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 span="">
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 - 

First Visit To Touch Seniors

Hello all

A Year one freshie here who has completely no idea what to blog (first time visiting and writing on blogspot or anything of this kind ever and the seniors dont know....) Sorry if I am long winded.

I'm supposed to write about what happened during the freshies' first visit to T.H.E Seniors (wish it were easier to type)

Well first and foremost it was basically a group of strangers all gathering at one point to meet up (Kallang MRT Station) at about 10.00am i think...cant really remember. I was half asleep when i went there but seems like i was the only one.....at least someone was late when she was supposed to be the first one there so it didnt matter.

We all then took a bus down to Touch. Its situated right in the middle of a HDB estate with a market and 2-storey shophouses, which felt like what Singapore meant when you say heartland to me.

Upon reaching the area (its actually at the void deck below the block where the people we help live), we were divided into 3 groups, Hokkien, Cantonese and English/Mandarin(anyone who cant speak any form of dialet is placed here = =). I was put into the English Mandarin group (thankfully I have not forgotten ALL of the Chinese i learnt, just a bit of it).

So the group of us (the half baked/raw potatoes) went up to the houses.

Initially we visited an uncle that had difficulty walking. He was having lunch and had not showered so we got redirected to the 2nd house.

We went to the next uncle's house. He seemed a jolly fellow who was actually quite healthy considering his age (72). I actually find it odd that people will open their houses up to a bunch of strangers who look like teenages and talk to them openly about their lives, but thats what happened in general. The uncle was telling us about his activities that he was doing now, answering questions that we had about his life. He told us somethings about how life was long ago like the cost of living is going up and that he cannot afford to pay for some things (like senior ezlink concession pass is now $60 instead of $40 and that he cannot make a new passport because its too expensive, although he has been sent letters to remind him to do so) I was half listening and half lost at the same time, no thanks to trying to listen, translate and then tell the others the translation at the same time. Guess I need more practise with Mandarin or translating because I dont think my translations were actually accurate.

After about an hour, we left the uncle's house and went back to visit the first uncle. This time, he had finished bathing and was partly waiting for us to return. It took some time and a lot of effort just to open the door for us, such that we were worried that he might trip and fall. We all went in and did not want to rush the uncle while he went back to his chair, using his walking stick as an aid to slowly walk back to the chair. We all sat down on the floor around him. Ofcourse the natural question was whether he was okay. He told us that he was just getting old and his legs were feeling weaker as the days go by. Previously he could walk along the corridors or visit the surrounding areas, but now a days he cant do that and has to stay at home. His legs were also a little swollen, but when asked about it he said that the swelling had actually gone down already. He said that he had expected to live to an age of 50-60, but in the flash of an eye had lived to 82 instead. He told us about how Singapore was like when he was young. He was brought over by his father who had a provision shop along Singapore River back then, with a brother already in Singapore at that time. At that time, the streets were different. He said that the streets were messy and dangerous with crime and gangs, but now they are safe and quiet. He told us about his past experiences in life, like that he had a lot of suitors but never cared for all except one who got chased away by his brother. He regrets not chasing after her and says that he is living a lonely life as a result. And then he laughed, saying that he has to be optimistic about life and what he has. With that, as our time was up, we thanked the uncle for his hospitality and left.

We actually went to check 2 other houses but they were both not at home.

After it all, we went back downstairs to the void deck again and gathered with the other language groups again. Following a short debrief we were all dismissed (after filling in some admininstrative forms ofcourse because we were the new people after all). Some went of to the nearby market to eat lunch thou.

Now, thinking about the visit, I wonder sometimes who is helping who. We might be fit and young, but our minds are equally young. We can help the elderly physically and be a listening ear, but in the end they can teach us important values and lessons that we may never experience. It was a meanful experience in its own way.

Gim Hong

New Chairpersons

Dear Fellow T.H.E.seniors volunteers...


It's time for the current Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson to step down.

