Despite the endless heavy rain that started since midnight, we had a huge volunteer turnout today, hitting figures of around 40. People can just choose to sleep comfortably at home in the cooling weather on a Saturday morning, but they gave up the chance to do so, just to spend meaningful time with our lovely seniors. It was really fantastic (Kok Seng already used awesome and Chun Hai used heartening in their posts, so I have to use another superlative hahaha) to see everyone week in week out, as well as new faces popping up :)
My group members (Ying Cong, Swee Fen, Weilie, Ren Bin, Yong Jian, Jack, Xue Ting, and 本大爷) visited our commander Mdm Cheong today. For me, I haven't visited Mdm Cheong for a while apart from seeing her at the void deck during previous visits. Initially it was only Swee Fen, Ren Bin and I, but the rest joined because their senior wasn't around at that time. So it was really crowded with 8 people in Mdm Cheong's place.
As usual, Mdm Cheong would allocate tasks and chores for us to do. 8 people on the job was overkill and we were fast and efficient, so after cleaning her house we sat down and chatted with her. We talked about the upcoming CNY, CSC Day IX (Mdm Cheong is coming to NUS yay!), and jokes/riddles.
My riddle: 从前有一只鸡. 鸡的后面是什么?
Answer: 虫. ((虫)前有一只鸡)
(Sadly Mdm Cheong didn't really like the joke :( )
Mdm Cheong's riddle: 雨衣 包 木 包 三层肉 包 米. 猜一种食物
Answer: Go ask her yourself. My answer was chee cheong fun but it was wrong lolol
In one of my previous posts, I mentioned I wanted to see Mdm Cheong's wedding photos, and my wish was granted!
Photos of Mdm Cheong showing us photos:
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| Mdm Cheong and Swee Fen! |
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| Mdm Cheong and her golden ticket to CSC Day IX! |
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| Mdm Cheong showing us her wedding photos! |
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| And the most photogenic senior award goes to... |
And so I thought: photos are really important to the elderly. They capture significant moments of their lives, as well as their pretty/handsome smiles, showing that they are enjoying what they are doing at that time. Although they cannot accurately tell you when they were taken, they can still remind themselves of the things they did in their time and at present and can share stories that each photo depict :)
In a gloomy rainy weather, we talked about everything under the sun, in Mdm Cheong's cosy home. Full of warmth. 外面天气虽冷, 但感觉依然温馨.
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Every adventure has its spin off!
Just to share a bit. Today, as part of my CSC Day IX OC commitments, I went to Mindsville for the first time after today's elderly visit. Thanks to Jocelyn for leading me there! :D She KO-ed on the bus for a while because of Mdm Chow's alcohol LOL Please get well soon boss :)
Background story: I went for last year's heritage tour with Mindsville at Singapore River and met their residents for the first time. It was a really fun outing and it changed my perspectives towards the intellectually disabled. They are normal people just like us, just that they require more care and attention. And on some alternate Saturdays I went to BHID, so I got some if not few experience interacting with ID residents.
And so when I arrived, I saw some familiar faces from last year. I wonder if they remember me after a long while, but I don't need anyone to remember me hahaha. I just like to help.
Activities at Mindsville are as such. Fun Fit 1 was an art and craft session, and today we made mini windmills! Wished I took photos of them, they were really nice and well crafted. Fun Fit 2 was station games, and we brought our CSC Day props over for the residents to play. Could tell that they really had a lot of fun with our games. Last but not least, we had a mass dance session. We first taught the residents our Jipaban song, then they performed to us their unique Mindsville dance. IT WAS AWESOME. We danced around together, and this is how we communicate with each other.
People normally form stereotypes of the intellectually disabled. This is because they have low awareness and do not come into contact usually with the ID, thus they shun them. As mentioned earlier, the ID are just like us normal human beings. They have a different way of expressing their inner thoughts and feelings, thus we need to be patient and try our best to understand them and befriend them.
I strongly encourage everyone to RVP hop! Go enhance your volunteering experience haha. CSC Outreach 2 is coming soon, and we are featuring Mindsville and BHID, the ID sector RVPs. Go see see look look! Of course there are child/youth RVPs, go explore them! :)
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Yes. Saturdays keep me sane from the insane school life.
- 本大爷 Jeremy:D
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