Pictures of you~

HELLO ALL!!! (: it is going to be a long post from me again! =x

we are back at Blk 61 and 62 at geylang bahru on the 13th Dec, the first visit after our study week and exams! =D
volunteers turned up to visit the seniors, our greatly missed elderly, who were waiting for our company~

I myself joined the canto group today, oh, fyi, my dialect is teochew, but i can understand ABIT hokkien, and canto ah.. cant understand at all. But i joined the canto group on sat, so that i can visit seniors i havent visited before! You should try it too! (:

and, sincere apologies, i must admit that i am late. =( sorry! i will try my best not to be late again, i think i need a Personal assistant to buzz me if i am late. =( just kidding, i just need to sleep early.

But anws, my first elderly visit was Mdm Chow Moi.
For those who haven't visit Mdm Chow Moi before (just like me, it is my very first time seeing her!), she is REALLY VERY CUTE!! =D she can speak both hokkien and cantonese, and with the help of Denise and Jasmine, i can understand what Mdm Chow Moi was trying to tell us.

When i reached her place, i saw Jasmine and Pin Chuan wiping the windows, Li Jie sweeping the floor, Min Hui and Chin Wei tidying the place and Denise and Yun Cai mopping the floor. (: So i walk around to explore the place.

We were amazed by the "antique" green fridge in Mdm Chow Moi's house, and Mdm Chow Moi speak a little about it. Mdm Chow Moi couldnt really remember about certain happenings in the past.
Then Mdm Chow Moi took the photos and frames on the fridge and cupboard and showed it to us. Some are individual photos of her, and a couple are pictures of her friend(s) by her side. There was this photo, Mdm Chow Moi was smiling, and the backdrop was the sea. Her hair was blown back, by the wind. So we asked her where the picture was taken, she could only remember that it was an organised trip by touch but cant really remember the destination.

Later, she "unlocked" her cupboard, and share with us two photo albums. I observed that Mdm Chow Moi locked her cupboard with twine. She locked her cupboard but securing the cupboard handles with twine, forming the '8' figure. And when she passed to me the albums, she was beaming, yet alittle shy. At that point, i feel that she wants us to know more about her, know abit of her past, she wants us to be part of her life. All these, through her photos.

The photos are dated around 10 years ago. It shows pictures of her at a carnival and during a trip, and pictures on the ship to the destination.
And one of the albums contains a newspaper cutting. It was dated 10 years back, she was 77 then, so now she is 87 years old. Mdm Chow Moi don't look 87 at all, she looks younger. She is really cute, the way she laugh and respond to some of our questions and comments really tickles me. (:
the newspaper cutting had just a short para on her, "she wants a transistor radio for the sharity giftbox (that was 10 years ago)", and a photo of her taken in the kitchen, infront of the sink. She looks so natural, so pretty, so her. I dont know how to describe, but that photo just reflects her daily life.

Some things i found out... =P
1. Mdm Chow Moi placed containers of black charcoal around her house, under her bed. This is to absorb the moisture in her place. We asked her about the charcoal, and.. Mdm Chow Moi finds us "kapoh". =( hahas! no lah, this is just one of the ways for us to know more about her! ((:

2. Mdm Chow Moi do not have teeth, not even dentures. She doesnt want to make one anyway. She just "break her food into smaller pieces and swallow them". But i feel that this isnt very good, as it takes longer time for her to digest. I think this is why she feels full easily? just a guess. She keep lauging it off, saying she is "bogay". But she really looks so cute! Mdm Chow Moi, petite, with short greyish hair, and she hides her mouth with her hands when she laughs.

3. Mdm Chow Moi's clothes are quite old, but they are very durable. She claims that "she wants her clothes to tear, also cannot". =D It is just very strong, and she likes wearing them cause she feels comfortable and "liang" (cooling) in it.

4. Mdm Chow Moi's back hurts sometimes, so she prefers to walk around her house. She doesnt want to sit for too long, as her back will hurt.

5. She has this reminder written on the traditional chinese calender ( those types that users tear away daily), "包十点". I guess it was written by someone? to remind her to go down and get her breakfast, which is a bun? random guess..

6. Lastly and MOST IMPORTANTLY!!! i feel that Mdm Chow Moi likes our presence. BUT!! ALERT!! Most of the times, she is at home, but she cant hear the knocks at the door. So she didnt know that the volunteers are there at the visit.

