“MARI KELILING TUARAN”

VOLUNTEERED .....The young crew that volunteered for the Rumah Ibadat Kita project.

By : AMY YEE AND FIZAH YUSOF

ON DECEMBER 29, sixteen youths aged 19-35 years old descended on  Tuaran to showcase Tuaran’s diverse places of worship  and the town's uniqueness.

“Mari Kelliling Tuaran” is the first ever community mapping project of its kind in Tuaran. The crew spent three months exploring Tuaran through a series of different workshops comprising research, photography and video clips from the Tuaran folks.

Lew Pik-Svonn, the 29 year old co-founder and project manager said Sabah is one of the most culturally diverse states in Malaysia. Originating from Kuala Lumpur, she was amazed by so much display of diversity in such a small place. .

“We decided to conduct our project in Tuaran because there are six churches of different denominations, two Taoist temples and a mosque in close proximity of one another inthis small community. It is also home to the Dusun Lotud ethnic group. Through this project, we hope the Tuaran folks will learn, appreciate and feel proud to call Tuaran their home,” she said.

Lew said the community-mapping project is organised by Projek Rumah Ibadat Kita, an initiative of Kota Kita, a non-profit art collective that aims to enrich community relationships through creative media, funded by a grant from Projek Dialog.

“This project is a follow up on last October’s community mapping project in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. There are three series in the project and the last destination is yet to be revealed,” she said.

Visitors to  the community event were each given a free booklet that proclaims: "Tuaran Bah Ni!".  It is jam-packed with information. Compiling the booklet took 2 months to complete.

The booklet which also doubles as a map of Tuaran, highlights Tuaran's cultural and religious diversity with helpful descriptions and commentaries by the people who organized the event. The commentaries on local food, tradisional Dusun Lotud beliefs, places of worship, restaurants, markets and various recreational places are  in the national language.

The discovery tour fanned out from the iconic Tuaran clock tower. It started withmore than 50 people who joined the two-and-a-half hour walk which covered four places of worship in Tuaran to learn about the history, religion and practices of these places.

The four places of worship included the St. John Catholic Church, founded by Rev. Fr. Groot that was built in 1917. It is the oldest church in Tuaran. An-Nur Mosque was officiated by the former Head of State, Tun Sakaran Dandai in 1999. The mosque can accommodate 2000 people at a time.

The 60-year old Basel Christian Church is the only Basel church in Tuaran. The nine-storey Ling San Temple is one of the main attractions of Tuaran. “Ling San” which literally means nine dragons playing with fire balls. It is known locally as the Lung San Pagoda.

Along the way, the participants could sample free traditional local dishes like ‘hinava’ and ‘kombos’.

Besides the walking tour, there were also on-going programs such as the T-shirt and bags printing station where limited edition of Tuaran-designed T-shirts were for sale, and an exhibition of two hundred photographs documenting the people of Tuaran.

The event also had a Lotud bead-making class for visitors who were interested. They could take home their work for free. Eleanor Goroh, 30, an experienced teacher of traditional bead making and a strong advocate of reviving bead culture in Sabah demonstrated to a crowd of people the art of arranging different coloured beads to make a necklace.

She told reporters that her involvement in bead culture started when she attended the Borneo’s 2010 International Bead Conference in Miri. There she was inroduced to the various indigenous cultures that shared a strong sense of pride in bead making. Feeling inspired, and realizing that there must be many people in different parts of the world who regard bead making as an integral part of their heritage, Goroh returned to her roots to watch and learn from her grandmother the ways of using old beads.

She now  owns her own bead studio in Bundusan, determined that the bead making handicraft should be revived and developed.

At the bead making class in Tuaran, Nurhidayah Abdullah, 40, a housewife from Tuaran with her daughter, Alia Natasha, 7 were very enthusiastic about the bead handicraft.

Nurhidayah said, "It is interesting to learn especially in traditional beading. I only know how to bead for clothing but not for accessories. I think learning this can give a leverage for me as a side income.

Away from the beads, Mary Anne Baltazar, 26, said the event was important as it offered a chance for people to know and understand other religions.

“We hardly take any time to know about other religions even though there is such diversity of religious beliefs in Sabah. So I think this might help fill the gaps,” she said.

Excited to see the carnival-like gathering in Tuaran, Amy-Jean, 65, said preserving the uniqueness of a small town such as Tuaran was indeed a great idea.

“I have lived in Kota Kinabalu  for 44 years and have always loved coming to Tuaran. It is a very pretty little town surrounded by padi fields with  Mount Kinabalu in the background,” she said.

She believed that getting people together, especially the young, to be involved in   a community project, would bringing out the best of a multicultural society. (Insight Sabah)