For this one year, and I had a great time volunteering with all of you and organizing events for our volunteers and elderly. I would like to use this opportunity to thank all of you for the support and help all of you have given to Janicia, my committee and myself. Thank you.

I'm really glad that I got this chance to know and become friends with all of you through T.H.E.seniors RVP. Hope to be able to keep in touch with everyone!! =)

With that, I would like to formerly introduce to you the new Chairpersons taking over Janicia and I.

*Introducing*
New Chairperson: Tan Wen Ting Jolene 98232557 jolin_tan88friends@hotmail.com
New Vice-Chairperson: Ong Pinchuan 91284900 pinchuan@singnet.com.sg

I hope all of you would continue to show the new Chairpersons support like you did for Janicia and I.

Thank You.


Regards,
Wong Phui Yi Jasmine
Chairperson (AY 2007-08)
T.H.E.seniors Regular Volunteering Programme
NUS Students' Community Service Club

THE seniors' volunteers gathering

Hey everyone's invited to our BBQ gathering on 27th June! =)

Venue: East Coast Park BBQ Pit, near macs.. just walk around to find
Time: 6pm till late
Fees: F.O.C., you may bring your other friends along but they gotta pay a nominal fee

Do come and have fun!!

Well, first time posting in this blog, Luke here (surprise! Surprise!)

Today is my first time joining T.H.E. seniors for their Dragon Boat Festival (aka Dumpling Festival)

The volunteers were asked to go to the elderly's flat to ask them down for the party, which was held at the center. Jessie and I went to look for Mdm Lim.
First impression, very 慈祥 old lady, and she just permed her hair for her grand-daughter wedding last week! Seeing her reminds me of my ah ma..(and therefore i visited her later today) and I was happily talking to her the whole session.
Mdm Lim has a slight problem with her sight and she cannot see very well.. so we walked slower and more careful helping her out with every slope there is along the way.

As she can only understand hokkien, I am force to speak in my 1/2 past 6 dialect with her, haha well, sometimes she understands even when I am unsure what i was talking about.

Mdm Lim is surprisingly sporting, when it comes to the 比一比 session, she volunteered to go out for the challenge without much persuasion and as a result, she won!!!! haha scoring the valueable 2points for 星星 group.
after the games, some kuays were provided for the elderly and we were just sitting down chatting, mixing around.

I can see that the elderly really enjoyed themselves! great job to T.H.E. Seniors committee!

Pinchuan here... my turn to post le :-p cuz I can't find ppl to arrow le...

Anyway I posting for the visit on 24th May (last Sat), n I took so long cuz my internet died-ed til today...

The turnout last Saturday wasn't so good :( a lot of ppl went holiday, disappeared, working, shagged out from Sentosa. So there were only 5 of us... sadly. 5 ppl... we go everywhere together lor! We decided not to visit Mr Tan this time, because everyone was so tired from Sentosa, and then we gotta visit so many elderly and cleaning Mr Tan's house will take long long time (Haha perfect excuse :-D) We wanted to visit Mr Ong first, out of pure randomness and because he live on so high floor, but he was asleep. Anyway, he was sick the previous week, so we sneaked off quietly again, (not very successful because the other 4 girls all cannot keep quiet. :-p ). Since Mr Ong asleep we went down 2 floors to Mdm Tan.

Mdm Tan was alone at home; her housemate was not in. She was in quite a happy mood that day, and we just talked. Or rather, the others talked and I pretended to understand everything they say. :-p Not much to say here, after that we visited Mr Chiu. I can't actually remember whether he was home (老了，不总用了), I don't seem to remember much about our visit to his house, so I don't think so. Anyway even if he was we left very fast, cuz we were rushing to visit so many elderly. :p

