IT was a nice life for me in Sabah. But it was not going to last. Being in Kota Kinabalu, I was free to visit the estates owned by Sime Darby near Sandakan.
I could enjoy the view as I took the morning flight that took off before dawn. The Fokker Friendship engines would roar to life, and soon we were in the air. The land below was still asleep.
From the window seat, I could look out as the plane reached above the white blanket of clouds, and the rocky peaks of Mount Kinabalu would come into view, bathed by the sun. I looked until the rays would reach my window, and I sat back to enjoy my coffee.
I sat up again when the plane flew past Ranau and over the flats of the Labuk River, and as I looked down, I could see where I used to work in Pamol Estate. It was like a map of rivers and oil palm trees, and I could see the bungalow where I used to live.
Now, I was working for a different company, no longer at Unilever. Someone else lived there, and I had no right to feel attached to it. But I could not forget the successive months of profits when I was there and the premiums I could get for the high-quality palm oil.
However, the situation was different on the estates that I supervised. On Segaliud Estate, which was planted with cocoa, I would go through the month’s figures with the manager Ng Khen Wah to see which areas in the field we could save the cocoa crop. The problems caused by the cocoa pod borers led to lower yield and a poor quality of beans that could not fetch the best price.
It was the same story at Mengaris Estate, which was next door, and I would spend another two days there with the manager S.K. Tan. The trees did well, with branches covered in flowers, but the borers attacked the pods, resulting in beans that were far below the quality the buyers were looking for.
In the state-owned cocoa plantations that Sime Darby managed, the situation was even more dire. The area
was up a Kinabatangan tributary, and Sime Darby came after it was planted.
The cocoa trees were beautiful, the foliage green and healthy, but no one could say why few pods appeared on the trees. The general manager in charge, Peter Hanson, would spend long hours discussing it in the field together with his senior manager Aloysius D’Cruz.
Cash flow was tight. Peter had to make do with using the cash to buy fertiliser and pay the workers while testing the patience of the creditors for as long as he could.
On weekends, I was back in Kota Kinabalu, and I had time to myself. I would be free to visit the tamu market that opened in the morning at Kepayan to buy some fruits like terap, which is similar to jackfruit but smaller and sweeter, with a fragrance that could stay in your car for days. Another famous tamu was at Tuaran, along the coast on the way north, and one could see the view of the sea and the river flowing by the town.
On Sundays, I would be at the yacht club, where I had a sailing boat, a GP 14, and enjoyed going out sailing to Gaya Island or Mamutik. Sometimes, with the tail-end of a typhoon from
the Philippines, the boat would cut through the waves and cause the bow to leap, but I kept a close eye on the
sail to see how far the boat could heel. There was a limit before things could go wrong, but this kept my mind from the problems of the week.
Of course, I could not enjoy the islands, the tamu and the mountain air of Ranau and Kundasang for long. In 1990, Sime Darby would replant its plantations with oil palm, and I was to go back to Kuala Lumpur and work at Sime Darby Plantations division as a development director. The office in Kota Kinabalu would be closed, as was originally planned before I arrived nearly three years earlier.
It meant that my wife Maznah would arrive from Kuala Lumpur in the last few days to do the packing together with our servant Misah.
Misah had been an efficient employee, with a beautiful smile after she had the procedure on her harelip. She could cook my favourite food with the training given by Maznah.
Now Maznah asked her to come to Kuala Lumpur and work for us. Misah said she had to ask her brother for his views.
By the time the movers arrived to wrap the household goods and put them in cardboard boxes, she gave us her answer. She looked sad.
“My brother said I must not go. It
is too far away and anything might happen.”
She worked just as hard as before, wrapping and packing, and the owner of the moving business had noticed.
He was a young man from Kuala Lumpur who had settled in Sabah
and started working for himself. His business was doing well. Maznah went on with her usual chatter before she came to her question.
“Are you married?” She asked him.
“Yes.”
“Any children?”
“Two.”
“Then you and your wife must need an efficient servant who can look after your family while you grow your business. You know how hard it is to find a good servant. Misah is the right person. You have seen how she works.”
“How much do you pay her?”
Maznah told him. “But you must pay her more than that or else another employer might take her.”
Misah was of course happy to get a job offer from him with a new salary.
So, as events turned out, the move had made everyone happy. The mover got a good domestic helper, Misah received a bigger pay and her brother got his way.
I was on my way to my new job
at Sime Darby Plantations office, and wondered what the work of a development director was all about.
The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations. Comments: [email protected]
