A true story of courage

There was no expression on Teacher James’ face. He distributed the classroom work for us to do. It was Bahasa Melayu class and we get to write and colour that day. There were only four of us in the classroom. At that time, I know there was a great chaos going on outside of our school. How did my other classmates have known it earlier but not me?

    On the paper work, there were four items that we have to name and then colour. I remember one of the items was a pencil. I named every item and took out my colour pencils, but how disappointed I was to see there were only four colours left in there and the entire tip was broken! I didn’t have a sharpener and I was too embarrassed to borrow from my other friends.

    Teacher James asked us to quickly finish our colouring. I didn’t think much, in my embarrassment, I braved through the fact that I only had four colour pencils in the box and all of them were broken. I said in my heart, “I must quickly finish this.”

    Suddenly, a loud sound exploded like that of a bomb. We were so shocked but Teacher James asked us to stay calm and to quickly finish our colouring. He stood by me now, waiting for me to finish. I was too embarrassed to look at him because I was holding that tiny broken tip of my colour pencil. He calmly stood by me and when I finished colouring the last picture, he quickly took the paper away.

    I can finally looked up, and realized that I was the last one to pass up my work. My other friends were quiet and looked quite blankly. We all knew something bad was happening outside our school, like there was some kind of a war that’s happening. There were smokes everywhere and many people were gathering on the street. We didn’t understand what was happening but our faces said it was something bad.

    Teacher James asked us to quickly take our bags and follow him, the four of us obliged quietly. While walking outside the classroom but still inside the school compound, I heard terrible loud noises and smell of smokes everywhere. I heard sirens too. I immediately asked myself, “How do I go home?” We didn’t know where Teacher James is bringing us, but we were walking fast, quietly through the back alley.

    At the end of the alley, I saw my mother and my older sister. In my young mind, I was puzzled as to how they got there especially my mother, because she didn’t have a car, my dad always had the car. And I had no recollection at that time that my sister was also schooling at the same school with me! 

    Mom held our arms and we climbed onto a big, green lorry. I was again puzzled and thought mom must have stopped the lorry on the street because we didn’t even know the driver! “That was very brave,” I thought. She braved through it while being on the dangerous street.

    Arriving at the hospital junction, I looked at the driver, he was quiet and looked worried. At such tender age of seven, I also sensed that he was determined to drive away and get us out of that hectic area. He may have his own family to come home to but giving us a lift home that day was very heroic of him.

    In year 1986, a political uproar known as the Sabah Riots broke out between March and May on the street of Sembulan towards Kota Kinabalu city centre. Individuals were struggling to go through their own personal ordeal during that period of chaos.

    Certainly from braving through the embarrassment of not having a perfect box of colour pencils to braving through the street calling on a stranger to save her children to braving through a sacrifice of ownself helping others to get home safely. 

    We stood outside of our comfort self that day and survived the chaos, externally and internally.

    What a day to remember!