Rumah Banda Hilir (6)

I have sat down to draw the interior of the house and added photos where they were taken (guessed and based on memory). I have tried to add icons to enliven the sketches of the interior and spaces. This is all from my past. The house has been demolished and there is nothing else to go by to draw these pictures.

Anjung (front guest space, mainly for males after prayers)

Front inner living-room for formal guests

Master bedroom where I slept with my parents till age 4-5

Brick multipurpose space for drying clothes, kids to play, preparing for festivities, etc. Goods are also placed here before they are sorted and separated into smaller tin cans for storage.

Rear living-room where relatives gathered to help out with festivities, etc. Doubled up as sleeping space when they were too many relatives in the house.

Rumah Banda Hilir (5)

262-T Rumah Banda Hilir still excites me. I have sat down to draw the interior architectural plan of the house. This house was probably of Minangkabau exterior and interior layout.

Entrance viewed from across the main road, circa 1963.

House viewed from the main entrance, circa 1963.

This is how I have the house in my mind. This map shows the location of the house wrt the other known structures in Banda Hilir when I lived there.

Interior floor plan of the house from the time I was born up till before the toilet was made. We used the jamban outside the house. It was some distance from the main house. The pong was terrible, coming from the excreta in the pail beneath the stall (squatting type). It was like living on top of a cesspit. There were 2 bedrooms, a master bedroom in the newer section and a smaller bedroom in the older (ancient) back section of the house.

Interior floor plan after a toilet was made inside the house. Life was much better with a toilet inside the house. I slept with my parents in the master bedroom till I was past 4 years old. I slept in my eldest brother's big blue cot which was as big as a single bed.