22 May 2010. Site visits to Masjid Pertempatan Melayu Sembawang and Yishun Dam (Lower Seletar Reservoir) where scenes from ‘Rawa’ written by Isa Kamari took place. Past info of programme.

Check out more of the writer, Isa Kamari and his other works at www.isakamari.com

'Rawa' by Isa Kamari

First stop: Village Mosque marked as a national heritage

Kak Leha from the mosque sharing on the prayer attire for Muslim ladies

Kak Leha explaining about the Tasbih

Main prayer hall in mosque. Mosque is very well maintained. Squeky clean!

Preserved. The Gong used for the call of prayer

The Last Kampung Mosque in Singapore. Indeed.

Isa Kamari sharing with the audience. In 'Rawa', Rawa's marriage with Temah took place in the mosque.

2nd stop @Yishun Dam, Lower Seletar Reservoir. The Orang Seletars used to live here. Imagine them travelling across to JB in their pau kajang!

Isa sharing about Orang Seletar. Too bad the skit couldn't happen oer it would have been more interesting. Too see a scene from the book come alive!

Some of the kampung houses are still around. One of our participants got the chance to walk down the area

Shells collected from the small kampung area

Updating in Process. More pics coming up!
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Live. Laugh. Love.

Experience Singapore Literature Volume 2.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much. Those are the words from John Mcleod’s inspirational poem. With this in mind, we invite you to explore the meaning of those words in ESL Vol 2 through the multi-ethnic literatures of Singapore. We hope that through this platform, you will be able to better explore at great depths life, laughter and love in our various showcase of literature.

Our programmes are bilingual in their ethnic languages and English or are purely in English to ensure that you’ll be able to enjoy the sessions regardless of whichever ethnic language(s) you speak!

Happening from April 2010.

Editor: When I was conceptualizing ESL volume 2 (don’t make me spell out what is ESL), I thought really hard. Too hard. Many drafts were pushed back and forth. I had to hibernate, run, hide.. Hibernate to try to think, run and hide from my boss while I was thinking.

And because Vol 1 was on local literature in English, we wanted to showcase local literature of the different languages, of the different communities. But we wanted it to be accessible to everyone as well. What was the point if a programme, eg.  on Tamil literature appeals only to the Indian community? Wouldn’t those who are not Indians want to learn something too? We wanted cross-learning, we wanted something multi-disciplinary, we wanted something experiential. Ambitious? Maybe. Maybe not.

In any case, here we present you ‘Live, Laugh & Love’. The three elements would be represented in our six core episodes from April to September 2010. We start off April with ‘Live’ as we bring you insights into the Tamil community and of the female community as a whole. And in everything we do for the first time, feel free to feedback to us (to me at Athena_AZIZ@nlb.gov.sg) what works, what doesn’t. But do give us some time to absorb it all in. I can’t promise you will see wonders the next time round but I surely, truly would value the feedback and ideas!