Yo all. Jeremy here, blogging for the 18th August visit last week. It's our first visit for the brand new academic year.

First up, our group of 5 visited Mr Tay. It was my first time visiting Mr Tay; he lives just a few units away from our dear commander Mdm Cheong. Prior to this visit, I've heard many stories about him from my fellow volunteers who visited him before. He is partially blind and described as lonely and emo, and every visit would include bringing him to the kopitiam downstairs for coffee and a breather. In addition, he would need newspapers because apparently he uses them to clean himself.

Things were going smoothly at Mr Tay's place. We were chatting with him (I tried my best to speak in proper hokkien because I am bad at it haha) and keeping him company. However, the ration delivery was late; usually Mr Tay would receive his packed lunch at 10-11am but this time it came at 12+ (there was a delay in the logistics). Inevitably Mr Tay felt very hungry, but refused our offer of bringing him downstairs for lunch because he may end up missing the packed lunch delivery and spending unnecessary money on food, and also not to trouble us. He asked us to help him call his sister on the phone. On the first try she did not pick up. Mr Tay grew even more frustrated and when his sister finally called back, he took it out on her angrily through the phone. The packed lunch finally came, then we split up into smaller groups: Pheng Heong and I would bring Mr Tay downstairs for coffee, while Chunhai would lead his group to Mdm Cheong's place.

Mr Tay finally had his coffee after some persuasion. His special order is to add a few chunks of butter into his kopi, and it smelt very nice to be honest hahaha. During this coffee session, Mr Tay was very quiet, probably trying to simmer down after feeling angry earlier on. Furthermore, he woke up at 5am that day, so he's kind of tired as well. Once he's done, we sent him back and proceeded to Mdm Cheong's. And as usual, he would thank us repeatedly and remind us to come back to visit him again soon.

My thoughts after my first visit to Mr Tay's place was that in such a situation that happened was unexpected, and there's only this much that us volunteers can do, to keep him company and try to appease him. I felt that we did an okay job, because we have to understand that the elderly can get very impatient and stubborn at times and they need an outlet to rant or vent their frustrations. Hence when a similar incident were to occur again, we are better prepared to deal with it and act accordingly.

Anyways when we reached Mdm Cheong's the other group was done with helping with the chores. She was showing them photos of her that were taken at Touch's activities.

Actually it took me close to a year before learning about Mdm Cheong's past: she was diagnosed with depression after her husband's death. She was pretty down until she started attending events at Touch centre and she picked herself up ever since. Very hard to tell because she's always cheerful and optimistic, and always lending a helping a helping hand to other elderly. 

And that's about it for the official visit on the 18th August. Every visit is a new experience, and I hope to inculcate that in the new volunteers who are joining us in the next few weeks during the orientation visits. Looking forward to it! :)

18th Aug visit

Hello everyone!

Yi’an here! Last week (18^th August 2012) my group visited Mr Chiu and Mr Tan. We had a fun time at Mr Chiu’s house as he’s a rather jovial person. Camy found traces of evidence of him smoking and he said that he only smokes when he goes to the toilet to do his business! His floor was dusty due to the ashes from the burnt joss sticks and we cleaned it up for him. Our team also continued covering the ant holes to prevent the insects from entering his house. He showed us a flyer of an event organized by the community center, which was a walk at Marina Bay the following week and also shared the tv shows he faithfully tunes in to; such as 黄金年华. He appeared to be in good health although he needs the exercise!

Next up was to Mr Tan’s house. Mrs Tan was not in as she went out to collect medicine for her chronic illness. She went out around 7am and only returned after 4-5hours when we were almost done with the cleaning of the house. During our stay there, Mr Tan shared stories of Singapore’s past during the Japanese occupation. He related the story of his friend’s father who managed to escape death miraculously in the Japanese’s attempt to kill any of those who had received good education. The motive behind their actions was to thwart any congregation of those who had the potential to mastermind revolts against them. By right, all of them had to have wires pierced through their palms so that none of them could escape. But he secretly pretended to do so, when in actual fact he placed the wires in between his fingers and when the Japanese started shooting, he pretended to collapse and die, only to crawl out after they cleared away.

