Thailand Trip
there was a mission trip in thailand with 34th GB for 13 days, and i went with them. this was how it started. i arrived at the airport...LATE. half and hour late. gosh it was embarrassing. well that's what you get when you stay so far away from singapore's changi airport. even though i gave myself half hour allowance for the trip, i was still late! as quoted by the road sign, there was a "MASSIVE JAM". A normal jam wasn't enough, it had to be a MASSIVE jam. haha anyway, when i got there, was feeling pretty sleepy. i gave out all christmas presents, and then had to explain my hair cut.
"after annual camp, i was very sleepy, thus i leaned onto a bus stop sign and fell asleep. there was chewing gum on it, and therefore my hair was glued onto the pole. the gum refused to be removed from my head, and so a bold hair cut was needed to resurrect my hair"
okay i'm being a little dramatic here with my use of words but that's basically what happened. i believe it is against the law to "anyhow spit gum everywhere", but some people just don't get it into their thick skulls. their irresponsible actions cost people their hair you know. (but on the other hand, i shouldn't have been leaning onto the pole but ah what the heck haha)
okay we checked in our bags, and julie was kind stressed out but everything was sweet after that yeah? =) sam, aud and i sneaked off to have a quick, or rather huge bite of rojak, with compliments of sam's mum. thanks auntie, she's sweet isn't she? she even lent me a christian magazine to read during the trip. i love her! oh aud drank barley i think, while sam and i drank bird nest. (i don't know why but i seem to be able to remember the details of this day)
the plane ride was oh-my-gosh. our ears!!! they were so blocked. for my case, it wasn't that bad for as long as i kept swallowing my saliva, my ears would unblock themselves. but after a while, i couldn't very well drink so much water or salivate so much right? poor julie, nothing quite worked for her. i think it was painful. tried offering her a sweet but that was no better. anyway touch down! we landed in.............................................
CHIANG MAI
hee was so happy... we made our way to the orphanage, rainbow covenant, and settled there for the next 10 days. our mode of transport was an open air van or lorry or whatever it's called. haha so cool! the wind in our hair, the dust floating above our heads... ... ... well most of us ALWAYS sleep on the vehicle. haha, me included of course. anyway, each of us were attatched to a buddy, and my kid was suwisa! imagine, loisa, suwisa! haha love it! love her! i'm loving it. that was the best time of my trip. i played with her, spent time with her, and we even taught the kids there english. as my kid is eight, and is in pri. 1, she wasn't very fluent in her abc-s yet. so i started her off with those.
the first lesson, i went through her homework first. the words in her book were football, basketball, volleyball, swimming, skiing, tennis, table tennis, golf and baseball. she had a hard time differentiating between all of them, so i decided to do something every kid there loves to do. PLAY. haha so we played football, basketball and volleyball. we ran out of time so i just showed her an example of what the rest were like. well, good news, she remembered! and from then on, whenever we played those games, she would run to me and shout the name of the game to me! my did i feel like a proud sister. with a smile i would yall GOOD, and give her a hug. she always responded back with a greater hug and a sweet heart-warming smile. gosh i love her. (is this turning into a compo or what?)
well second lesson. i did not quite plan what to do with her, so i thank the Lord that he gave me an idea which worked very well, a little too well actually, but it was good. the abc song! suwisa seemed to know it well, so we made alphabats with our body. we both had great fun but i kinda had a body ache later. suwisa is no simple girl. usually we would be happy with an L formed with our two arms, but noooooo, suwisa had to use the WHOLE body. i had no choice but to contort my body to form various Es, Qs and worse Ms and Ws with her. i nearly split my pants while attempting a symmetrical X with her.