Then we went over to Mdm Lim's place. She was in a good mood today, maybe it's seeing all the old faces (the old girls). We talked a lot, or rather the others talked a lot and I pretend to understand like at Mdm Tan's, and Jasmine just fall asleep (dun even try to 敷衍 a bit lor!) Aiya Sentosa mah, very tired, so I help tell her dun sleep, then she laugh at me say I dun even understand what they talking about. :-p Haiz talk about ungrateful. :-p

Anyway halfway through Jessie got to go, then as she leaving Jasmine also run out say got to do something. We all thought she talking to Jessie. And she very very long never come back, so 尴尬, leave us there so long, we thought she leave already and forgot her bag. But when she came back, she brought a cake. She had gone downstairs to buy the cake (very pink -.-) so that we can celebrate the May birthdays (erm... only me sadly). So we celebrated at Mdm Lim's house.

Lastly we went over to Kam Por's place. We did some cleaning up at her house (haiz I thought no need to do housework one that day :-p), some sweeping and mopping only. Very easy, very fast. I didn't think Kam Por was in a good mood that day. She had just gone downstairs to buy Chinese medicine. 冬虫夏草, n another type of medicine which I never heard before. I know 冬虫夏草 is quite expensive one, and she bought 2 bottles, maybe tt's why she was not so happy. She also had to alter her medicine intake timing; instead of taking her Western medicine in morning, she takes it in afternoon and takes the Chinese pills in morning.

Kam Por was the last we visited that day, we went back Mr Ong's sometime in between (forgot when) but he was still asleep, so we didn't see him in the end.

pc

lalala... April 5th visit

Ooh..I have to admit, this is the first time I visited the touch blog haha.. It’s great! Thanks Jasmine for the effort :)

Ok anyway I will blog about Saturday’s visit. Haven’t been going for visits for more than a month and I really missed the elderly. It’s an experience that’s always very fulfills my weekend…

On Saturday I was late (as usual :P) and Jasmine assigned me to the Chinese group. I proceeded to find my group at Mr Tan’s house and to my astonishment, the group consisted of… wah … only two people, Jolene and Aileen (I hope I spelt your names correctly). I guess the mugging fever must have caught on… So this blog entry must be anticipated by the many absentees then haha.. Anyway the three of us were kept very busy at Mr Tan’s place as his house required a considerable amount of cleaning ;). And for the first time in my life, I had to clean a toilet. Yeah I know I’m pretty pampered J Somehow I managed to siam toilet cleaning for the whole of 3 years at Touch hee hee.. There were always people who were more than happy to take on that job hahaha (winks at Lixian)… So I finally had my chance on Sat and wow the experience was pretty humbling and ‘educational :)’ – (floor detergent cannot clean toilet stains!)

After cleaning up the house (together with Jasmine who did most of the floor work :)), we chitchatted with Mr Tan and found out that he was previously in the police academy and air force. He showed us two photos of his hey-day in both uniform groups and he looked really smart! We could tell that he was very pleased to talk about his experience then, so here’s my tip to future groups visiting him: encourage him to talk about those photos :)

We visited Mr Chiew’s house next and he was his usual sprightly self. He had just returned from his grocery shopping and complaint to us about the hike in rice prices… Haiz the woes of inflation. So dear friends: pls ask your relatives and friends to stop hoarding rice or our elderly will have nothing to eat L Anyway, Mr Chiew went on to show us a list of old Chinese and Cantonese songs that he has been itching to hear/sing, including “xun2 mi4”, “dong1 lian4”, “shen1 shen1 de ai4” (that’s the few my deteriorating memory can recall) by artistes like Yu Tian, Feng Fei Fei, Zhuang Xue Zhong. I guess we should all make an effort to learn these songs, but don’t ask me how haha… The only person who seemed to have an idea of some of these songs is Cheng Hua heh heh (I think we know why :P) We had a lot of fun teasing Mr Chiew and urging him to sing a few lines from the songs. He even revealed to us that he used to be a frequent patron of KTVs in Chinatown, singing from 7 pm to 1 am!!! Very happening horz