Such stories of Singapore’s past brought me chills and also gratefulness that our generation escaped living in such hard times. While Singapore is no longer as it was, there’s often a general consensus that youths like us aren’t aware of the past which I agree with. People of the older generation remember stories which go about untold and unheard, and I find it such a pity that part of our history is being eroded away quietly as time passes by. As much as the primary objective of our volunteering is to help our Seniors at TOUCH, I do find ourselves in a position where we too are contributing to society. We’re giving a helping hand to those that are in precarious positions of coping with ageing and health issues, it’s something that policies might overlook and networks might miss. I hope everyone realizes that they’re not just a nobody in this volunteering outlet; each and every one of us is important, so I thank you for coming down every/alternate week to THE and I hope to see you guys each/every week too. T.H.E JIAYOU! ^.^

p.s: sorry my posts are forever so wordy! But if you read through everything, THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Yi’an

Hi, I am Jocelyn, a volunteer at T.H.E. Seniors.

To share a little segment of my visit on 18 August, let's start from our visit with Mdm Tan. 

Together with Yi an, Eng soon and Criss, we went to Mdm Tan's house. We did no cleaning because - like what one of the volunteers said: Her house is so clean you can roll around on the floor! 

Just as we sat down, Mdm Tan told us to help her put thread into her needles; she would need these as and when there are holes in her clothes, etc.

(And I thought it was quite cute to see 3 tough guys doing this needle work! Haha)

While putting thread into the needles, we held small conversations about the vegetables distribution, about her cough. She then shared with us that she had cut her finger when she was trying to cut her nails...

The font colour of the words of which you've been reading thus far probably represents ONLY to a small extent the difficulty Mdm Tan has with sight.

With her head hung low, she shared how useless it feels to lose (partial of) her eyesight. She gritted her teeth and clasped her hands tight. I could feel the immense sense of sadness, a sense of loss, maybe. I felt it so hard as if it was my own pain and for a moment, I was lost for words. I did not want to give just a casual response to trivialize her loss. Yet I did not want to dwell deeper and make the atmosphere too heavy.

The room was silent for a while too... before Yi an, once again, poured some humor into the air by playing with his (huge) scissors and talking about other random topics. Then Mdm Tan smiled and laughed again. 

It may not permanently remove her sorrows, but I believe, even for one split second, the humor did brighten up Mdm Tan's day and the laughter came from her heart. (Her laughter is really cute! If you've not heard it before, it sounds like... Like she's playing hide-and-seek and she caught you! There are elements of excitement and mischievousness. I bet she must be a fun person to hang out with when she was schooling! - and actually now too. She enjoys talking about her life!) :)

A while later we were supposed to leave, but I felt reluctant. I thought: what would the house be like after we close the door? It will be back to Mdm Tan being alone at home. Back to silence. And that thought killed me.

As a volunteer, how does it feel like to say byebye? "Just say bye and go to the next house!"?
As an elderly, how would it feel like to see the volunteers leave?

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On a lighter note, of course, we went to Mdm Ho's. As usual, sweeping, mopping, un-dusty-ing the mats, and cleaning fans. We sat there for quite a while after the cleaning, listening to her talk about all sorts of topics - from the government to the people living in Blks 61 & 62 to the past and present volunteers.

It is really interesting how Mdm Ho remembers her volunteers - every single one, she said. She remembers us by the places we live in and our family background. For example, she refers me as the girl who stays in Ang Mo Kio, whose dad would fetch her here every Sat, and whose mom would complain because she is not doing household chores in her own house but in elderly's houses.
Such details are keyed into her memory, and everyone is an unique individual volunteer to her.

The theme of this blog post is probably this: to switch your position and imagine what it feels like to be the elderly. In Mdm Ho's story, we have learnt that as much as the elderly mean a lot to us as beneficiaries we visit weekly, we actually mean a lot to them too. Don't ever belittle the power of the 2/3 hours every week.

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I am blessed to have gotten to know these elderly! .....But sorry ah, I am not contented. I want to get to know more about them, get them to share with us more more more about their stories and learn about their life experiences! And the only way to optimize my learnings is to attend these lessons regularly.

Every (alternate) Saturdays 10:30am-1:30pm. Are you coming with me? :)