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.