So the everytime we are there for visit, we have to knock harder at the door, and be sure she isnt at home, before we leave!! Yeaps!

Before we go, we told her that we will be back two weeks later, and took pictures of the whole group before we greeted goodbye.
We took not just one photo, but quite a number! All because we want to capture Mdm Chow Moi's smile! I think because we set the camera on timer mode, so when Mdm Chow Moi was smiling, the camera did not capture it. But when her smile fades off, the camera capture her looking "solemn and cool". =D So we try a few more times, and this time we tell her when to smile! hahas! But i am realy happy that we can take a picture of her smiling!
I can tell that she 依依不舍, dont want us to go. But we have to visit Kam Por, and we are late.. opps.

So my next stop was Kam Por's place. we didnt manage to visit Kam Por cause she was at the void deck waiting for her friend. So we chatted with Kam Por at the void deck and Denise offered her the chocolate she bought from Taiwan. (:

So yeaps. This is my experience on the 13th Dec. I shall upload pictures when the photos are up on picasa! Xin Yan took a group photo of Mr Tan and the volunteers too! =D
Marg wants to do sth. Marg wants to take group shots with the seniors' smile captured! And Marg gonna print them out and pass it to the elderly. So if you have a digital camera, you can bring it and take pictures! Snap Snap Snap, and we can develop them, frame it and pass it to the elderly. Cause i realised most of the times, we did Snap Snap Snap, but we did not develop them to the elderly. So we can do that from now on! =D just a suggestive idea.. pictures of YOU~

For the volunteers that are there, i hope u enjoyed yourself~ and for those who couldnt make it that day, i hope to see you on our subsequent visits!

Our next visit, which is on the 27th, will be our Christmas Visit! Ho Ho Ho! (: Merry Christmas! The season of joy and we shall spread them to the residents of geylang bahru!! Yays!
If you have any ideas what we can do to spread the little love, the little care and the little joy to our elderly, please voice up here at our blog or the yahoo group! I really really hope you can provide ideas/items that both the elderly and volunteers will like to celebrate Xmas'08!! =D
Thank you!

Hereby wishing everyone Happy Holidays and Happy Christmas!!

<3,
Margaret~

First Visit

So here's my blog entry about my first visit with T.H.E.seniors. It was the first time I have done volunteer work with elderly, and I feel that it has been a truly enriching experience.

The elderly that has left me the deepest impression would be Kam Por. It was the second place we visited after Mr Tan's. When we reached, I saw Margaret sitting on the floor, chatting animatedly with Kam Por. Turned out that none of us could speak Cantonese, except for HanYu, so he was busy being the translator for the rest of us that day.

I thought that Kam Por was very cute, in that she tried to keep the conversation going by speaking Hokkien (and then alternating between Hokkien and Cantonese when she couldn't find the words) and repeating some of her stories. It seemed that she enjoyed our company, although we couldn't really communicate "fluently", but I felt that our presence there really did make a difference, especially with Margaret & another girl (sorry my memory is like dory's..) who entertained her by talking about food haha!

I also learnt some interesting stuffs, like using vinegar as a substitute for detergent to mop the floor, and the correct way of mopping the floor haha! But I do have some questions, do these elderly choose to live alone by choice or what? I know they have children who visit, but why are they staying alone? As mentioned by Kam Por, she can't really cook much since she's staying alone, luckily her friend who lives in the same block brings food for her sometimes.

Another thing I have noticed is that all other volunteers really put in effort to interact with these elderly. Like when we reached Mr Tan's, PinChuan asked about his health etc, and at Kam Por's, HanYu was really observant, he noticed Kam Por kept rubbing her leg and asked if it hurts and stuff. And at Mrs Tan (um, the third place..), some guys attempted to sing Hokkien songs for her and after that Amelia suggested something like downloading and learning a Hokkien song so that everyone could sing along during the next visit. Gestures like that really touched me, and it's really good that everyone cares so much :)

Okayyy time to go back to work =.= cya

-jiamin

The 1st Visit in Nov - 1st Nov =D

Hi all!

Sorry for the late update! Please pardon me as a freshie k! hehe.. =D


Anyway, here it goes(01/11/08):
We visited a new elderly today! Mdm Ho!

