Hello all!

This was my first visit to T.H.E Seniors and first time blogging too! But am excited to share my experience because it was a very rewarding one.

We visited Mr Ling, whom the volunteers have never visited before until the previous session. Therefore there was a lot of cleaning that needs to be done! Mr Ling refused to let us in at first, insisting that his house was very clean and didn't want to trouble us. In the end we tricked him into letting us in by saying we want to go and have a seat to chat with him! HE FELL FOR IT hehe. The moment we went in, we had someone distract him by chatting him up, while the rest of us immediately got down to work. The house looked neat, but it was in fact very dirty! The floor felt grimy and dark rust marks were on the kitchen floor.

We cleaned his toilet and rinsed the walls and shelves of the kitchen. The floors were also mopped and the windows wiped. This ledge was really black at first but some scrubbing revealed the white again!

We checked his utensils and found that they all had rust on them already. Hence we bought him two packets of new forks and spoons. It was also the first time I saw a knife being hung like that. I kept worrying that it'll drop and chop someone's toes >.<

Mr Ling is very spritely even though he is already 86 years old! He knows many languages but knowing that he was Hakka/Khek made me feel a lot more closer to him :) I was very glad that he could speak Mandarin well since I know no dialects. We had a small chat about the Hakka provinces in China and I really enjoyed talking to him. It amazed me how independent he was. We also gave him mandarin oranges as it was still Chinese New Year. I hope it brought some festive cheer to him! :)

- Jiaying (from TEACH!)