A New Year, A First Visit.

My first time at T.H.E.S started off to a visit to Mdm Ho’s house. At first, my groupmates said that they are not really well-versed in dialect, but when we reached Mdm Ho’s house, I was surprised by their dialect language capability. This is probably due to the training given to them before I came, hehehe. Anyway, when I reached Mdm Ho’s house, I don't know what to say as I am not really Hokkien trained. Fortunately, Mdm Ho said she knows a bit of everything :D I was glad that I got to chat with Mdm Ho quite a bit, because she is really funny at times, for example some of the nicknames she gave to the volunteers who helped her years ago. We even witness her mosquito catching skills- While talking with us, she suddenly slam the table and all of us got stunned, and she said “mosquito…”, and we all broke into laughter. Funny moments aside, we helped her to clean her house, she lived alone and her leg couldn’t walk well, so we helped her to basically, sweep and mop the floor. And we also realize that Mdm Ho has a particular way the carpet should be arranged! I tried to picture it in my mind, but I can’t really tell the difference though :P Mdm Ho seemed happy to have us here, and she wanted us to call her “Po-po” instead of Mdm Ho, we all have one more grandma :D However, soon enough, time is soon up and we have to leave for our second visit.

Our second visit was to Mr Tay's house. Looks like he always has a Saturday coffee session, so we went to his house and accompany him down for his buttercino.

(Warning: Please do not read the following content if you are eating.)

According to Mr Tay, buttercino helps to smoothen our digestive tracks, he even used the analogy of how a machine needs oil to function. So this means you can do your big business better. Hahaha! Next up, Mr Tay talked about how he was a naughty boy when he was in Primary school, all his naughty deeds etc. I took a long time to formulate dialect sentences in my mind, so I only spoke little. Kudos to my groupmates who helped me understood his stories. We also took a photo with him, while taking picture, Mr Tay suddenly sneeze! I am not sure if we got a candid shot of him sneezing, hahaha! Then, it was almost time and we accompany him back to his house. He kept thanking us and said he enjoyed Saturday sessions.

This visit allowed me to gain knowledge about the needs of the elderly in Singapore. After all, we humans are social creatures, so are elderly, they need company too. It was a good to have this fruitful experience.

P.S. Thank you for the foods at the appreciation party. They were all nice! Esp. Shepherd’s Pie!

Kiah Yeen
6^th Jan 2013