Selamat Hari Raya and Eid Mubarak, everybody. It’s been a heck of a few months since I embarked on an overambitious home improvement project. The bricks began to fly in July with the demo crew, and it has been non-stop since then.

Selamat Hari Raya, Eid Mubarak to all! May Allah accept our worship over the Holy Month of Ramadan and bless us to make it to the next one. Maaf Zahir dan Batin. If Bin Gregory Productions or its author has done you wrong over the past year, knowingly or unknowingly, I humbly request your forgiveness.

Two more chicks have met their doom since last I wrote. Both were mauled by biawak attacks that I fended off too late. By the time I would race to the scene, shovel flailing, I could only succeed in denying the perp a meal, but could not save the lives of the victims. The first time, a chick was dismasted cleanly at the knee-joint. Though the bleeding stopped quickly, a legless chicken’s prospects are bleak: despite my ministrations, it was dead within three days. The …

I’ve returned from my vacation to the US. I couldn’t get any critical distance from which to write or observe while I was there; I was too busy enjoying being back. I did manage to take a lot of pictures though. You can view them in this Flickr set, America 2007. The most pleasurable aspect of the trip, after reunion with loved ones, must have been hearing and speaking my native English. Effortless communication – How we take it for granted! My friends were …

I was blessed with the birth of my sixth child this past Thursday the 12th of July. She is a girl, my fifth; we have named her Anisah. She was born safe and sound after less than an hour of labour. She and her mother are home and well. SR is enjoying the first week of her two-month paid maternity leave, courtesy of the Malaysian government. There has been discussion in Parliament of extending maternity benefits to three months but that bill has not yet …

My wife woke with a start just after 5, a few minutes before subuh prayer. The glow of her cell phone cum time piece was still on her face when she heard a loud sickening snap, crunch and pop coming from the backyard. Shortly, the chickens started squawking at DefCon 3 levels. That wasn’t enough to wake me up, but after some prodding and poking I mustered and stumbled out the door to investigate. In the early twilight, without a flashlight, I made my way to …

Our flock of chickens had been cruelly bereft of it’s younger generation when last I wrote. Rooster and hen were the only survivors of cat attacks that carried off five promising young chicks. The two parents seemed to get over it and took to roaming about my yard, scattering mulch as they dug little holes around my ginger and turmeric in their search for bugs and other edibles. They began to wander farther and farther as they became comfortable with the territory, especially enjoying my neighbor’s vegetable …

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My Bagan Datoh Vacation, Final Installment
My five children weren’t the only ones sick over the vacation. The wife was busy vomiting all over the place too. The problem: Penyakit buatan orang. That literally means a man-made illness but refers to a hex or voodoo curse placed on someone. Black magic is alive and well in Malaysia, at least in people’s minds. It is not uncommon to hear people complain of illness, change of a spouse’s affections or other problems as being caused by witchcraft and …

Vacationing in a rural area like Bagan Datoh means you are far from the entertainment and amenities of city life. One definite advantage lies in being closer to where your food comes from: fresh, wholesome food is just outside your door. When we ran out of chicken, I had simply to ease on down the road to get the freshest possible halal chicken available.
It’s amazing sometimes how obsessed Malays are with eating halal. I knew of Malaysian students in the US who would drive hours to stock …

I’ve just returned from a three week vacation in West Malaysia, or three weeks of something anyway. Calling it a vacation is a bit of a stretch. It went from the “are we there yet?” phase to the “when can we go home?” phase in no time flat. From the relay-race style vomiting of the first week to the tag-team measles of the third, it was the kind of vacation that will make you stay home next year. The plan was simple: rent a van, pile …

As I’m sure is universal among muslim communities, Ramadan represents the high water mark of religious devotion, the time when the greatest number of people turn up for daily prayers. That’s followed by a Eid crash, when numbers plummet back down to, or even below, average levels, as everyone becomes distracted with the holidays. In a bid to remind the neighborhood that the musallah was still open for business, our musallah hosted a Majlis Silaturrahim or Hari Ramah-tamah, a glorified block party the week following Hari Raya. …

Shortly after Hari Raya Eid al-Fitr, I was given a lovely gift in the form of a rooster, hen, and four small chicks. The chickens are a small variety known locally as ayam katik. Although smaller and more tame, these chickens are not related to our modern poultry or egg laying machines, but are bred from semi-wild chickens similar to bantams. They are fairly self-reliant, semi-arboreal (they can nest in trees) and better flyers than the more heavily bred factory farm chickens.
The main reason I had wanted …