Went up to her house which was just on the 2nd floor. Mdm Ho came to open the door for us. Her house was considered quite tidy. Mdm Ho's health isn't very good, and she doesn't have much appetite ever since she was admitted into the hospital on 19/09/2008. And Mdm Ho has a lot of Salon Pas-es all over her body because she said she couldn't sleep well with the pain if she didn't put them on. That's why I think she's quite pessimistic about her health too.. =(

Anyway, we helped to clean her house first. I was in charge of cleaning the kitchen windows. Somehow, I've been like so used to cleaning the windows that it was so automatic I just took a cloth to clean the windows.. haha.. I think Mdm Ho's windows haven't been cleaned for a long time, because I found a lot of dried leaves in between the window grilles! haha.. After that, Weizhong helped me to clean areas that I couldn't reach.. =D

After cleaning up the house, we started to sit down on the floor to join in with whoever(sorry I dun remember who le!) were talking to Mdm Ho already. Mdm Ho showed us many things! She took out her X-Ray for us to examine. When she opened her cupboard to take it, oh WOW! Mdm Ho is more fashionable than me ok! She has so much beautiful & colourful clothes at a glance! Mdm Ho must be very hip since young! haha.. She also showed us her photos when she was young.. She looked very pretty and modern when she was young. This shows she's really more fashionable than me la.. haha.. Oh ya! I love the hat that Mdm Ho showed us! It's so cool! Can you believe she actually kept it for some 25 years and still in good condition? The hat was cute & creative! It was a sort of foam material in a flat round shape, where the centres are cut in some patterns. So when you wear it, just push your head through the cut pattern, and ta-da! The hat is formed! =D

I think even though Mdm Ho is very pessimistic, she was very happy to see us! She's very sociable & love talking to us. She can also think very fast and crack cold jokes with us.. haha..



Our next stop is our favourite Mdm Tan's house!

I always look forward to visiting Mdm Tan because she's very optismistic and cheerful. =D Seeing her cheerful deposition, it also cheer me up a lot in midst of the school stress during the week. =D

There was a big crowd at Mdm Tan's house today! That was because everyone from the Canto & Hokkien groups came to visit her after the first stop! =D As usual, we just find random topics to chat with Mdm Tan. We also helped Mdm Tan to read a letter. We asked Mdm Tan about her first love! So she told us about how she & her husband got together, and how another guy tried to chase her at the same time, when she was younger.. haha.. So interesting to listen to her talk right! =D

As random as it is, we actually wanted to sabo 1 person to sing for Mdm Tan. And we just keep pushing the "responsibility" around.. haha.. In the end, we decided to sing "Yi Ren Yi Ban" together. but we failed eventually! hahaha! We couldn't make it without preparation la! haha.. Nvm, we have already decided to prepare a Hokkien song before the next visitation! Hope we can make it the next time round. haha!



That's all I have to say about the day! Before signing on, I would like to add, I really enjoyed doing visitations with the lovely people in T.H.E.seniors! Everyone is so cooperative and make every visit so fun & enjoyable! =D Look forward to the next visit! =)

**-Zhenxiu-** XD

My 1st bLogGing experieNce

hi aLL!

newbiE here.. Hope my enTry wuN boRe aLL of u.. i'LL just b shariNg some stuffs i encouNtered during the visiT on 18/10/08..

iT was tHe first time i visiTed mr. tan.. finaLLy got 2 witness tHe legendary 'black' track in his hm.. no worRies! it was goNe b4 we left his pLace.. it was a realli nice experience theRe as he had a Lot of stoRies to share.. :) i realli 'pei fu' the volunteers who were involved in the cleaNing.. there was tis drain in the kitchen and i needed to open its cover to rinse the floor.. it was so full of unidentified 'black' particles and i wasn'T intenDing 2 open it wiTh my bare haNds.. wHiLe i was Lookin 4 soMe papEr to opeN it witH.. maGaret was aLrdy down tHere opEning it w/o any hesitatioN.. i was in aWe for abt a second but yep.. i reaLLi haF 2 learN alot frOm her! everYone diD a SuperB job cLeaninG up Mr. Tan's hs.. i literally felt like rolling on the floor..

