The kids in Kampung Mangkok, Setiu, loves to play in the sea. Every evening at about 5:30pm or 6pm, they would be cycling outside TCC House, calling “Auntie!” or “Kak Chen!” to “mandi pantai” with them. These kids have grown so attached to us that the day will not go by without anyone of them calling us from outside our locked gate. And if we did not answer them, they would attempt to attract our attention by clanking our padlock, or chatting loudly among themselves.

So one day, I decided to tag along.

We took a short walk about 150m towards the beach, some of the younger kids cycled there but some others strolled along. As soon as we were about 20m from the sea, the boys started removing their T-shirts and were getting ready to jump into the water. And not long after, the girls followed suit :D

Kimi, the 7-year-old boy on the foreground in the picture above, is a very adorable kid. He knew he couldn’t swim very well (or maybe his parents/grandparents asked him not to go to the deeper waters) so he was seen playing only by the beach. His routine would be to run as fast as he could from the beach and jump into the water as the waves hit the beach. He would then get up, run back to the beach and repeat his “waves-breaking” act :D

The older kids would skin-dive a bit, and swim a bit but for the most part, they would just be playing in the water. Occassionally they would get onto the beach, roll on the sand, make some funny faces and then they would return to the sea.

While you think that they would enjoy themselves so much and forget about the time, these kids would surprise you by knowing when to get out of the water and go home in time for the maghrib prayers :D