The Rambutan Trees in my Garden

I have 2 rambutan trees in my garden. One's an old big rambutan tree that produces red rambutans, and the other younger rambutan tree - which came from my grandmother's house in Alor Setar -produces yellow rambutans.

Now when I talk about a rambutan tree, it's obviously more than just the fruits, the rambutans of course. I'm talking about the amount of time you have to spend maintaining the tree, pruning the tree, watering the plant just for the fruits to come out nice.

Well this morning I woke up to some loud noise from the garden. My dad was snipping the rambutans away with a modified axe that can snip off branches. Then I heard my mom's yell.

"JOASH!!! WHERE ARE YOU??!?"

Coming mummy, coming.

My parents would always call me to help out on the rambutans and the tree. Firstly because I'm the one that eats the most rambutans in the family, and secondly because I'm always the one that helps with the rambutan tree, not my brother. He's doing his medicine course right now, and since he's having his quizzes and tests soon, my parents decided to give him a break from housework so he can spend more time mugging.

Back to the rambutans.

I went out to the garden and saw all tree branches on the floor. Not one, MILLIONS.. and literally the whole porch was full of branches. I looked up and my dad was standing at the balcony of the second floor.

"You pruning or chopping or cutting the rambutans out?"

Cutting the rambutans? Forgive the grammar, that's what we normally say at home. After all, we don't pluck the rambutans, we use the modified axe.. so what do you call it? Papa, are you axing the rambutans? Nah.. that doesn't make much sense either does it..

Anyway.. my dad was actually just cutting down the rambutans, it so happened that the branches were all just part of the package to bring down the rambutans.. so well, now what I had to do was help my mom in the garden to pull out the rambutans and then gather all the branches together to tie and throw away later. So started to get to work..

Some of the rambutans my dad cut down were tangled to the larger branches higher up the tree.. well as it fell to the ground it got caught in between the branches so I naturally had to get a ladder, go up and pull it down.

Now really, apart from all the hassle and stuff, there's one particular reason I love the rambutan trees, not so much because of the fruits or anything, but because it is the one thing that causes me and my parents to work together as a family. My dad can't cut the rambutans alone, someone has to be at the ground to catch the rambutans as it fall, if not at the acceleration of g=9.81m/ss, the rambutan would just split and spoil. And usually I would be the one that catch those rambutans.

The rambutan trees gives me and my parents a lot of room to do things together. Tying up the rambutans, chopping down the big branches, sweeping and cleaning up the garden... though it is hard work, I appreciate the time I get to spend with my parents. Especially now that I'm already in INTEC Shah Alam, rare opportunities like this must be utilised. I once took my parents for granted, and after leaving home, I realised that the home is truly home not because of the bed and room, but because my parents are there. And I too realised, home is where my parents are close to me.

The rambutan trees bring back sweet memories of me learning how to pluck rambutans when I was a kid. Back then my dad would teach me how to use the long pole to pluck rambutans, and as a kid my dad would have to help hold both my hands and the pole because it's both too long and too heavy for my small hands. Occasionally the rambutans would just land on my head, and my dad and I would just burst into laughter.

After I swept up all the leaves and branches, I heard my mom sighed. She told me that we have been slaves to these 2 rambutan trees for many many years, and it should be fine time to cut it down. Maybe my mom forgot, that in the process of enslaving us to work, the work created opportunity for me and my parents to spend time together, something which all of us are no longer able to do often, and surprisingly overlook.

If the rambutan trees would mean spending more time with my parents then, I'd not only be keeping the rambutan trees at home, I'd plant as many of such trees when I get my own house with a garden.