going over the logging trails of interior Sabah then. I was on a mission to have a first-hand look at the conditions of our Peninsular teachers who were posted in rural Sabah to serve their 5-year contracts, and to make recommendations as how to make them continue after their bonded service was over. That night my group comprising of Sabah Education Dept Director and his retinue were entertained to drinking the tuak which was in abundance in the Murut country and dancing the Sumazau with the local girls who were hardly in their teens. I did not take to drinking but I obliged them just to put my mouth to the long thin bamboo which was stuck to the top of the jar containing the fermented rice tuak. The group also enjoyed eating venison which the staff managed to secure from those who illegally set traps for the wild-game which abounds the logging camps. To me it tasted no different than beef and it was tough meat, perhaps the rest house cook just had no idea of how to tenderize it. When I woke up the next morning and continued our journey, the lady accountant a talkative Peninsular Malaysian told me in her typical mandarin accent that life in Sabah is fun for a bachelor even in the interior because of the varied interests which one could dwell on despite it's wilderness if one knows how to beat the boredom. The rain made the road treacherous and when on a slope, the Range-Rover almost went careering into the ravine because the driver could not control the vehicle which lost it's grip over the slippery mud an we landed on a grass verge, hanging precariously being held by a large boulder.Perhaps it was a warning to those who got drunk by the tuak that they should pay some respects to the dead whose graves we passed by along the route. Although Pensiangan in the early 80's looks like part of the "Lost World" but it's innocence and beauty was a pleasure to behold in front of our eyes. I took several snapshots which I used in my report about how challenging and daunting the environment of the wild frontier of Sabah was and no wonder most decided to make a beeline to fly back to the Peninsula and never regretted it despite the romance of the wilderness of the Sabah Frontier. I was told by the teachers who stayed in the interior they did not mind he loneliness and the far-flung posting but what they could not bear was the difficulty of connecting o the outside world where they was no telephone and absolute lack of electricity amd piped water. Perhaps now the situation had much improved, and the name even became the boundary which marked a Parliamentary Constituency!