Like clockwork, the floods come to the village every month, but the latest deluge was worse than what he has seen in decades.
“The water level was higher than usual … reaching up to the waist,” he told FMT. “It is usually only about knee-deep.”
Pak Aziz, 60, and his family are among the last 20 families who have chosen to remain in the village. In fact, his family accounts for the majority of the villagers.
They include his siblings, who are fishermen, as well as their respective families. Pak Aziz himself operates a restaurant at the banks of a tributary of Sungai Perak.
The water level in the river was still unusually high, with strong currents, when FMT paid a visit three days after the floods.
The villagers were still busy cleaning up after the floods, a task that involved removing thick layers of mud off the wall and floor. Fortunately, a group of volunteers from Bukit Gantang was there to lend a hand.
The constant floods have also taken a toll on the local infrastructure. For instance, the main road is so peppered with potholes that driving into the village would require the dexterity and skills of off-roading on wheels.
But hardly anyone bats an eyelid now. The floods happen so often that the local elected representative has stopped paying any attention to the villagers’ plight.
The assumption is that the village has such a small population and its location so remote — an hour’s drive from Taiping, the nearest town — that it is not worth putting in the effort to make things right there.
Pak Aziz said that during the floods, each villager was given a mattress and some food while they were housed at the evacuation centre.
“That was it. Maybe it’s because we live in a rural area, so no one is surprised anymore,” he said with a shrug.
Another victim, Rozaida Osman, said the constant flooding had dampened their enthusiasm to vote in the general election.
“I was disappointed when I saw (my) house and the electrical appliances badly damaged. I can’t use my refrigerator or washing machine anymore,” she said.
“If it floods again, we won’t be in any mood to vote,” added the 38-year-old housewife.
Several villages in the Taiping and Batu Kurau districts were submerged from about 3pm on Friday, forcing the local authorities to open five flood evacuation centres. All centres were closed two days later when the floods fully subsided.
Another resident, Rosni Usman, 60, is pinning her hopes on their next elected representative to solve their problem.
“We have been hit by floods so many times, I can’t even tell how much we have already lost,” she said.
“I just hope that whoever is elected next will be able to do something for us,” she added.
Kampung Matang Pasir is located in the Trong state constituency within the Bukit Gantang parliamentary seat, which was won by Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Jamilah Zakaria and Syed Abu Hussin Hafiz Syed Abdul Fasal in GE14.
Syed Hussin, who is aiming to defend his seat in GE15 with Perikatan Nasional (PN), is up against BN’s Sollehin Tajie, Pakatan Harapan’s Fakharuldin Hashim and Pejuang’s Shukri Yusoff.
Jamilah, meanwhile, is facing PN’s Faisal Abdul Rahman and PH’s Junaida Jamaluddin.