There Were Trees, Fruits Grew Off Them

The previous weekend, we were all at Pasir Mas where Irfan’s cousin’s kenduri transpired.

However the kenduri photos are still in Cik Emma’s camera so we have instead for this post photos of a bunch of folks (namely Irfan’s Tok Bah, Abang Kie, Emma, Ain and I) invading Tok Bah’s orchard. The invasion would end in the acquiring of several large baskets full of dokong and manggis! The English name for manggis is well-documented and known to us since we were young. However, I can’t for the life of me find out what dokong (also spelled dukung) is in English.

So, what could Ain be looking up at? Anyone? Anyone?

Looking up at the fruit trees

Could it be she’s looking up at Tok Bah?

If you look real hard you can see a plastic bucket among the leaves. Tok Bah is filling it up with the dark purple shells of manggis filled with sweet, juicy white flesh within.

Mangosteen trees

Mangosteen trees

Next tree over, bunches of dokong await being picked and consumed by ravenous humans.

Dokong fruits

Dokong fruits on branches

Tok Bah can be seen, barely, high up in the branches of the tree. Some fruits are also visible in the photo.

Tok Bah up the tree

Tok Bah up the tree

Meanwhile, the gatherers at the foot of the tree fill up the basket with fallen manggis. These are somewhat sweet I discovered as I’ve had the pleasure of tasting them.

Mangosteens in the basket

Mangosteens in the basket

Under the dokong tree, the basket filled up even faster. As Tok Bah cut the bunches of dokongs, some came apart and rained down on us. It took some time to look for all of them since the ground was covered with small plants with big leaves, fallen branches, shoots of new trees and other things you might find in a equatorial rainforest.

Dokong fruits in the basket

Dokong fruits in the basket

Here’s the cutting tool used by Tok Bah to bring down the fruits. It’s a saw-toothed, curved metal blade with a red handle. Anyone up to statting it in d20 or D6 or GURPS?

Tok Bah with a melee weapon

Tok Bah with a melee weapon

Posted in Family Pics and tagged , , .

Khairul Hisham J. is a freelance artist, writer, editor, translator, English language teacher and a long time tabletop role-playing game player and gamemaster.

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