nxT stop.. ouR fav. mdm tan's place! we just sat on the floor n chat w her as usuaL.. when we visited her previously, she talked abt her eyesighT n heaRing n it's realli sad to hear her say that her eyes n ears r no goOd n taT she's of no use.. duNno how 2 talk her ouT of thiNkin like tat.. as the visitation report mentioned.. we were helping her go thru some freebies.. it was only then i realised wat a hazarD her eyes were.. she almost mistook the bottle of yellow dishwashing liquid to be coOking oiL! tHankfuLLy we poinTed it out 2 her b4 she aTtempted to use it.. thEre was a littLe leg-numbing experience as we weRe abt to leave her pLc.. she is really really really very nice.. she heLped 2 suppoRt me n was v coNcerned.. i was reaLLi touched but also a little embarrassed.. for making her woRry abT me.. THANK U MDM. TAN!

tHe highLight? other thaN e long treacherous jouRney on pin chuan's car, it wLd b going to east coast medicare centre to visit mr. hui.. mdm chua was realli upset initially, 2 c mr. hui's hands tied to e sides of the bed.. so we immediately helped to release him n brought him ard on e wheelchair.. mdm chua was realli happy 2 c n be w mr hui.. she was feeding him fruits n constantly talking n reminding him of things (i heard her mention the names of their children).. their interaction realli moved me.. it was e first time visiting elderlys who are a couple.. one can realli observe how loving they r.. making fact of the phrase 'bai tou dao lao'.. but it's really sad that circumstances haf forced them apart at old age..

that's all for my eventful saturday! i juz wanna add taT i've mEt reaLLi greaT ppLe thru T.H.E seniors.. the volunteers n elderly have definitely adDed alot of coLour to my finaL year in NUS! :)

-yy-

1st visit after the term break , 10th Oct

This was the saturday right after the term break. As a committee member, it was my turn to reach there early and check out who was at home and who was not. I kind of worried about how to do it as some of the elderlies could not speak mandarin and I was completely unable to speak in Hokkein. Haha..But it turned out that day , most of the cmmittee members reached there quite early. It was such a relief. We split up the number of people on the list into two groups. It took around half an hour for us to knocked on all the doors of all the elderlies on the list. As we walked around , some of the elderlies chatted with us and told us that the mid autumn celebration was fun especially the singing. What a pity. I did not make it to the mid autumn celebration. But I could feel how much the elderlies had enjoyed from their short conversation with us. =)

As not many people turned up for visit today, we decided to visit the elderlies as a whole group. Our first visit was to Gong Po's home. Haha. I am not sure how to spell the name. Pardon me if there is any spelling errors. Gong Po looked as good as always. She spoke us in Cantonees mixed with Hokkein. I was half followed and half lost. When she spoke in Cantonees , I could follow. When I could not understand , I knew that she had switched to Hokkein. Haha. Then I would have to ask people around me to translate. We requested to help her to clean the floors, but she refused to let us clean it. It could be due to the reaon we had too many people inside her house so she felt that the cleaning would be quite inefficient. Haha..I forgot to mention something. I was quite impressed by Gong Po because all her meals were cooked by herself. For me , cooking is quite something. Haha. It takes time and patience to cook a meal that is delicious.

The next visit is to Mr Ong's house. As more people turned up for the visit, we decided to split into two groups. 1 group continued the visit to Mr Ong and the rest went to another senior's house. I stayed at Mr Ong's house. It was my first time to visit Mr Ong. He spoke us in mandarin. He could not hear us very clearly so sometimes we had to raise our voices. He is very friendly. From the conversation, he told us his relative would come from China to visit him next month. He had never married so his relative would come to Singapore once in a while to take care of him. We helped him to do the clearning. Some of us cleaned windows and some of us mopped the floor. Haha. The house looked brighter and clearner after we finished the cleaning. Hopefully, it would bring him a good mood.The last thing we did before we left house was to help him to top up his phone. We experienced some problems but managed to solve it in the end.

Time passed quickly and the visit came to the end. It was a nice day as you brought smile to others and the happiness would also stay with you. Looking forward to next visit. =)

Mid Autumn Festival @ T.H.E.Seniors~

Hello people~ I'm Jiancong~! =) really had a great time last saturday~ so here blogging*.~ = )

yup yup the day started off with elderly sitting in a circle, playing BINGO~! yup yup thanks to Project C.A.N., the winners of the BINGO were happy to receive their prizes. can hear they saying 'woah~ fish essence arh' 'woah~ chicken essence arh' etc etc when they get them.

then hor then hor after that got one elderly came arh.. mdm ang~ then i sat beside her lo.

the next game was a Q&A game. the elderly who raised hand the fastest and answer the question correctly will win a prize.~ woah.. my teochew not that good. had a hard time explaining arh.. hahah.. so paiseh.

