Sungai Sitiawan

I went back to Sitiawan last hari Raya. Sitiawan has always been a place I return to whenever I have the oppurtunity.Seeing the slow moving Sungai Sitiawan brings me back to my chilhood days along the river. This is the river that had supportd many generations of my family. My family relied on this river for their livehood. The river was teeming with fish and prawn and the riverbed with cockles. This had been our source of protein, indeed the only source. Whatever extra that we harvested from the river we sold them for cash which help our parent to send us to schools and buy other basic necessities. The river is lined with big area of mangrove swamp and the mangrove trees provided us with wood and charcoal that we sell to the town. Without the river I couldnt imagine what else we could do to earn that extra income. The river had always been the source of salvation and hope.

The river too was my only place of recreation when I was a boy. When tide was low we walked from one side of the river catching crab, prawn and catfish that hide in the water poodles. When tide was high we swam from one bank of the river to the other, always racing with each other laps after laps. We would then climb the tallest bakau and perepat and dive head on into the murky mud.There was complete freedom, as unlike a swimming pool there was no end where we could get to. After many years in the river I grew up to be a strong and robust lad in a fenceless playground where my energy was vented out in a healthy way. By the time I finished my secondary schooling, I was getting restless ready to explore beyond Sitiawan as I had explored every nook and corners of Sungai Sitiawan.

As I sat down along Sungai Sitiawan, the river was no more like before. The river was getting shallower and its flow appears lethargic. Nobody swim in the river anymore because the water was toxic. The fish had thin out and the riverbed was no more the home of prawn, crabs and cockles. The mangrove forest has no more luxuriant lustre, being plundered by aquaculturist that discharge toxic waste into the river. There was no life, no frollicking cries of young boys having fun in the water and no sampan moving about. Sungai Sitiawan has lost its magic past and nobody anymore depend on the river for food.