Before the end of our visit, we had a cake to celebrate one of our volunteer’s birthday (oh I’m so sorry I forgot your name! Someone help me out please) as well as to bid farewell to Adrian and Vincent. Both of them will be going back to Canada/ Hong Kong in May. Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year since they joined us! To Adrian and Vincent: Thanks for the support! We will definitely miss the two of you! Pls continue the TOUCH spirit in Canada/ HK k? :)

Lijie

Xiong Ah! but all Worth it! ((:

Shall start off with self-introduction. (: Margaret here, year one volunteer. (: first session with T.H.E seniors was last year's MAF celebration. Missed quite a number of sessions during the hols cause i was working.

Okay, be mentally prepared, this will be a long post, i described alot. First blog, so i am not too sure of the Cans and Cannots, so sorry if i said anything offensive etc..
.....................
I am in the Chinese/English group today. Went to visit a new elderly, Mr Tan! (i havent even visited all our seniors thou. so i am not sure which Mdm XXX, Mr YYY, or Mdm ZZZ u all are referring to sometimes =P)

Janicia and Li Xian at the NTUC Fairprice, and they explained to me that they are getting some cleaning materials for Mr Tan, our new elderly. blah blah blah... and then.....

Li Xian: Later when you go in, must be careful, the elderly's house is very smelly that Janicia almost vomitted.
Janicia: Hey, dont scare her lah
Li Xian: No, i am just trying to prepare her for the worst

Okie, seriously, i wasnt really sure how bad it is, so i am still fine with the whole thing. Was quite curious to know how bad is the place. then De Rui came. Okie, it's better now. Since there are now 4 person in the chinese/english group. (:

And Janicia and Li Xian had some strategy...
"okay, once we step in, the first thing to do is to open all the windows and immediately after that, open this (Glade Air Freshener -Lemon Fragance), then we shall mop the floor.. wipe the windows... and clean up the toilet."
........
Okayyy when the elderly open the door for us, i feel that his place is better than what i expected. At least he dont have a lot of things in his house, so it makes the clearing up much easier, i thought. But yes, there is an unpleasant smell in the house. Yeapx, the place just need ventilation.
Before we stepped in, he was trying to tell us that there is a group that came on Wednesday, swept the floor, and cleaned up the house.
Once i stepped in, the first thought that came to my mind wasnt how dirty the place was, but... "Whadda.... Apparently, the wed group did nth larhx!!" Okay, not trying to be sarcastic, but seriously, you see you see! O_O did they even try to make the place a better living condition for Mr Tan.. NO! okayy... maybe Mr Tan's house was much worse than the present state, but.. -_-"

So, we opened up the windows and the freshener. So everyone's task..
De Rui: Clean the toilet.
Janicia: Wipe the windows.
Li Xian: Mop the living room
& me: Clean up the kitchen


Thoughts flow into my mind when i was cleaning up....

I saw Mr Tan just sitting on the bed and staring into the space, or maybe he was observing what LiXian was doing. If he is alone at home, windows all closed, door shut, what can he do at home? just sit at one side and stare into space? No one to talk to.. And i didnt see any TV set around. Or maybe there is just that i did not notice. But. my heart just goes out to him.

Okay, i am doing rough work, but this time more aggresive that the other time at Mdm Ong's place. But nope, i dont feel tired, i feel a sense of achievement. We can see the floor turn from grey to white, window from opaque to clear, toilet bowl and floor from brown to white. Dirty to clean! Actually, Mr Tan has pretty tiles. The white tiles should be what it should be like! (:

Everyone is working hard to make this place a better place for Mr Tan! (: okay... although i must admit that we used up alot of water. But like what De Rui said. 要做，就要做得干劲利落，不然就不要做！(it means, if we want to do, we must do a good job, cannot anyhow do. If not, then dont do at all) I agree, so we try our best to scrub all the dirt and lazy stains away!

