Real home

 My Real Home

I used to think home was a house. A place with walls, a roof, and food waiting in the kitchen. But as a boy in Kampung Kebakat, I learned otherwise. Our home was a baloh, a paddy storage hut, with no door to call our own, no floor of cement—just earth under our feet and the sky watching over us.

There was no comfort, only survival. No toys, just stones and rubber seeds. No feast, only ten cents to divide between fried noodles and syrup ice. And yet, I carried something deeper inside me. I carried home within.

It was not built with wood or nails. It was made of quiet strength. Of walking through mud barefoot to a school like a goat shed. Of learning to go hungry without complaint. Of watching, listening, and understanding in silence. 

Home was not where I lived. It was who I became.

Even now, I know that my true home has always been inside me. It lives in my memories, my endurance, my heart that still remembers the smell of slate and the taste of that tiny piece of cookie dough in the evening.