then rite is this peeling orange game. only 2 elderly were picked to play, and mdm ang got it! the orange mdm ang got hor is very hard lea.. the other elderly peeled so fast. not fair lo, different type of orange.. tsk.. =P then hor i took over the job, help her to continue peeling the orange lo.

after that rite... i add one piece see whether it's sweet or sour, and it's sour lo... not that me glutton, eat up the whole thing okay, is that i sacrifies myself to eat a sour orange k.. tsk dun misunderstand me arh..

then while i was eating the orange, we continue to play the next game: passing the message! the messages were all titles of old songs. me being bad in teochew again.. when passing the 'yue liang dai biao wo de xin' message, the 'yue liang' i tried to made the chinese sound like teochew.. but failed.. mdm ang dun understand me. =( then with some gestures, and some help of other volunteers help.. then she said: 'OHHH...~ uue ngg' phew~

then rite.. more food came~! we had mooncakes and pamelo.. xin ku le those who peel the pamelo and cut the mooncakes.. =P


and thanks for 7MC and PrimaDeli for bringing us the nice nice Mooncakes~! yalo. mdm ang said she din want the piece of mooncake and gave it to me... and so i ate. and on my right, mdm huang said she din want her piece of pamelo and gave it to me.. and so i ate it too. and again.. dun misunderstand... coz they din want so i help them eat okay?.. and see~ im not the only one.




yup yup..~ and the celebration ended off with a big big T.H.E. Seniors family photo~! =)




yup u can see the rest of the pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rvp.pub02 Can also shun bian see the MAF @ CSL k?.. =)
great work! T.H.E. comm! =)

- Jiancong =)

takeaway from 30Aug Orientation 2 visit

Hi Everyone!

My 1st time writing here too. :)

Today we visited Mdm Tan Ah Kim (haha, I knew her name from peeping at the lunch box they delivered), Mr Ong and another senior (by the cantonese group).

Was pretty apprehensive about what I could contribute at first or how I was going to interact/communicate with the elderly, but the experience turned out to be fantastic. :) 

Fairly surprised by how receptive and hospitable they were, considering that we arrived in such a big group and was taking up so much space in their houses. 

The other thing that touched me was how even though some of the seniors (i mean CSC seniors here! ) have graduated, they still came to visit the elderly (... and surprise surprise, there's even an NTU guy in the group haha). You guys were amazing the way you could joke and connect with them so effortlessly and being so thoughtful (checking Mr Ong's fridge for food turned bad, cleaning up of his house and offering to buy necessities). 

That would be the spirit we newbies would hope to cultivate as we interact with the elderly more. :)

It was pretty heart-aching though, to hear Mdm Tan lamenting how the worsening of her eyesight has affected her and Mr Ong mentioning how he had fell down once along the corridors/stair and luckily, was carried back up to his apartment by someone.  

It opened me up to the possibilities that we could just be facing the realities that these elderly face (a worsening eyesight/mobility problems or being left alone) when we grow old ourselves one day.  I guess having a positive attitude when faced with these challenges would be crucial to our mental & emotional health. :)

It didn't feel like we were doing much (asking repeated questions) but the faces on the elderly showed how much our presence meant to them. Mdm Tan's 'huh?! ' face when we told her we had to leave definitely left a huge impression on me. What these elderly really yearn for is accompaniment. 

Anw, I do have some questions and suggestions...

The estate that they are living at looks pretty new (or maybe its the paint), where did they stay prior to living here? Some of the elderly have surviving family that doesn't seem so distant (at least from what i gathered), y are they living by themselves then? Do their families visit them?

On the bus back to Kallang MRT I began thinking about what games we could play with the elderly despite their physical limitations and 2 ideas came to mind (u guys probably have thought bout them already though). 

With Mdm Wang, we could perhaps play Pass The (hokkien) Message and the ppl who got the message wrong would have to sing a verse in hokkien. 

With Mr Ong, haha, maybe something related to Spore. eg. word games ( sg food item names) or true/false questions.. 

just some suggestions that probably can be refined and acted out so we wouldn't be faced with sitting around and not knowing what to do sometimes.

Paiseh, this post sounds more lyk a personal reflection than a post about the happenings. my train of thoughts tend to work this way. :\

haha, so in conclusion, it was an eye-opening and definitely fruitful session n  i look forward to joining u all on future visitations!

C u guys around! :)   - Amelia -