The clothes fom the City

My Mak was excited and eagerly waited for her nieces to return for their monthly balik kampung routine to our kampung from Kuala Lumpur,the city of joy.Her nieces promised to bring bags of goodies containing the cat-off clothes of their city friends. As their favourite aunt, she would get the honour to be the first one to choose.I could still remember how excited she was with the bags of cast-off clothes and how eager we were selecting the clothes for our daily use as in our eyes the clothes were as good as new.

"They must be rich these city people.These clothes are still new .This one could fit you. Go and try'.

I would try gladly hoping that all those clothes fitted me well so I could claim all of them mine.We would try and choose the clothes painstakingly.At the end of the session, all of us have new clothes .The ones we couldn't use ,my Mak would give to others.The cycles continued for many years.My Mak would always be patiently waiting for the clothes from the city.At that time it didn't occur to me, with so many mouths to feed with insufficient fund, my mom wouldn't have the luxury to shop for brand new clothes for her and her family .The money was spent on food and education .We were not rich.


Now we could afford to go on our own shopping sprees.However , the clothes from the City starts a new tradition in my family...recycling our clothes.