IN a small hut in Kampung Kaleg, Kelantan, Abanj Anjang is preparing a rattan trap. He hopes to catch bamboo rats, which make good eating.

“I will grill it over fire. It tastes sweet,” said the 88-year-old Temiar.

There are eight empty huts around his own in Kampung Kaleg, where the Orang Asli of Gua Musang, Kelantan had set up a blockade.

His food supply has run out. No longer do civil society groups or individuals trek into the interior with care packages for him now that the blockade has been taken down by a court order last month.

The area is rich in sources of food but they are difficult to find during the monsoon season.

“I have to find my own food. But it’s not an issue at all,” said the former police Special Branch man.

His family is scattered among the many villages in the area and his home, Kampung Gawin some 30km away.

Food costs much more in this isolated spot than in Gua Musang. Here, a kilo of chicken is sold for as much as RM40.

The locals here are also used to paying RM3 per litre for their motorcycle petrol, which they get from a shop in Kuala Betis.

And the prices increase during the monsoon season due to the remoteness of the location.

Apart from rats, Abanj also relies on a type of frog called “segnuk” for food during the wet season.

Abanj was born in Pos Keled, a day’s walk from Kaleg. But Pos Kelad was destroyed by a mud deluge when he was a child.

Some 40 people, plus Abanj, moved out to set up a new settlement called Pos Gob.

“Gob means to drift away. Everything in our old village had drifted away in the mud deluge,” he said.

Pos Gob is unreachable now as the two wooden bridges connecting the settlement have collapsed after two days of heavy rain.

Abanj said this is why the Orang Asli do not move about during the rainy season.

“We just sit inside our homes. We fear the river banks will burst and flood our settlement.”

Four-wheel drive vehicles whizz past the hut, all keenly observed by Abanj as he speaks.

“We can only watch them go in and out. We can’t stop them. When the higher people (court) told us to open the road, we had no choice, but to remove the blockade.”

The blockade was a long running battle between the Orang Asli community here, led by Abanj, and “outsiders” who have come to clear the forest – and the Orang Asli settlement – for a durian plantation.

A court ruling on October 17 ordered the Kampung Kaleg blockade to be removed. Also removed were blockades in Kampung Cawas, about 20km away from here, and in Pos Pasik.

The plantation workers now have access to the land about 1,000 hectares large deep in the jungle of Gua Musang.

Likewise, timber lorries may now travel into the jungle to fetch logs.

But the fight is not over for the Orang Asli and their supporters. Activist group Jaringan Kampung Orang Asli Kelantan has filed an application to challenge the court order.

Until then, Abanj was staying put in his hut in Kampung Kaleg to keep an eye on the “illegal and unlawful” activities.

“I will be here until the fight is truly over,” he said.

He is also hoping for a quick solution to the encroachment on his settlement. He said the relationship between the Temiar community and the Malays from Kuala Betis have been been affected by the blockades.

This is because some of the Orang Asli as well as the Malays from Kuala Betis are in the employment of the durian plantation.

But for people like Abanj, the blockade was the only way to protect their interest.

He said his people were not happy because the durian plantation owners had not sought their permission to encroach on their land.

“If they had sought permission from our penghulu, we won’t be fighting,” he said.

He was also worried that more of their land would be taken away in the future, especially when they have no documents to show prove of land ownership.

“I heard the Orang Asli in Perak have their land grants but we don’t have.” – November 11, 2018.