Eric n Tara – Gila-gila

Delivering a punch line.

Perhaps Eric doesn’t know it, but he is a natural dead-pan comedian. He has got the face of a serious IT dude (he is a serious IT dude) but ever so often throws a one-liner that leaves you stumped for a second before it dawns upon you that this guy is actually joking.

His wife Tara is seriously whacky. For new friends like us, it is initially quite disorienting.

Gin called the other day at 10pm to inform them that we had arrived outside their apartment block. As Gin spoke with Eric, Tara was squealing excitedly in the background. Tara did warn us to call before coming so we wouldn’t catch these newly weds “clowning around” but this screaming about was quite unexpected.

Turns out Tara was in her swimsuit and was making mad a scramble for the room when the phone rang. 6 hours ago they had wanted to go swimming but it rained. Tara, too lazy to get out of her suit, thinking we were at their door, just freaked out.

Maybe it’s that jungle girl spirit in her. You see, Tara’s ancestors are decendents of the headhunters of Sarawak, the Ibans.

Last Gawai (harvest festival), Eric and her made a 4 hour boat trip deep into the rainforests of Borneo to meet the family. They slaughtered pigs, watched a mesmerizing traditional warrior dance, witnessed a berbalas pantun session (poetry tennis) and joined in the general festivities of a 70-family-wide long-house.

Barely able to conceal that that gila-gila streak.

Eric passed the family’s assessment and went on to marry Tara in Penang.

Their first home was a low cost apartment block where the 2 love-birds managed to initiate a spiritual empowerment program with their young neighbours to help them deal with the influences around them.

According to Eric and Tara, living in a rough neighbourhood became easier thanks to the program they ran. Once others witnessed the character transformation in their young ones, word gots around and the residents themselves became Eric and Tara’s ‘protection’ from the baddies and gangsters.

Well, I don’t know.

I say their neighbours were just weirded out by the couple’s cackles and shenanigans.