香港仔 times 500

婆婆!

香港仔!

Mdm L's sharp ears (@ 84!)enables her to have voice differentiation ability. 

I am happy not because i am remembered but that this proves that with time and heart, one is able to make a small little difference to someone else's life, and be a part of it. 

As my group and I greeted her from outside the gate, Mdm L was standing at her basin, taking her own time to wash up as she always does on her saturday routines. I can hear the joy in her voice. 

Isnt it beautiful to meet someone like this on a saturday morning? Many times we go to work like a zombie, go to LTs with a sian face. It always lights my day up when I meet a friend, or just any other human being, and detect a smile on their face knowing that they appreciate your presence. just that alone. This, i ought to improve on myself, to greet everyone with a wide smile :D

Rong Shan, Jocelyn and I began to start working on the chores for the day. Changing the bedsheets, washing bottles and cups, boiling water, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning the dusty fan. As usual, she shouted 香港仔! ........ 香港仔!......... 香港仔!..........香港仔!.......x 500, once whenever she wanted something haha.

It wasnt that difficult a task for able-bodied young men and women like us, but it wasnt that effortless either. But it felt rather happy to sweat a little bit doing some work for her!

Of course, how can a visit to her place be complete without free breakfast?? I wasnt very hungry, nor too interested in her beehoon/ lontong/ fried snacks. So the girls devoured those up. Mdm L repeated asked me to eat, to have a drink, of which I only took half a stick of you tiao and rejected the rest, citing my full breakfast as a reason (real reason btw). But she kept on asking again! Lucky the girls were good eaters today when wei feng wasnt in the house for this specialised task lol.

I am always happy to team up with newer volunteers on such visits. It reminds me of the first few sessions that i came for, the big change it had on my year 4 life then, and the subsequent 2-3 more years thus far. As i always recall and share with fellow buddies, the positive energy, joy, and moments shared on such sessions will always be remembered and impactful for the rest of my life. I am definitely not as nice as the seniors who guided me when i was new, but i hope i show the newer volunteers, in my own little ways that we can be friends with the elderly, that they are not the beneficieries that many thought they were at the beginning. I hope that with the jokes that i play on the elderly, they can start feeling more at ease and be open to engage them in conversations they have never thought they could and not just ask very politically correct questions. I hope that the tiny little bonds we have built with the elderly will be shown and felt in our gestures and mannerisms and interactions and perhaps one day inspire someone else to contribute to this lovely cause that most of us truly believe in. 

Most of all, I certainly hope that our diminishing (??) family can expand and continue to involve as many passionate students as possible.

Cheers,

香港仔 kai him