I couldn't remember her name.

Was it Pristy? Or was it Bella? It was definitely not Acapella.

I heard them calling her 'Ozong' all the time. So, when she walked into my tuition class 20 minutes late one day, I asked her to write her name on the slightly moist ground with a thick twig. She wrote: P-R-I-S-T-Y-B-E-L-L-A-Y-A-N-G.

Pristybellayang. Such a beautiful name. I've been here for some time now, yet every day, I'm still amused by their names. One has many names in Sabah. Full name, family name, pet name, glamour name, tribe name, special friend name—sometimes when we chatted, I thought they were referring to three persons when in reality, he/she was the same person. And so, after some time I became one of them; they named me 'Oyong'.

#####

The group of senior citizens who funded the student outreach work in Pitas called me up one day. They asked if I could work on a photo slideshow for them. No sweat, I said. But it took them months to send me any photos at all and when they did, most of the photos were not usable. They were either badly cropped, overexposed or told no stories. I refused to put them together. Then the chairman suggested, "Why don't you fly over and snap some for us?"

"How many days?" I asked.

"Three. You can go with the team of teachers. We are organising a tuition carnival weekend for the students," he explained.

"A tuition what?"

"A tuition carnival."

"What does that even mean?"

It turned out to be a group of five teachers going into the interiors of Pitas to teach tuition for various subjects to hundreds of students. I thought they were crazy. They thought I was insane when I requested to be sent for at least a month or I would not be going at all.

Apparently, no outsider survived the interior of Pitas for more than two weeks. I wondered why.

#####

The team of teachers came with enthusiasm but left without looking back. They were probably too eager to get out of the village because it was scorching hot and their bones were aching from sleeping on hard ground. They left me with two cartons of one-litre mineral water bottles, thirty packs of potato chips and a dozen chocolate bars, and asked me to call the chairman if I wanted to be rescued. From what, you may ask. From leaking roofs, non-existent beds and natural toilets by the riverbank. At least there was a river nearby.

I hated snacks and didn't know what to do with the food stash which I was supposed to keep to myself. So, I took out the bottles and hid the potato chips and chocolates in the carton boxes. Then I buried them in the ground under my so-called bed. Ah yes, they gave me a little wooden hut to live in. The walls were made of wood, but the floor was plain ground. When it rained, I stood on a 12-inch round tree bark at one corner of my hut and prayed the water wouldn't rise above my ankles. I've survived six rainy nights so far. Grandma would have been proud of me for surviving such conditions.

My hut was located right at the end of the paddy field, the furthest away from the village centre. It was just a ten-foot by twelve-foot space—at least it was bigger than the cubicle I used to work in at the bank. It contained a makeshift kitchen and four nails on the wall. The first held my travel bag while the second held my camera. My sarong sat on the third nail while the fourth hard-headedly stared back at me each time my eyes fell on it. My makeshift bed was just a sheet of banner canvas tied to a rectangle bamboo frame. I could easily move it to any corner of the hut according to my fancy but I kept it at one corner because that was where the snack treasure was. No one was supposed to know where it was. I bet the students have been searching high and low for it.

The village folks feasted on chicken, fish and meat three times a day during the tuition carnival. The big feast disappeared after the teachers left. That was because it was the teachers who brought the food supply. I believed that was also the reason why hundreds of students turned up from other villages in the district; they came for the food. If you think about it, how much can you learn sitting on warm ground under the hot sun while listening to a teacher sheltering under the shade of the trees teaching Math with nothing but a portable microphone? I captured more photos of students sleeping against each other's backs than listening to the lessons.

The first few days of solo living were eye-opening. The village head invited me over for three meals a day. Breakfast was a hill of white rice with one super oily fried egg on top. Lunch was another hill of white rice with just plain soy sauce, a pinch of salt or slices of banana. Dinner was... yes, you guessed it—a hill of white rice with deep fried eggplant that burst with oil when I bit it. Just in case you didn't know, three big bowls of white rice made a hill on the plate and they only knew how to cook eggplant one way: cut it into cubes and toss them (without flour) into a pot of boiling recycled oil for a good ten minutes. I've never detested oil, soy sauce and salt this much in my life.

Click click! I captured all of this with my camera so that I could report to the chairman.

I walked the students to school every morning at 6am though it was a two-kilometre walk. Not because I wanted to but because the only power generator within the 18km radius was in the school. I went there to charge my smartphone and camera batteries. Once every three days, I climbed up the tall hill behind the school so that I could get mobile coverage and text my mom to tell her I was still alive. This was crucial lest she complained to the chairman and sent in a troop to 'rescue' me.

