What do you do when you are in the middle of the day, during fasting month and you are thirst and hungry to death ? Sleeping ? playing cards ? bathing ? What , bathing ? Yes, bathing, it can make your body fresher. Having a bath in the bathroom is just common, what if we add a little 'wild life' experience, let say we back to nature, having a bath in the river ? Sounds good to me. That was what I do, I liked to have a river-bath in the middle of the day during the fasting month. We can just named that river as 'kali kidul' or southern river, as this laid in the southern part of our kampong.
Soerip had a thin body, yellow complexion, higher than average boys in his age, got a shiny and bold hair,and he never forget to bring his sleepers everywhere he may go. While bebek was the crowned prince of tofu kingdom company. Right after the dzhuhur prayer call, we went to the southern river. Of course we must trough the lemahbang village and then turned left trough the spooky kampong cemetery. In this cemetery field there was a duwet (jamblang) tree, maybe its age was hundred years, but still, it got enormous fruits.
But there was more, one tree called as Cacil tree, maybe it got a much more older than the duwet one, thousands years maybe, as it was as big as the Batavia Government Palace ! This tree was worshiped by the lemahbang villagers, we could see a lot of gifts to the gods under the cacil tree.
There was a vegetables field nearby the cemetery, various vegetables like long-beans,corn,chili, soy beans and ground nuts. What a fertile land ! There was a hut in the middle of the field. The simple field was constructed from bamboo and had its roof from sugarcane leafs known as rapak .You can say, right in the middle of the day, during a hot and dry fasting month, this hut looks like a palace in dreamland to us as children !
But I didn't realize at all that bebek has gone home, there left Soerip only. Actually even the sleeping-atmosphere surrounds, he couldn't sleep at all. So he got two sucks conditions, one buddy went home and the other fell asleep for hours, it drove him mad tough. He was scared to get me up from my sleep, but if he didn't do it, he was lonely without things to do ! We got a very good sayings about this situation, it calls as eating the simalakama fruits, if you eat it your dad is dead, but if you don't your mom will die, but we'll see later that Soeriep had his own decision actually, "I must get in the hell Koeaing up no matter what !"
Red Hot Chili peppers....
I was panic wandering around to get the fire off my lips, don't ask me how I feel, hot, pain and agony mix in to one sensation ! Accidentally I saw a little pond with fresh water before my eyes, I thought that that was the most fresh things in this world, without even think anymore I ran and plunged in to those heavenly pond...Byuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrr....! Shit....! What the hell is it ? I was get up and found I've been fell down from the hut, plunged in to some dry kalen (little canal to give the fields water flow) with no water but full of mud !
I wiped my eyes around, I saw the fucking SOERIP was laughing at my bad luck ! damn bastard ! He was happy to see his buddy fell down, what a rude boy. But wait, If it was a dream only why my lips still burned ? It just like eating chili sauce without drinks for thousand years ! And what we see in Soerip's hand ? there he got one real big red hot chili, but only a half left for some bites !! My interrogation finally revealed the secrets, he used those red hot big chili to get me up after he tried several tricks before with no result at all !
Finally his tricky mind got an idea to wipe some chili to my lips from surrounding field ! Little bastard ! Therefore I got my lips but this was not a common lips but THE RED HOT CHILI LIPS !
Koeaing!
Mad about HOT sauce!