Selegie ‘豆花' Cyclohunt! - Volunteers' Outing 17092010!

I totally enjoyed myself that day! Thanks for all who came down. *Sorry for the late notification especially the new members!* Do look forward to the next volunteers' outing! (More photos would be uploaded to Facebook. Do click on the link on hte right hand side.)

Ken

11 Sept Visit

Here's another first-timer writing about her experience. And like the rest, I have only good things to say about the visit. Because, truly it was a meaningful time spent with a friendly group of volunteers, with an equally friendly bunch of elderly.

I don't know if it's just me, but when I got off bus 13 and attempted to make my way towards the void deck, the Geylang Bahru estate had this distinctly 'ancient' vibes - you look around and you see more elderly than if you were in Tampines, Bishan etc; and the area seemed abit more neglected and run-down. It seemed like the perfect place for volunteers to come, and hopefully do something to 'brighten' up the lives of the elderly. I admit that on my part I was expecting to meet downcast, bored, pessimistic elderly.

However, to my pleasant surprise, the 2 elderly - Mr Tan and Mdm Chow (i think?) were really warm. In S'pore, we are always feeling warm, but how often do we truly feel warmth? I was quite taken aback by how positive/optimistic/cheerful/joyful/chatty the elderly were. they were everything I had not expected. Although I do hope, that us volunteers, met their expectations. It was funny because they didn't really seem to need our help with the household chores, in fact Mdm Chow kept insisting that we just sit down, while Mr Tan welcomed us to join him to watch TV. So then I realised, perhaps it was not so much what we did, but it was our presence, the fact that they had companions, and had someone to chit chat with that mattered.

As a first-timer, it did feel awkward at times, struggling with the language barrier, and also thinking of how to get the conversation going. in fact, it was Mr Tan and Mdm Chow who initiated the conversation at times, and they were so earnest to chat with us, it almost seemed as if we were the 'elderly' who had to be taken care of!

2 hours flew past and the visit was over. Mdm Chow asked me why I kept smiling, she jokingly asked whether I had picked up money. I kept that question in my head, and then I realised, that it was perhaps because these few hours spent interacting with the elderly were probably the most meaningful hours in my entire week. I could have spent these few hours mugging, shopping, eating, playing, sleeping and doing things that probably made me happy, but at least for these few hours at Geylang Bahru, I felt like I had made someone else happy too.

So I certainly looking forward to the next visit! because I know it is not seeing us once that makes the elderly happy, but it is seeing us returning back every now and then, that makes them truly happy (i hope!).

- Priscilla (Canto Group)

My first true community service

This Saturday will be my 2nd to visit the old folks at Kallang. Though late in writing the post (I admit I forgot bout this for 2 week), I can still remember how fulfilled am I one week ago.

At first, I misjudged the timing and arrived earlier at the Kallang MRT station. I was alone and feel pretty nervous, did I alight the wrong station? Fortunately, the peoples coming for the THE Seniors became more and more, it is certainly out of my expectations that so many peoples came for this meaningful activity.

I originally signed up for Hokkien group as I seek to brush up my hokkien speaking as I am a hokkien myself. However, I switch to Cantonese group as they are low in number and I happened to know some Cantonese. ( I lived near KL, Malaysia before coming here)

We met two old madams which I couldn't remember their names (bad memories, must be spoiled by those carzy modules). As we goes on helping them to clean houses and interacts with them, I've found out that languages are not important, they sometimes speak a mixture of dialects so fast that I couldn't catch up. In this case, I feel like I am the old man with slow reflex.

The madams were nice people, one of them chat with us for almost an hour despite feeling depressed (I guess we helped relieve her bad mood somehow), and the other one, thought very particular in certain things, insisted that we accept her drinks after we cleaned her home.

Helping the elderlies were actually quite helpful in relieving stress, when I was helping them doing house chores, chatting or even just listening to them, I felt calm, relaxed, accompanied, just like the feel when you are with your family and friends, forgetting all the troubles at the moment where somewhere in the heart, an empty space was occupied. I guess they felt that too, thats why they kept chatting with us, somehow, in this fast paced world, everyone is lonely and feels empty, where we help each other by filling in the empty spaces.

There's a lot of lessons to learn fro the elderlies, one of the madam actually told us her past career at a hotel, she worked for 20 years, serving salads and other appetizers to westerners despite not knowing anything about English. She told us how she learned to memorize the English words by using Chinese pronunciations. For me, this is quite amazing as such perseverance does not exist in me.

The debriefing sessions are quite hard for me as I couldn't, at that moment summarize my feelings. But now, I just said this out clearly and certainly I am looking forward to meet the seniors again this Saturday as such experience and fulfillment cannot be found elsewhere. I will end this with a pun on MasterCard advertisement:

Broom: 5$

Public transport fares: 4$

A lunch at Kallang: 3.50$

A day with old folks: priceless

For everything else, there is the coming Saturdays.