i have to admit one thing, the children are one extremely fit, healthy, strong and flexible lot. they can move their body in such a gracful manner you can only open your eyes wide in wonder, opening and closing your mouth at the almost inhuman way a 6 year old kid can shovel gravel. as part of doing God's work there, we were also present to help build a walkway for the orphanage there. while i was huffing and puffing over WEEDING, a kid 10 years my junior was actually using a shovel almost bigger than himself, and using all his might to shovel. and he did it, well! the prideful me decided to try it out too, and i nearly broke my back attempting to lift the shovel with the rocks on it. i had no choice but to humbly go back to my weeding and maybe help out with more pulling and stuff. we played soccer against the children too and it was so darn embarrassing! the kids there, my you have to marvel at their stamina. even with the ball rolling TOWARDS us, we just couldn't seem to run to the ball in time and yet, a kid 2 metres further from the ball then we are, could run up to it and snatch it away from our very own eyes. our clumsy feet could not kick the ball very well either. most of the time we kicked sand and the ball continued to lay on the ground, mocking us til a kid kicked it away before we have time to try again. once my shoe even went flying out. okay i admit, i used my hands a lot, but even with hands, chances given to us by our kids, and MUCH help from uncle steven (the volunteer helping out at the orphanage), we still kinda lost badly. haha it was fun though, but before the game was half through, many of us badly wanted to blow our whistles and whisper hoarsely for a break. nearing the end of the game, the kids were still tirelessly running all over the field literally playing the game by themselves, the singapore team from GB were wearily walking from one end of the field to another, in the hope then the ball would come to us on it's own. of course that never happened. we could not even attempt to get into the ball's radius of 1 metre. by the time the game was over, three-quaters of our team was flat down on the ground, waving an imaginary white flag. okay, so i was the only one. the rest were bravely plodding on. haha i was popped! no way was i going to move my butt from the grass. i was contented letting the ball roll anywhere, even into the net of my team, as long as i didn't have to run after it.
okay the third english lesson, i was sick! i have no idea what happened to me, but my body couldn't seem to keep in all my food. it insisted on throwing out everything. i was running a fever so miss gan kinda sponged me and rubbed something onto my stomach. heh... elisa took over the teaching for this session. thanks for helping me out! i missed the night safari too, was so disappointed but i really couldn't go anyway. had a splitting headache and the ride would have just made it worse. sigh.... but julie and elisa (i'm not sure if there are more involved but thanks too) were such sweet girls. they bought me an elephant purse! haha, with it's backside... but nvm, it is so cute! haha thanks guys! really appreciate it! =)
last english lesson. this was a serious one. i was determined to complete the whole abs with suwisa and ensure that she is confident of it. well success. she could identify every alphabat, even at random (although she had to think over the difficult ones), and she could even pronounce them correctly and beautifully. i was most pleased with her Ms and Ns. her pronounciation was clear and precise. the Lord has blessed her with wonderful speech. i was practically jumpng with joy at every alphabat said well! as my grin got bigger and bigger til i looked like a chesire cat, suwisa got mroe and more excited. i think she wanted to please me badly. good girl, i thought. she preservered on despite the many distractions around her. she got deterred quite often but was always pulled back by my "suwisa! listen and watch my mouth!" i did give her a reward later though! =)
all this while, we were doing up the walkway as much as we could, with some help from a tractor. had an interesting experience with that right girls? a little drama here and there, and a few pitiful and pathetic looks. haha. i'm sorry i wasn't of much help though. i was not allowed to be present in the actual shovelling and stuff as i was sick, but i hoped that the water i brought out for you guys was sufficient. i was praying too! =) and... God is good! the walkway was completed in time, and we even finished our banner too! with the help of the kids too, that piece of art was put up with joy and pride. sigh... extremely contented...
okay here comes the best part. singapore night! the night whereby we present all our gifts to the children and show them a little of our singapore culture. julie and i accompanied miss gan and miss lee to the market in the morning. the traffic in thailand is scary. there are no rules, no traffic lights, only lanes which vehicles sometimes do not follow. in the market it's worse! it's a narrow path and both moving vehicles AND humans have to squeeze together in order to keep moving. julie and i nearly went to heaven early 13 times. she counted with fear. haha. when we got back to the orphanage, the officers, with the help of our potential cooks from GB, made a scrumptious singaporean meal. everyone loved the sausage dish, but erm, we all kind of agree that the stew is well, quite similar to soup. haha, but nvm, it was a change from the rice and vegetables. not that i'm complaining but we're certainly not used to that for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. nevertheless, everything was eaten gratefully, except for a few hiccups. i enjoyed the passing of gifts the best. it pulled a string in me as i realised how fortunate we are here in singapore. we get the neccessaties in life easily, and we get fanciful stuff we want but not need too. many a time, we take things for granted, but there in rainbow convenant, there are children who are thankful for one set of second hand clothes that are neither fashionable nor even fit them. it made me feel a little shameful too, of the selfish way i demand for certain things in life. however, God had taken care and provided for them, for He loves the little children, all the children of the world. red and yellow black and white, all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. =)
oh ya, i nearly forgot. we gave the children a treat too! a buffet lunch at a grand hotel! my could they eat. imagine, all the things we eat so often in signapore, chocoltaes, strawberries, cakes, the children have never had a chance to eat them at all! suwisa for example, went for the strawberries and ice kachang, but poor kid, i had to stop her from eating too much as she had a cough. but even then, she still ate more food then me. second helpings went down in a flash, thirds and fourths. i had to put down my fork and spoons to run after her all the time to help her with the food! haha such a bundle of joy, boy do i miss her.
