From a distance I saw this street looking like an Indian dhobi ghat (laundry), with hundreds of clothes hanging out side and being washed on the floor outside an old village house. They were muddy clothes ruined by the floods. Curiously I walked into the home where I found a group of five busy washing.
“Wow those are a lot of dirty clothes?”
“Yeah, all wet and muddy after our house was flooded. This are all our clothes from my family, we are eight of us living here.”
“Was this the worse experience you had?”
“I never seen the floods this high before. The water was up to the top of the front door, so we tried to save our important belongings but most were still destroyed, and the clothes too. They are all wet, muddy and smelly now.”
“So you left your homes?”
“Yeah, when the floods started getting worse, we left. I just got back after one week and now it’s cleaning time. I been washing this clothes for two days now, and I’m still not done yet, I have to wash them over and over again.”
“You should get some help right?”
“Of course that’s better, why not you help me, you are just sitting there taking my photos.”
She laughed and smirked at my embarrassment. This Kota Bahru families were the friendliest and strongest folks I met.
(Kota Bahru, Kelantan) – East Coast Floods, Malaysia
More stories from this project: East Coast Floods
