a heart warming tale in a flood disaster

The recent continuous downpour in and around Segamat and Labis and the Tenang by-election was an experience I'll never forget for a long long time. But even as I look back at the many pictures I clicked away before and during the floods now, one warm episode of the by-election made all my frustrations, fears and disappointments seem unworthy.
Yes I was a flood victim who had to nervously drive in the rain, murmuring a fervent prayer, through pot-holed roads that were flooded up to about 2 feet in some places of gushing muddy-water and in pitch darkness save the head-lights of my car and being alone.
Below and above are some scenes of the floods but in no particular order from the 30th. Sunday (Tenang by-election) to Monday the 31st. both in Labis town and on to Segamat about 24 kms away. Some of the pictures are of the residents who had to re-live the nightmare floods of 2006 all over again.....


....while others in the pictures are victims of circumstances, like me. We don't live in either Labis or in Segamat but were there for the wet, wet, wet week-end and were caught in the flood while trying to make our way back to Kuala Lumpur.
.....and about 1 kilometer away and under 4 feet of flood-waters was our "home-stay" and where our luggage was...and that I have been in my wet pair of shoes and jeans and t-shirt that has been damp since Sunday morning.
I thought I would make it by foot to Segamat town if I followed the railway tracks but decided otherwise when about 100 meters on, the tracks were submerged underwater.
But the reason for this posting are the pictures ( again not in order...see....as the up-loading of pictures is not my favourite past-time) you see below here on.......just after reporting the status at the Dewan Kampung Paya Merah polling centre in Labis Timor, I was caught in a crawl trying to get to the next polling station at SMK Kamarul Arifin in Bandar Labis Tengah when I saw a young man in a red-striped shirt, jumping onto an already flooded rubber estate. Curiosity got the better of me as I sensed he must be up to no good. So I immediately double-parked between the already packed cars lined along the road in the rain and wrapping my wind-breaker loosely covering my camera from the rain, got into position to see what this crazy chap was up to.

At first I did not see the cow, but this bespectacled guy standing in muddy water up to his chest was using his hands and foot to hook the rope that was under water. Then it dawned on me that he was actually going for the rope the cow had round his neck and feel and follow the rope to the point that was tied to the tree.

I was shocked and ashamed to have judged him as he was actually untying the rope to set the cow free from drowning. By this time a small local crowd had gathered around me curious to know what I was photographing. Some one shouted to him above all the crazy din of by-election cheering and jeering and horns blaring and engines revving in the down-pour, that there was an angry young stud tied to another tree and also needed saving. So he waded in chest high water towards the stud and had a face-off for several minutes before he could get to the rope at the tree to free the stud. A man beside me remarked "memang lembu jantan itu marah....dia bukan tuan lembu itu" ("certainly the young bull was trying to charge at him....as he was not the owner")

He managed to free yet another 3 more cows as he stood there in the muddy water, soaked and splashing water and shooing the cows one by one to climb up the slope to the road where we were standing and to safety.

He certainly turned a hero of sorts to me later on......see I was happy to see this young man do something unique which would be normal if the cows belonged to him, but as I asked where the owner of the cows was, an elderly man beside me said that the owner had gone earlier this morning to the other side of town to vote after tying his cattle to the rubber trees by the river bank. And I asked if this young man who saved these cows was a son or relative, he replied "ta tau siapa dia lah....tak pernah jumpa dia dari kawasan kampung ini. Mesti kenal semua di sini, abang saya ketua kampung di sini.." ( don't know who he is lah....never seen him in this village before. I'll surely know everyone here, my elder brother is a village head")

........and that folks was what that warm feeling was all about.......about this stranger who without giving a thought for danger jumped into a swelling and rising flooded field to save 5 helpless and innocent cows !