ah yes, and we visited the local school to teach english and have recreation yet again! i'm just so in love with the kids there! they're so well mannered and such adorable children! they was a language barrier, and the teachers were not exactly very fluent in english too, so translation was a bit rough. but finally the ideas got through and the kids actually had fun with games such as captains ball, and dog and done! inititally, everyone stared blankly at each other when numbers were called out (in thai btw, finally i can manage 1 to 10 in thai! applause!) in dog and bone, and it was fraustrating. but things have a way or working out and it got better and better! haha the staff there are really thoughtful too. on one of the days, i was running a high fever. it was so embarrassing, i was supposed to be teaching english and i landed up in their sickbay. haha fell straight asleep. when i returned to the school again the next day, the principal, i repeat, PRINCIPAL, asked me if i was sabai-sabai (relaxed, or well in english). i was told that whenever a student is unwell, the whole school knows about it and will pray in unity for that person. great isn't it?
we went to church with the children too. some of us helped out in the sunday school, but i was no involved. i stayed in the adult service. it was a good message about strengthening the church, but all of us were really tired so it was hard to stay focused. miss lee was very cute. the pastor had told us to turn to the book of acts and she was still looking at the book of john, which was the verse the pastor had told us to refer too like 3 verses ago! haha, she was blinking furiously... that's how tired she was... haha...
well, i prayed for the children there. some of the children have such sad stories. some are true orphans whose parents died when they were at such a young tender age. others have been abandoned, and some were even found roaming around by themselves at a temple! a few of the children's parents are in jail for drug trafficking too. life imprisonment it is said, the the rainbow covenant had to care for them. your heart can't help but go out to them. love is a universal language, miss gan told us. i pray that God's love and our own shined through us and bless them. makes you think twice right? whenever i see my parents now, i stop to think how fortunate i am to have such loving parents who care for me in their own unique way. sigh, i declare right here that i love my daddy and mummy, and i thank God from the bottom of my heart for them!
i love you daddy and mummy! thank you for everything! i could ask for no better parents! =)
Bangkok
now the last final 3 days of the trip. we went to bangkok to... yup you guessed it! SHOP! we stayed in the bangkok christian guest house. haha... it would be my first and last time shopping til i drop, literally. also my first and last time i buyan actual FULL BAG of things! it's not one of those small bags either, it's those medium sized bags. i surprised myself and my group haha. okay, so those things were gifts and stuff for my parents, but hey, it's not bad coming from louie, the one who rarely buys things, to the extent of never. haha... i got some tees too, haha, they were christmas presents from basia and julie... why? the tees did not fit them but fit me... -_- sigh... sad isn't it? but thanks guys... the thought was sweet! =) you realised something yet? all the tees are FREE SIZE!~thai people are so tiny... or skinny... haha... oh ya, i bought a mickey mouse tee too... actually it was a group thing. haha, aud's group bought elmo tees, and were the elmo gang. so my groups was the m and m gang! haha the mickey mouse gang! haha... the things we come up with. i spent most of my money on food... heh... couldn't resist the sausages. maybe that's how my stomache overturned. in total, i bought a pair of sandals originally for myself as my own were falling apart (doesn't fit me very well so i passed it on to my mum which it fits likes a glove, or shoe), a tissue packet pouch for mum again, bedroom slippers for mum yet again, and "dog shit"or "tampons" (it's actually pork/chicken floss compressed into a long form which looks like dog shit and such. that's what the thais call it. heh) for my mum again! my mum had a long "to-buy"list. we went to church again on sunday! it was really grand. took holy communion and all. it was my first time taking the bread chip with actual RED WINE. felt kinda drunk but maybe it was just my imagination. hospitality was at it's best there. we had lunch (spaghetti) and the libarian there even GAVE me a book when he saw me reading one with interest. he actually asked me to rent it, but i told him i was a visitor and would be going back to singapore soon. i would have no means to return the book if i rented it. when i walked outside, he ran after me with the book and told me that as i liked it so much, he'll give it to me and find a way to replace it. such a sweet man right? thank you Lord for such kind people in the world.
well that's about it i guess...this mission trip is my first and it was a great experience. i have learnt a lot from this trip and... i am so going to write a letter to my suwisa right now!