Hmmm... did we take pictures of the before and after of the house? But i dismissed the thought as soon as it came. i was telling myself "Eh, Margaret, you do this for Mr Tan, not for recognition, dont need to take the before and after to show everyone what we done right. Just clean up the whole house and 你已经是最棒的。 We ourselves know how is the before and after can already, no need to tell the whole world." hahas. what a thought i have while scrubbing the floor.

Li Xian is so brave and tok-gong. While i was trying to help her change the dirty water in the basin, there were many dead bedbugs found in the basin of water. okay, the situation was much worse than i thought. There were a few live bugs when i was clearing the cabinet below the sink too. Another thought.... okay, i know they are sure RANDOM thoughts i have today. "gosh! Mr Tan already so skinny, the bedbugs still like wanna 吸干 him liddat" okay, hope sth can be done to kill off ALL the bedbugs.

Finally we are done with the clean-up. Janicia and Li Xian tried explaining to him the Dos & Do-nots. Sadly, we realised that Mr Tan cant see clearly. He did not realise the stains on the floor was due to his worn-out slippers. But we shall get him a new pair! and change a new set of bedsheet too. (: Although the presence of 'that unpleasant smell' is still there, the situation is much better than before. We shall all hope that the next time we visit his place, we are choked by the LEMON FRAGRANCE. heex! Jk.
t's time to leave Mr Tan's place. He thanked us. He looked into my eyes and sincerely thanked me. >.<>

Best wishes,
Margaret

Again, i apologise for the long long post, and sorry if i left out any crucial information. And sorry for all my random thots i posted up.
Joo Chuan, english/christian name doesnt mean i am from the ang-moh pai lorhx. see! my english is cui! =(

Wah!
We are almost mistaken as loansharks today!

When we were on our way to Mr Ong's (new resident) apartment on the 4th storey, we were first greeted by "O $ P $" and his unit number on the wall. Khoon Hong and I looked at each other with shock; I wonder if Khoon Hong did arrived early in the morning to paint the wall.

The gates of his unit were mildly splashed with paint as well. We tried knocking on his door "knock knock knock".. but no one answered. We started to ponder: Is he avoiding the loanshark? We made Jian Cong stand directly infront of the peephole as he APPEARS TO BE the most innocent among us! But apparently, Mr Ong did not open the door...

So, we proceeded on to Mdm Tan's apartment. As usual, we were greeted by her friendly smile and warm greetings. She was as hospitable as usual (this time serving us with Yeo's Winter Melon packet drink). We chatted with her and she shared with us about her past job, as "sort-of" labour worker. Her hokkien was quite pro and i didn't really catch all the things she has said. But I could understand that her job was rather tough and admired her for her diligence.

After visiting Mdm Tan, we went back to Mr Ong's apartment again. WAh! This time Jasmine Chu Ma..and Mr Ong finally opened the door! (No lar.. actually she called his phone; He couldn't hear our door knocks previously). As we realised that Mr Ong has difficulty moving around, we checked his fridge to see if he has enough food in his home. To our astonishment, we realised that almost all his food items were expired! One of the pear was 50% rotted!

We immediately brought Mr Ong to the nearest NTUC to stock up his food. At the same time, we accompanied Mr Ong to make a new pair of spectacles. As Mr Ong was choosing his specs, Khoon Hong and Jian Cong also frantically seize this opportunity to be "zhi lian" by trying on as many different specs as possible. Jasmine was helping Mr Ong to take photos of himself with different pairs of spectacles as he "bai post and twist". I felt that Mr Ong is quite "in" and has good taste as I personally like the specs design that he has chosen for himself. On the contrary, the specs that Jian Cong has tried on was, in particular, horrendous.

Hah, for all those ppl who have visited Mr Ong today, the show he has wanted to catch so badly is:

Golden Age (Magazine)
Magazine programme which specially tailored for everyone in the golden age.
(retrieved from MediaCorp website)

hmm.. i wonder why he would prefer the show over the companionship from angels(us)... ((:


Eugene Teh

A New Name!!