Life was simple and ordinary in Pitas. I didn't know which part of Pitas I was in because the district is rather huge and I couldn't pronounce the name of the village. I tried Googling once, but it didn't even appear on Waze. Anyway, by ordinary life I meant: the people had hills of rice for breakfast before starting their day at 6 a.m. Then the men went to the paddy harvest huts while the women headed to the paddy hill slopes. The children either went to school or followed their parents. They didn't stay out for long. By ten in the morning, they were back home. The women prepared lunch while the men chatted among themselves outside their wooden houses. The children came home from school and the families had lunch. In the afternoons, they took long naps and waited for night to fall. Did they worry about food? I hardly thought so.

"The hill paddy grows around us. Just harvest and eat. There are paku, mushrooms, bananas and wild mangoes. You want something with your rice, just go harvest them. Why work so hard unless you want meat? Do you want meat, teacher?" the women asked. "We can always get our men to hunt wild boars for you."

Why did they call me teacher? After a few days in the village, I was no longer just the photographer. I was the tuition teacher, the exercise trainer, the cooking instructor and the storyteller. They fed me lunch in exchange for stories about the city and my travel adventures. Then the children gathered and I taught them English; for every assignment they completed, I rewarded them with potato chips and chocolate bars. Just before dinner, the women gathered for some simple aerobics exercises led by yours truly, followed by cooking lessons as we prepared dinner. I'm not a good chef, but oily, soggy eggplants were making me sick. During our cooking lessons, the women found frying an egg with just a spoonful of oil a difficult attempt. We had eggplant omelette twice a week for dinner since cooking lessons started.

That was how I found my purpose in life.

#####

After being back in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks, I made the most dramatic decision in my life: I bought a one-way ticket to Sabah. The village chief picked me up from Kota Kinabalu International Airport. He also picked up the stranger who sat on the same row as me on the plane. That explained why he was willing to make the long trip out of the village. As much as the villagers loved me, I didn't warrant a ride.

I settled comfortably into the back seat for the bumpy six-hour ride while the two men chatted non-stop in front. I could not understand a single word as they spoke in the Dusun language. The only words I knew were 'Osonong Kosuabon' which means 'Good morning' and 'Kaino makan' which means 'Let us eat'. I vowed to learn more and remember better this time.

"Oyong, you came back!" the teenage girls exclaimed as they group-hugged me when I got off the Hilux. However, before I got to say anything, their eyes lit up at the sight behind me.

Immediately, they dispersed to surround him as the rest of the villagers joined in. The boys slapped his back and hugged him while the girls hovered around him like bees around a single flower stalk. It was then that I took a good look at the stranger from the plane.

Indeed, he was more beautiful than a rose; he was the most handsome sight in the village. He was tall, dark and hunky in comparison with the skinny local lads. His milk tea skin glowed like the sparkles in his eyes. His face was adorned with dark brows and a delicious smile danced on his lips. Later I learnt that he is the village chief's son. His name is Honniger.

#####

It was back to slow life in the village. I had the same routine as before, but some things had changed. I was not the only role model for the younger ones now. Honniger played that role too. The boys admired him, listened to him and worshiped him. The girls giggled when he passed by. He always smiled at them; sometimes he winked too, which made them blush. In everyone's eyes, Honniger, who had spent a few years traveling the world, had returned to do good for the village. Undeniably, I felt redundant.

"Sumandak, what are you doing up there?" His voice startled me. I almost fell out of the tree. Honniger proceeded to climb up the tree and sat beside me on its thickest branch. I wondered how long he had been watching me. I totally hadn't noticed him as my thoughts were far away.

"What are you doing here?" I swung my dangling legs in the air, my ankles locked together.

"Looking for you, my Sumandak," he replied with a cheeky grin. "So what's on your mind?"

Leaving, I wanted to say, I was thinking of leaving the village. But I told him none of it. A few minutes later, the students walked by us on their way home from school.

"Are you two dating?" one of the teenage boys asked and the rest of them started snickering cheekily while the girls smiled shyly.

"Move along now, you guys. Let me spend some time with my Sumandak." Honniger laughed as he shooed them off with a wave of hand. The girls turned back to look and giggled among themselves as they left.

"Don't confuse the kids. I'm not your Sumandak," I corrected him. 'Sumandak' refers to 'a beautiful virgin girl' in the Dusun language. I was fine when the women called me Sumandak, which they usually did teasingly, but with Honniger, I was unsure how to react.

"Don't you like me? Even just a tiny bit?" He pinched his thumb and forefinger together, almost touching but not quite. I hid a smile.

"The kids love you," I said in reply. The teenagers and children in the village all loved him. Even the adults loved him because he brought knowledge, confidence and skills to the village. Since his return in the past two months, he's been the sunshine that lit up the community. I used to be that sunshine. Now, I was hidden in his shadow.

"They are our kids," he looked ahead and smiled as he said it. That was what I liked about Honniger. He didn't shut me off from them. He let them come to me like they used to before he returned to the village; he shared them with me. He was generous that way.

I let his comment pass like wind in the trees. We sat quietly for a moment too long. I wanted to excuse myself but Honniger spoke again.

