Duck Tales : Cerita Itik GAMPANG (??)

Gampang.

If you say the that word in Indonesia, people would just shrug it off and you won't risk being gang-bashed by some angry crowd. Gampang in Indonesian language means easy.


But tongues will wag and (perfectly embroidered) eyebrows will raise, if you utter that particular word in Malaysia. And yes, you could risk some great injuries on your body if you say that word out loud.

Loosely translated, it means 'el bastardo', or son of a *itch (yep, something that rhymes with witch), or simply said, it means anak haram in BM.


OK, enough with that fascinating word facts. I'm not a language expert, and we are not here not talk about Malay-Indo discrepancies, nor are we arguing semantics here.


It was midday, and I was clearing the unwashed dishes and preparing to cook for Iftar, or buka puasa dish. Yours truly and her mom in law were in the kitchen, just having a small chat.

And then, out of the blue, my mother in law uttered the word ITIK GAMPANG and I who have such delicate ears (haha yeah, right!) almost dropped the plates that I was washing.


"Hah ? Mak cakap apa tadi ????!", I said.


And then she repeated the same words. And I, who was only half listening to what my MIL had been talking about (heyy, so I daydream a little and not really paying attention to what she was talking about, yep...I'm a bad daughter in law!!!!) had to ask dear MIL to repeat the subject matter that she was talking about.


She was talking about this.



Introducing : Inchek Gemok, my fat little duck.


According to MIL, Inchek Gemok - the fattest duck among Teddys' 14 little precious had started to mate with other female ducks (oh finally!). But he chose to mate with an itik telur (reared for its eggs). So according to MIL, a marriage between an itik daging (reared for its meat) and itik telur, will result in itik gampang! Gampang, because the mother is 'easy' that another breed of duck can climb on top of her....Oh. Such a stigma....and I couldn't help feeling sorry for that poor itik gampangs everywhere who had to live with such stigma...sigh....


Well, enough about that social label. The question now is, how in the world can a city gal like me, get stuck and involved with such animals ?


Well, for the past 8 months, we had left our home in Kuala Lumpur and stayed in Pahang. It was Teddy's decision to take a year off from office work,just do some free-lancing consultations and sales projects, and be with his parents who were not quite well back then. So I, being a good wife, just went along with his plans.


And, along the way, out of boredom, and also for the sake of venturing into some unknown territories, my hubby Teddy decided to grow some chickens, ducks, quails and birds in our vast backyards. He also went to the extent of planting 100 chili plants, the cili padi variety, you know, the kind of that small,tiny chillies but pedas like hell!!!! Oh but I sooooo love cili padi, couldn't live without them hehe...


He said it is just a POC - a proof of concept, so to speak, because in near future he would like to venture into the agricultural business. Hmmm...


That, and because he said that there-is -going-to-be-some-kind-of-a-big-disaster-in-the-year-2012, so-we-might-as-well-take-precautions-and-get-ready-with-it.


Whew!

Well, I don't have any idea regarding the big disaster that is going to happen in yhe year 2012, and I just took a que sera sera stand on this issue. Yep, whatever will be, will be...


Anyway, back to Teddy's livestocks, sad to say that the little baby chicks died, but the ducks, the quails and the birds survived and flourished. The quails, (4 of them, 3 females and 1 lucky male), got nothing better to do than to reproduce. Everyday, there would be about 10 tiny quail eggs in their 'apartment', and that's a minimum figure. Yeah, go quail!!!!!!! (my personal thought is, the word aphrodisiac should have the picture/iconic image of a quail right next to it haha)


The ducks had been with us for almost 5 months, and by now they should already mate and hatch eggs, but ZILCH! No eggs!


But boy, they CAN really eat! They can finish off a 25kg sack of ducks food in just a few days. And they finished off any small plants and leaves that are low enough for them to grab. And they grew fatter and fatter, and Inchek Gemok is the fattest of them all....


And it is sooooo fascinating to watch the ducks. They really stick together, moving together in a single file, like little soldiers marching off for some big battlefields...My favorite time is the feeding time, I would scoop out their food from the sack, and pour the grains into the pots, and they would rush for the food, eat noisily, yet elegantly, pecking off every single grain, like tomorrow would never come...


My hubby Teddy's little darlings, all 14 of them...come on, bila uols nak mengawan ??? haha


Well, maybe I should change my blog header to something like Living A Kampung Life, right ? Hmmm...