Dear Volunteers...

For those who don't already know who I am, which I hope not... I'm Jasmine, Chairperson for CSC TOUCH Seniors RVP.

I would like to anounce our new name over here at our blog, for the benefit of those who aren't one of our volunteers and hence isn't in our yahoo group.

We will be called T.H.E seniors from now on. T.H.E stands for Touch the Heart of the Elderly in short.

The dots in between the "T.H.E" were introduced to further emphasize on the meaning behind the name.

So from now on, we'll be called "T.H.E. seniors", when you all write follow this style k... We can still be called "Touch" for convenience sake, since the first word of our name is still Touch (as in Touch the Heart of the Elderly, not TOUCH Community Services).

Hope everyone will grow to like the name!! =)


Jasmine...>",<

Visit on 8th March -- POPIAH MAKING SESSION

Hiz everyone...1stly, let me give a brief intro of myself :)

I am Jin Hui from Business Year2...I join Touch since Year2Sem1 and I really enjoy the time spent with the Touch seniors =) The reason why I join Touch is because I enjoy doing voluntary work and it gives me a sense of satisfaction by helping them. Not only that, sometimes we can even learn something from them too! hehe...For e.g., though they are living by themselves in a 2-room flat, we can see that they are still very cheerful and contented ya?...hmm oh ya, I have visited Touch seniors only for a few occassions as sometimes there are other commitments such as tests, project meetings etc etc. But no matter what I will try to make some time for the seniors ^.^

ok enough about myself. Yesterday's visit was a very interesting one...something which I never tried before...that is -- making POPIAH!!! wahaha...Yes this was my very 1st time making popiah for myself and for the elderly. And it's really fun and meaningful...Many were so hungry that they could actually afford to eat sooo many of them haha...Yeah can see that everyone enjoyed and have lots of fun when making the popiah =D...Also, it's really great to see the elderly so happy about it heex.

All in all, I think it's very important that we should continue to care for the elderly and chat with them as often as we can ya? hehe...ok last but not least, i think we should give a big thank you to those who made the effort to buy the popiah and stuff *clap + cheers*...

~~ChEeRs~~

Jin Hui

Touch Visit to Chinatown

Hi all,

First and foremost, a short introduction to myself. I am Low Xi Qian, a year 4 chemical engineering student in NUS. Have been in CSC since my 2nd week of Semester 1 in year 1. So i can boost that all are less experienced than me except for Lixian, Lijie, Cheng hua, Chloe etc. not many thou. hahaha. And i will like to take this opportunity to clear up the yahoo group confusion (if u are in it), i am not a year 1 student, i trying to act young (as claimed by jasmine...). Luckily, Jasmine helped to clear up the misunderstanding or i might be classified as a non-official touch member....

In case some of you dont know who am I, ya, i put a photo of me and one of the touch elderly above. I am on the left of the photo ( in case u all cant tell which is the elderly....)

For this blog entry, maybe I just want to touch on my feelings since I started visiting Touch. I was all along from Yishun Students' Care services, another RVP of CSC, then I tried Hospice Care Association, another RVP and now, I am in Touch.

Talking about Touch, I didnt join Touch initially because it is so damn far from my home la!!! The moment i heard it is at Kallang Bahru, i was immediately turned off. Thus, the first visit in Touch was during my third year of NUS, which I went with Kailun, Joo chuan, Yiwen, denise, yuncai, mdm phua, chloe etc etc. where all the old birds are still flapping around. After the first visit, I found Touch quite near to my house, jus a train to Toa Payoh and then a 10 min bus ride! hahaha.

