THE AWESOME FIREFLIES OF YAH YAH

Sundays are supposed to be my rest day, right? Wrong. In essence, Sundays can be one of my busiest days compared to my working days. Take yesterday for instance, I was literally up and about on my feet on a non-stop phase. That is despite the fact that I am down with pharyngitis and rhinorrhea.

From the word go, I was timing my schedule to prevent my chores from overlapping. After managing the laundry, feeding the cats which are exploding in population, I had a quick breakfast with Maman outside. Sent him back and rushed for an overdue appointment at the bali spa for a much, much needed full body massage.

After 1 and half hours of body kneading and untying of knotted muscles, I rushed to a staff’s wedding in Balok, stag, as Maman refused to go and Long was at work. I gobbled up a small portion of white rice with some acar and beef curry in a jiffy, albeit in a polite manner of course. After small talks with the host, I left the function, making it one of my record wedding attendance, approximately 15 minutes at the most.

Zoomed back home, prayed zohor and started out with Maman to Kerteh to fetch Long. Also making it an opportunity for a family outing on the last leg of maman’s ending school hols. Traffic was heavy as everyone was probably like us, trying to make best of the last day of the school vacation, i.e. galavanting out

Waited for Long who still had several patients to wrap up plus one chap who had chest discomfort, walking comfortably in not at all looking like someone with angina whatsoever. He even made a passing statement that it was just dyspepsia but demanded an ECG anyway. By the way Maman was sleeping through out in the car, an after effect of 3 days skulking till the wee hours of morning with his friends in his room!
Despite telling Long that I have a skype conference Aqidah class at 8pm, he planned an impromptu detour to Ibuk to see the fireflies, assuring me that I will be in time for the online class. After maghrib prayers in Ibuk, we drove further to the said place by a bridge, near a river. A place with a name that tickled us pink: Yah Yah (kelip kelip). Initially, we couldn’t discern any fireflies in the vicinity. Disappointed, we almost headed out but Long made a last effort by turning back to the other side of the bridge.

Squinting hard in the pitch dark, Maman noted some blinking objects darting about in the trees. After a while, we started to appreciate hundreds of them roaming like fairies transforming the whole bakau area into an after dark fairyland or something. One tree looked like an ornamented Christmas tree, only this tree is not a fir tree and the season is so hot to be reckoned with santa and his rein deers at all!

While Long and Maman grappled with difficulty to snap the breathtaking sight of glittering flying bugs, I was back in the car, assembling my laptop and wifi, praying hard that my ‘berukband’ can pick up some signals there in Yah Yah (kelip kelip). It was almost 8 pm and Ustadha will be calling everyone soon! I was praying hard that I won’t miss the class this time. Oh ‘berukband’ please give me some signal, even a teeny weeny bit so that I can hear ustadha’s soothing voice, please.
Anyway, to cut the story short, the berukband had failed me again. What do I expect?? If it can’t even give me good signals in town, should I expect even a tinkle in Yah Yah?? Fat hope! All the way to Kemaman, I tried frantically to connect to Skype but nothing. Even sister Fazila Hanis who is in the class too was unSkypeable. Once in the middle of Kemaman, Long stopped the car and left me to catch up with half hour left of the class. Alhamdulillah

My vow: do not agree to go anywhere if I am scheduled for a class. Not even for the gorgeous fireflies of Yah Yah!!!