WELCOME to another Saturday of Digital Zen. Last month, I was at Ulu Skrang for Gawai.
A 42-door longhouse.
The kind of place where the same celebration happens every June.
Gawai eve afternoon.
The taps ran dry. By that afternoon, residents had already stocked what water they could. But it wasn’t enough.
The government’s answer came immediately: “Don’t worry.
The backup system is being prepared.
Water will be back by morning.”
Morning came.
No water.
They said it again: “Tomorrow morning, it will be normal.”
The next morning: the taps were dry.
And then I began to notice something.
A pattern.
A shape emerging from the repetition.
The same promise.
The same time frame.
The same broken morning.
What predictability actually looks like
It’s not abstract.
It’s your grandmother at night – actual darkness, not evening – walking to the backyard basin, because there’s no choice.
She fetches rainwater in the dark during the most sacred days of the year.
Her grandchildren from the city watch.
Cousins arrive for the holiday and end up mobilising buckets, moving back and forth through the night while the government’s “tomorrow morning” never arrives.
Six refills, then again, night after night during Gawai.
This isn’t the first time. I began asking, listening, watching a pattern emerge.
Every June, Gawai arrives with the same crisis: “excessive use”, despite predictable dates.
The same broken promise.
The same bucket-carrying nights.
Then December: Christmas, different community, same crisis.
Different taps dry. Same “tomorrow morning”.
A pattern that repeats twice a year is not a crisis.
It’s a choice.
The motel at Kilometre Five
The same morning, needing water to wash clothes, Terry and I drove to Betong proper.
The motel is new.
American style.
Modern. In the laundry room, there’s a dryer. 100 kilogrammes.
Commercial grade.
Bigger than anything in the city.
Hot water flows there.
Abundant.
Casual.
For travellers.
For tourists.
For people passing through.
Five kilometres away, in the 42-door longhouse, women fetch rainwater in darkness.
I stood under that hot shower and thought: the infrastructure exists.
The investment is real.
The capability is proven.
But capability and community are having a conversation in different languages.
The silence between the promise and the morning
What I couldn’t stop thinking about was the lie – not malicious, maybe. But repeated.
“Tomorrow morning, water will flow.”
Night comes.
Buckets are carried. Children watch. Grandmothers work. Morning comes.
The taps are silent.
And someone, somewhere, says it again: “Tomorrow morning.
By tomorrow morning, it will be normal.”
This happens in June.
This happens in December.
The calendar is predictable.
The crisis is predictable.
The promise is predictable.
The broken morning is predictable.
Yet we act as if none of it is expected.
How do we solve a problem that we refuse to acknowledge as predictable?
The orchard that knows
On the drive back, Terry pointed toward the valley.
Eighty hectares of durian trees.
His family’s orchard.
Mixed ages.
Heavy with potential.
No irrigation system.
They rely on rain.
They hope for monsoons.
They wait.
“The government opened the way forward,” Terry said.
“They helped.
All we need is to get the cooperative running.”
And I thought: the water that’s being carried in buckets at night in a 42-door longhouse during Gawai – that’s the same water that could flow to 80 hectares of durian waiting to feed a region.
But first, it has to reach the people who need it during June and December.
Cikgu Vincent – Terry’s father – stood in front of that orchard and said: “If it rains, good. If it doesn’t … what to do.”
Not resignation.
Clarity about what happens when promises repeat and mornings don’t deliver.
The right question doesn’t demand an answer.
It opens a door to what we’ve been refusing to see.
The song that must be written
Cikgu Vincent’s “what to do” haunts me because it’s asked twice a year.
Same question.
Same time.
Same broken answer.
Because what Cikgu Vincent is really asking isn’t “what should I do?”
It’s “When will we stop accepting that water fails during the days we most need it?”
The song will explore that.
The philosophy beneath that.
The durian as symbol of potential abandoned because the system is too fragmented to connect the pieces.
What the pattern reveals
I need to be clear: this is not just public service failure; it is something deeper.
If it happened once, it would be a crisis. If unexpected, an emergency.
But if it happens predictably – every June, every December – then the system is not breaking; it is choosing.
Choosing to let water fail during peak demand. Choosing to ask people to fetch rainwater in darkness.
Choosing to repeat broken promises of “tomorrow morning”.
Nearby facilities show capacity exists, investment exists. Yet between vision and ground, connection is lost, fragmentation chosen.
When a predictable problem persists, it is no longer failure – it is acceptance.
The question that opens doors
So here’s some questions based on observation – How many Junes until we prepare for June?
How many Decembers until we prepare for December?
How many times does a grandmother have to fetch rainwater in darkness before we decide that’s unacceptable?
How many times does the promised “tomorrow morning” need to be broken before we stop making it?
How many times does Cikgu Vincent need to ask “what to do” before someone answers?
These aren’t new questions.
They’re old questions asked twice a year, every year, by the same people, during the same seasons, with the same silence.
The keeper of the well either knows the water runs dry on the same sacred days every year, or doesn’t know.
Either way requires the same question: “When did predictable become acceptable?”
The invitation that cannot be ignored
What if Gawai never meant water failure again?
What if June became proof of preparedness instead of recurring crisis – because someone finally refused to accept the pattern?
What if, within the same five kilometres, the motel’s 100-kg dryer and the longhouse’s bucket-carrying no longer existed in silent contradiction?
What if Cikgu Vincent’s question – asked twice yearly for years – finally received a lasting answer?
This isn’t harder than what exists now.
It’s simply different: choosing to solve what is predictable instead of repeating what is broken.
Betong already has the capacity.
The motel shows it.
The investment exists.
The government willingness exists.
What’s missing is connection.
Because when a pattern repeats twice a year, every year, that’s no longer an accident – it’s a decision.
And decisions can change.
The song ‘What to Do’ will explore this in durian, waiting, tending, and transformation.
But first, the question remains: who will interrupt the pattern?
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at sufiansarawak@ gmail.com.