"You know, I had only one concern when I was coming back here: would I ever find my soul mate? Father would surely want me to get married and have a family of my own. He said there are many girls in our village for me to choose from. But he doesn't understand my heart. I need someone who is willing to stay in this village, cultivate the youths, educate the adults, make my hometown a better place with me. Get what I mean?"

I didn't dare nod.

"Would you consider?" he asked directly. I could feel his eyes on me, so I kept my eyes on the ground below us. A moment passed. Then he asked again, "Would you consider me?"

"I'm here. I'm helping you out. The youths have more confidence to explore possibilities for a better future, the children are learning to read faster at a younger age, the men are hunting and selling meat for a better living, the women are better family caretakers. The village is a better place now, Honniger. You should be proud of yourself," I said to him.

"But I'm no better than when I came back," he replied softly.

Suddenly, I understood him and felt his agony. I prayed that God would help him because I couldn't. I liked him for the man he was, but I didn't love him. I really didn't think I did.

#####

"Oyoooooong!"

I startled, causing the creamy words on the cake to smear. I bit my lips in frustration. Pristybellayang poked her head into the kitchen.

"Ger is looking for you."

"Which girl?" I smiled to myself even as the familiar question departed from my lips. She didn't catch the joke.

"Honniger wants to know what's taking you so long?"

I laughed as she stared at me with puzzlement on her face. Honniger, Honniger, horny girl. He caught me laughing every time someone called his name. One day I let him in on the joke and he laughed too.

"At least my father didn't name me 'Honnigai.' That would have been worse!" and we broke into a louder laughing fit. We never taught the people in the village the word 'horny,' so this remained our private joke. Usually they called him 'Ger' and that was enough to make us smile knowingly.

"Just a while more. I need to redo the words," I said as I scooped off the dark chocolate piping cream from the top of the cake. I added more cheese cream to the surface and smoothed it out with a butter knife. Then I reached for the piping bag I created with a plastic sheet and started piping the name again. Pristybellayang watched my actions with great interest.

"Can you teach me how to do this for my mom's birthday next time?" she asked. I nodded. The young ones here always wanted to learn new things, it was a pleasure to teach them and watch them grow.

Pristybellayang watched me intently as I wrote each alphabet again, carefully this time. A few minutes later, the two-kilogram cake was ready. I carried it on a chopping board and walked over to the house next door. It was a ten-minute walk. Everyone was waiting for us when we arrived.

"There you are, my Sumandak." Honniger was all smiles. His eyes were not on his birthday cake, but on me. They sparkled with joy like the first time we met. I presented him my sweetest smile from across the room while the women whisked the cake away from my hands and put it on the floor in the center of the house.

More than half of the villagers turned up to celebrate his birthday. He was, after all, the most important man in the village now. It was their culture to gather, share food and be merry on such occasions so everyone brought a dish or two, both to show off their cooking skills and to fill up the buffet spread. The floor was covered with more than thirty pots of food—from wild boar stew to deep-fried vegetables, salted fish to poultry dishes, omelettes to soups. And, of course, mountains of white rice at all four corners of the space.

We gathered and sang Honniger a birthday song, first in Dusun, then in English. I'd taught the children to sing it the last couple of days and they delivered each line beautifully. He cut the cake, which suddenly appeared tiny in the midst of the large crowd. I couldn't steam a bigger one over the tiny charcoal stove in my hut. In fact, I was grateful to be able to produce a cake at all.

"So, where's my birthday gift?" Honniger asked that night as he walked me back to my hut. The villagers had dispersed and he had insisted on making sure I reached home safely. Just like the gentleman he always was.

"You didn't like the cake?"

"It was good. But a birthday gift would be nice." I knew he was grinning cheekily even though it was dark. I could hear it in his voice.

He watched as I opened the door to my hut. I put my things away and hung up my shawl. It was a chilly night. When I turned to close the door, he was still standing there, watching me, waiting. Before I could change my mind, I stepped closer to him and planted a kiss on his right cheek.

"Kotobian tadau kinosusuvan, Honniger." Happy birthday, Honniger. Before he could respond, I stepped back into my hut and closed the door.

He stood there for a seemingly long time while I stood with my back against the door listening to his breathing. Then in the silence of the night, his words floated through the gap of my door: Muhang oku diya, Oyong. I love you, Oyong.

#####

Oyong. The word doesn't have a meaning. They told me it is a special name reserved for beloved ones, precious ones, people dear to their hearts. They named me 'Oyong' because I became one of them when I survived a month in the village during my first trip here.

I haven't left since my return. Neither has Honniger. We parented the youths and children like our own. We mentored the adults to be forward-thinking for a better future. And we continued to be good friends. He and I. We were living the purpose of our lives.

The few years I've been living here has taught me and still is teaching me how to live life a little bit more by worrying a little bit less about living the way others expect me to live. There is liberty in being here. There is freedom. Here's where I get to be me.

Welcome to Pitas, Sabah.