Merry belated xmas and happy new year in advance to all fellow volunteers and friends, young and old! sorry for the belated blog post but i finally rmbred to post hahaha. paiseh. 

On 22nd December, we did a 冬至special! every team was given some "dough" (i dunno what to call that) and pandan leaves, ginger slices, rock sugar and were gonna make tangyuan!!! 

i teamed up w jack, april, ann and yinmin and went first to mdm chow moi's. it was not my first time at her place and as usual, she greeted us with huge smiles. in fact, we met her at the lift lobby downstairs where she were carrying a bag of stuff and rice up. it was quite incredible and so i guess its true that she has great strength! being able to carry that load by herself at this age. impressive! and when we got up to her place, it was the same old story. she couldnt really hear us so we had to speak loudly. and she would laugh when we laughed, or simply when it got -awkward- hahahhaa. never fails to lighten the mood with her laughter. and this i really am super impressed with, ever since i first met her. i dont think i can ever face the world and simply laugh things off. valuable lesson once again. previously i had not spoken to her cos the volunteers usually use hokkien so this time i spoke to her in canto and i was glad we could chat for a bit! 

i was sweating non stop and she kept laughing at me lol. also, we asked her what she cooked for herself and she said she had to eat rice. but rice with what? she couldnt give us a satisfactory answer so i went to explore her fridge. and again she laughed at me! hahhaa. but i didnt find much. found some snacks, fruits, tonics, etc, but no vegetable or meat etc. den later on she laughed at me and said: never buy of cos dun have la! she coughed for a bit and said that it was okay, and sometimes when there was wind she will cough a bit. but other than that it was find, and she was taking her vitamins (good job!) she didnt want to make the tang yuan though since she couldnt bite the tang yuan and it was indeed quite dangerous, so we brought the ingredients to our next location: Commander Cheong's!

We started off by working on the instructed tasks. hahaha the last time i tried to act smart and took initiative to do things, and i learnt my lesson that there were to be consequences. so this time i waited for orders. in the end i was given the simple task of cleaning the harder to reach pipes and windows etc or the toilet. the rest worked on the usual: mop floor, windows, chairs. i was actually happy that she recognised me, probably cos the only time i went there previously i spoke a load of canto with her. :D but sadly she couldnt recog ann who was there with me the prev occasion. hopefully next time she can recog me again! it doesnt really matter but it feels a lil happier that the elderly recog you. and sometimes you get rotated around that you get to see them maybe once a month or twice? not easy to maintain a good r/s like this. and sometimes i feel as if they have a bigger impact on me than i have on them. 

anws, after cleaning we went on the main mission. mdm cheong said we could go ahead and make the tangyuan if we want to, but she dont wanna make. and so we believed her. ahhaha. we started but was rather unsure. yinmin was much more knowledgeable in the field of cooking tangyuan and she started preparing the water to boil and the pot to make the soup. the rest of us starting cuo-ing the tangyuans!

  

Soon the water began to boil so we added in the tangyuans! but we are rather, unskilled and fearful of splashing hot water and some got stuck by the side lol.

Jack was the main chef and he courageously monitored the tang yuans, with the help of yinmin mainly and the rest of us being not very useful most of the time.

Then, Mdm Commander came in the kitchen and seeing how noob we are, she, not unexpectedly, took over for a while and taught us the way to go!! and with her help, we had some pretty decent tangyuans to makan! she had like 3 or something only though. ann ate a lot a lot of tangyuans and she really is a glutton. hahahah the only regret was being unable to take a photo of her eating!!! (i am betting that she doesnt read this blog or else i think i might be beaten up soon)

The ever hardworking yinmin cleaning up.

And at the end of the day, we met at mr lee's place again and this time it was even more crowded than the last!! he made beehoon and noodles with sardine which is gooooood. the others also continued to make tangyuans! in the end got so many, i see already also scared. some look like fuzhou yu yuan, some like sotong ball. lol.

and once again it was a great saturday morning outing. and as some volunteers made fun of each other by calling each other names (okay im the main culprit hahhaha) and poking fun at each other, i really feel so honoured and glad that i joined this in my final NUS year. i wouldnt have imagined that i could feel so at ease with ppl whom i have barely known, some whom i barely meet. but within a handful of sessions and interactions, it was so easy to blend in and have fun, which i feel is because we all have something fundamentally in common: our care and concern for the elderly. i wouldnt have imagined this is how it will go for a volunteering program in university, where young adults gather around and most of the time the topic they have on their minds are the elderly that we visit. pretty awesome eh? once again thank you all of you who are reading this post for being part of this experience, the pleasure is mine. (i sound like this is the last visit haha no i will still be around to irritate you all and call you auntie and uncle so dont worry :D)

Kai Him.

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