Posted By Web Master In TheSundayPost On 22nd July 2007 @ 10:00
From barely four hours daily, Abok Mawang longhouse folk can now relish a 24-hour supply of electricity produced by a microhydro dam – built at a zero-budget cost from nothing but scrap
JUST two months ago, the Abok Mawang longhouse folk could only have cold drinks from the nearby tuck shops.
WHEEL OF POWER: The turbine at the powerhouse. Photos by Johnathan Bullet and courtesy of Martin Anyi,Unimas.
They did not have any refrigerators because at that time, electricity supply was restricted — on at 6.30pm and off four hours later. So the longhouse had to stick to a rather regimented lifestyle.
But today, things have changed and happily, for the better. With the help of Mother Nature, kindness from a few good souls and the spirit of unity among the villagers, this quaint 15-door longhouse now enjoys 24-hour free electricity from a microhydro dam in their own backyard.
And what makes it all the more heart-warming is that the dam was built by the villagers with zero-budget… well, almost zero… as discarded and sponsored materials were used. After a picture of the dam appeared in the newspapers, thesundaypost made a day trip to see this prized project which has transformed the lives of the longhouse folks. The scenic Abok Mawang longhouse, with Sri Aman’s majestic Kelingkang mountain range in the background, is about 150km from Kuching City and it’s impossible to miss as it sits just by the main road.
TEAM WORK: Villagers working on the pipes.
The immediate changes the new-found power source has brought the longhouse are clearly visible. Two Astro satellite dishes stick out of the longhouse’s upper walls, and an Iban tune, blaring from one of the pintus (doors), greeted us as we alighted from the car. Come to think of it, if not for the cluckings of the village chicken, it would have been a quiet day everyday… until two months ago.
A shirtless Donald Matin, the headman of Abok Mawang village, emerged from one of the pintus (doors), obviously surprised by our sudden visit. However, he said he had earlier received a call that the press would be visiting and was happy about it. He had every reason to be since his people had sweated and toiled on the dam project and it was time to let ‘outside’ people know about it.
To get to the dam, we had to walk through a muddy excavator trail for about five minutes. It was there we by-passed the powerhouse that generated electricity from the gushing Sungai Embawang Besai. The river was not as what I pictured. It wasn’t big… more or less the size of a stream at Ranchan Pool in Serian in Samarahan division. Amazingly, only two feet of water were enough to get the turbine going — considering the elevation of the powerhouse to the dam, of course — even though the depth of the dam was eight feet or so.
Standing on the thick concrete, I found it hard to believe the dam was put together “cowboy” style, given that the workmanship was apparently neat and a layman would never have guessed it was built with hand-me-downs from good Samaritans. Noticing my quizzical expression, Donald explained that Abok Mawang longhouse had already existed for 17 years and its population of more than 100 (during holidays) was a breakaway from the nearby Abok Janang longhouse.
“You could say the longhouse had gone through about three generations without continuous electric supply,” he said. Donald recalled it was back in January that a group of men came to the village to propose the idea of the mini-hydro dam. He said the villagers decided to give it a go as 24-hour electricity supply was certainly much better than just four hours from the old generator. Thus began the work.
Led by Martin Anyi, a lecturer from the Department of Electronics at the Engineering Faculty of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), a group of men, whom Donald assumed to be engineers, made frequent trips to the river to study the water source. He noted they even surveyed the land area where the current water pipes passed through. The physical construction began only in September and was almost completed a month later.
According to Donald, his people managed to chip in with about RM2,000 from their own pockets to buy iron rods and some building materials. While the pipes were provided by the Public Works Department (JKR), the generators, switchboards and internal wirings were contributed by JH Corporation Sdn Bhd.
Balai Ringin assemblyman Snowdan Lawan pitched in as well with transmission wires. As work progressed, so did excitement among the Abok Mawang folk grow. They provided the manpower through gotong-royong (self-help) and at times, women and children also helped out. “It was hard work. There were times when it took 20 minutes just to fit a nut on the big pipes.
But look at the dam now… it’s well worth it,” he beamed. It also helped that JKR provided an excavator to lay the heavy high density polyethelene pipes. All the hard work paid off when the longhouse was bathed in bright light on the night of April 30… and continues to enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply everyday since then.
In the next few weeks, the longhouse got five refrigerators, television and radio sets and VCDs, not forgetting Astro service — their link to the outside world. Besides providing some comforts and a small portion of the luxury enjoyed by urbanites, the microhydro dam is, most importantly, saving money for the longhouse folk, most of whom are farmers earning an average monthly wage of RM250.
While admitting that the “old faithful” generator had served the longhouse well over the past seven years, Donald said each pintu (individual unit of the longhouse) had to fork out RM15 per month, excluding costs of black oil and maintenance, just to keep it going. He said the longhouse folks felt the pinch when fuel price nationwide went up recently. The generator could “drink up” to five gallons of fuel per day, he added.
In contrast, with the mini hydro dam now, the villagers only have to donate RM10 per month as maintenance fee… in exchange for 24-hour free electricity. On our way back to the longhouse, we saw a group of women relaxing on the verandah… to the sound of radio music.
Told (in jest) that life must be good now, they — almost in unison — replied in a mix of Iban and Bahasa Malaysia, that times were indeed much better than the ‘regimented’ days when ironing and other household chores had to be done hurriedly between 6.30pm and 9.30pm.
One of the women, 44-year-old Mina Matin, recalled with a faraway look, the words of her late father. “He once told me that lama-lama, ada nasib (soon, there will be luck). I never bothered asking him what he meant at that time but today, I believe the mini-hydro is the luck my father was talking about.”
Thirty minutes later, after experiencing the hospitality of the Abok Mawang longhouse folk and feeling happy that they now have cheaper dam-powered electricity supply — plus a glass of piping hot coffee — we were asked by Donald to sign the guest book.
Looking at the happy faces all round, it was an honour to fulfill that simple request.
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