Wednesday June 20, 2012
He’s her world
Story and picture by DIANA ROSE
She took him in after his divorced parents walked away. Today, the bright teen is her hope for the future.
EMAH anak Perancis has never been to school, but deep in her heart she truly believes that education is the tool that can break the chain of poverty that has gripped her family for generations.
The dimunitive Sarawakian – she’s barely 1.5m tall – is a mother of seven. One of her sons has a degree in teaching and now teaches at Bintulu, Sarawak.
But what gives this grandmother of 16 even greater pride is her 13-year-old grandson, Calvin Roger Jopu, who was the top UPSR (Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah) student at SK Ulu Lubai in Limbang, last year. And she has raised him single-handedly since his parents divorced when he was five.
“I truly care for Calvin, even more than for my own son, his father,” says Emah, 62.
Eight years ago, her heart melted when she saw the boy crying out to his mother at a lower court, after the divorce proceedings. But the latter left in a car and has not come back since. Since then, grandma has never left Calvin’s side.
“Whatever I eat, he eats. There was one time he cried in the morning because he was so hungry. He was about six. We only had rice but no lauk. So I mixed the rice with sugar and let the boy eat,” recalls Emah, who says food was hard to come by then, unless her husband or her late father went hunting in the forest.
The family used to live upriver of Sungai Lubai, about a day’s journey by boat to Limbang town. In 2010, they moved to Rumah Tugang in Ulu Lubai in 2010 – for the sake of education.
The 26-room longhouse is 55km from Limbang, accessible by timber road or a 12-hour boat ride. It also much closer to SK Ulu Lubai, the first rural school in Malaysia to attain “High Performance School” status last year. Calvin, who scored 5As in Primary Six, was the only student from the school selected to study in SM Sains Miri, where he’s currently a boarder.
It was in Rumah Tugang that Emah looked after her 90-something father, who died in March this year, and Calvin.
“I usually woke up around 5am to tap rubber in my family’s 1.2 hectare plot. I would come home around 10am to prepare food for Calvin and then send him to school at Ulu Lubai,” says Emah, happily hugging the boy, who was home during the recent school holidays.
When asked about the challenges of caring for him, she adds: “It was more difficult raising my seven children. With Calvin, I have my working children around to assist us sometimes. He is a very quiet boy and helps me out in the farm.
“His father has remarried, but he does come back to see his son. Once, he took Calvin to Miri and kept him there – and the boy missed school for a month. I was so worried I went to Miri to look for him myself, with RM60 in my pocket.”
But she had no idea where her son was staying and could not contact him either. “I made an announcement over the local radio asking him to take Calvin back home.
“I then paid a relative my RM60 to go around Miri town with me. After three days of searching we finally located my son in Lambir. He was working at a construction site. I feared that he would neglect Calvin, especially the boy’s education.”
From that day onwards, she stopped Calvin from leaving home with his father.
“I am illiterate but I have high hopes for him to grow up to be someone important,” says Emah, giving hugging her grandson another hug.
When approached, the principal of SM Sains Miri, Serina Sauni, and headmaster Jaul Bunyau of SK Ulu Lubai both concur that Calvin is a very bright student. They are impressed with his academic results and, more so, his gritty grandmother, who spares no effort in giving him the best she can.
After the scare of her grandson going “missing”, Emah took it upon herself to visit his secondary school to ensure that it is a safe and conducive environment for study.
“I always worry about Calvin mixing with naughty children and being influenced to take drugs,” she explains.
For Emah, who moves around with a walking stick, her grandson is her world and her family’s future. What does the teenager have to say to that?
“I am forever grateful to my grandmother. I love her very much. When I am big and working, I would like to repay her kindness. I want to buy her a concrete house, better than this house we’re living in,” says Calvin, who speaks fluent English and aims to be an engineer one day.
Grandma smiles and nods, even though she does not understand what he’s saying. She clearly adores the boy. “I love him. He is someone no one want wanted, not even his own parents,” says Emah, her eyes brimming.