It is until recently that I start to visit touch more often ( after Jasmine took over). Gradually, like all the other volunteers who had stated before, I started to like to come to Touch.... How to say ah? I like to hear what the elderly got to say, I like to hear what they had experienced during their lifetime. I like to hear what they went through during the World War II. I like to hear when they said I am "yan dao" etc... Initially, I visited Mdm Tan ( the elderly who has quite a bad vision) and mdm Lim (my fav elderly till now), but as time goes by, I started to visit Gan Po and Mdm Lim ( canto grp). Although I dont understand Cantonese, but I liked to visit Gan Po, because she in some way resemble my late grandmother alot. And looking at her, it reminds me of my grandmother. And amazingly, after several visits, I knew that Gan pu becomes a widow at quite a young age (ard 36 if i am not wrong) and she singlehandedly raised up her children by selling soft drinks. My grandmother has similar experiences as well... And i really like the way Gan pu sits. She sits with such great pose, her back is damn straight la (unlike Mdm Lim hahaha) and one look at her, one can tell that she went through a lot. I really respect her for this point.

As for Mdm Lim, my favourite elderly, we have so much to talk about. Our favorite topic will always be Mdm Phua Lixian, aka 881, aka Scholar, aka Singer and Dancer etc. We jus enjoyed talking about Lixian and I ALWAYS like to emphasis how lixian bully me etc (which is true...). And furthermore, Hokkien has always been my second language, it comes to me so naturally that i could ratter off any thoughts to mdm lim so fluently. ( btw, Chinese is my first, English my third language...) And mdm lim seems to have so much to talk to us. :)

Some last thoughts about volunteering.. Maybe to the elderly, we are so called "good-hearted, kind, nice" people etc etc.. but I join volunteering cos I like to volunteer. I like the feeling that i have made an impact, i have bring a smile to the people I come in touch with, be it Yishun Kids, HCA patients or Touch elderly. Volunteering is like drug addiction as well, once you have it, you just keep coming back for more... Jus ask those old birds and you will know. Volunteering dont ask for returns, and when you did it, you normally have great surprises in the visits. :)

With regards,
Xi Qian

Chinese New Year Outing

Hihi ...it is me again.

Last thursday, we brought the eldery from touch seniors to chinatown for night shopping and sightseeing. It was a major event as many volunteers were called down to be "tour guides"for the tour. The volunteers were then spilt into their respective groups marked by numbers and colour. We then proceed to pick up the elderly. If you were there...you should have seen the excited faces of elderly as they eagerly await for the start off.I heard from Jasmine that these elderly have not gone chinatown for many years hence they really treasured this outing. So excited were they..the elderly in my group were poking me, urging me to lead them in their shopping spree...haha

Magaret and I were leading group 10 consisting of 5 aunties with 5 unique personalities.5 different shopping habits and 5 different shopping lists. There are many times which Margaret and I have to spilt up so that we can keep an eye on them while they are marking things off their shopping lists. Oh boy...their bargaining power was amazing! At the start, I was wondering why they didn't buy anything. I forgot the rule of thumb in shopping-See market first..then ATTACK! They were even teaching us things like best time and best place for bargains. Very streetsmart sia!

After shopping...we went to do abit of sightseeing. Actually this is my first time I have been to chinatown during the chinese new year period..so was awed by the decorations. We also got to see an artistry put up by this amazing caligrapher in front of temple.

Like the chinese saying goes... tian xia wu bu san zhi yan xi .The time came for us to depart from chinatown. But the most touching part came after that. A very tired Jasmine was standing next to me in the train home when she received a message in which the touch people conveyed their thanks to the volunteers. As she read the message ..every sign of tiredness disappeared and a smile surfaced. There, the beauty of volunteerism: being happy because someone else is happy.

Elicia

Visit on 12 Jan (Canto group)

Hi everyone!
Sorry for the late post. I was trying to figure out how to post a blog here. Then only I noticed that there's our user-id and password.

On 12 Jan, the canto group visited Kam Po and Mdm Lim. Kam Po is quite OK and she also told us about the Japanese war time. I find it's meaningful to learn from the elderly about their experience then we will appreciate our lives. We sang some songs but they were sad songs. Maybe we can have a few happy songs too so that we encourage the the elderly to be more involved, eg by clapping their hands when a song is being played. But to do this, maybe one or two of us can start to clap hands to lead them.
Mdm Lim was quite emotional when she thought of her sister in hospital. Maybe we can find some ways to cheer the elderly when they are sad. But I don't really know how. It's a pity that Mdm Lim didn't want to come for the CNY celebration on Thursday. Though she really wanted to, she didn't want to trouble others because of her back problem. I also can't join you all for the outing because of lecture. However, if you all are getting the elderly some food on that day, if possible, can get something for Mdm Lim to eat, something good for health :) or something to decorate her house to make her happy. Since she's a christian, please don't get for her food that is offered.
I hope we can help Mdm Lim to improve her diet by drinking less coffee and taking less MSG. But what can we do?

Besides, I also hope to improve my Hokkien to interact better with the elderly :)


Andrea

Touch visit on 12 Jan

Well, it's me again!! I have taken such a liking to writing about the visits that I have volunteered to do this particular one too! Hahaha. Well, if you are really interested to know the reason for my 2nd consecutive contribution to the blog, see my previous post.

I went to Mr Hui and Mdm Chua's (Fondly known as The couple) home with some other oldies (Jun Hui, Jooch, Zhen Qin and Jessie) to do basic cleaning up. Mdm Chua has not been feeling well recently hence she was not able to do house work for the past week or two. When we meet her, she was not feeling very cheerful, which was due to her not feeling well and having to take care of Mr Hui at the same time.

After we are finished with the cleaning up, I went to Mr Chiu's flat for...... what else, Sing-along sessions of course!! This time, we were better prepared and could sing the songs Mr Chiu selected and he really seemed to enjoy the songs too (with me singing, what can you expect? :P). After the session, he gave us even more songs that he would like to hear. So, it's learning more oldiesfor his next visit. All of us had a great time at Mr Chiu's flat.

There was a small birthday celebration for the January babies at the debrief session after the visits. Let me wish the January babies another Happy Birthday! Ok, Ok I can finally end liao. Hope I would not be 'activated' to do this for a long, long time. Haha

Khoon Hong
(YES! FINALLY!)

Late Late write up for visit on 5 Jan

I am supposed to write about the visit on the 5 Jan but I forgot all about it. As it happened like 2 weeks ago, I also forgot what group I was in (Hokkien or Chinese?). Sorry to those who are waiting anxiously for this particular write up.

Mr Chiu was happy to see us and we sang a few songs for him. However, we could not meet most of the requests as we do not know how to sing the songs, all oldies. We made a promise to learn the songs and sing it for him the next session. Singing songs was fast becoming the norm for Touch visits (Esp for Mr Chiu. We even made a list of what he wanted to sing!). We had to learn the oldies as this are the songs the elderly can understand. While this is good but I feel that this should not be held too often as this actually reduces the time we have for interaction with the elderly. but with Mr Chiu, this may be an exception as I feel that he actually prefers to sing, much to the delight of some volunteers who love to sing (Me included)!

Mdm Lim's sister was hospitalised when we visited her. She was initially quite happy to see us until she heard this sad news. Luckily, we were all there at that point of time so we could console here. As we had 2 groups in her home at that time, we decided to leave, leaving only some volunteers to accompany her till her relative comes to fetch her to the hospital.

The last home I visited on this visit is Mdm Tan. She did not seem her usual cheerful self this week. In the past when I visited her she always have this very big smile and seemed very happy to talk to us. This time she seemed a little awkward when we were there. Maybe it is because our group did not really engage her when we visited her.

Ok, that's all for the visit on 5 Jan. I've got to end this and start on my next write up (Pinchuan made me do the writeup for the 12 Jan visit too for forgetting to do this, sad.).

Khoon Hong
(never ever forget to do your writeup)