Busy, busy day.
I went to do some community service today. To be honest, I didn't volunteer myself; it was my superior who did. The task today was to look after a group of kids from Convalescent Home at Qian Hu Fish Farm, and each kid was more or less looked after by one person. I met some guys from camp at Choa Chu Kang MRT station to get there, and when we were there, there was a waiting time before the kids arrived. The reason why I didn't really want to volunteer myself for this, was 'cause I felt I could possibly be terrible looking after the kids, and that I would let them run loose.
When the coach arrived, I saw kids plastered on the glass windows, staring out. They looked tiny and vulnerable, but possibly menacing. They got off the bus, and I hoped for the best, that I would be assigned to a good kid. Thankfully, the kid I looked after was a good boy, an Indian boy of 10. He had a twin brother in the same group, who was looked after by my colleague, which made it easier. After introductions, his group headed out for the tour, which only required 3 adults, so the rest of us stayed behind at the eating area.
When they came back, it was time to go fishing. Each child was given a small net and a tank, and they could go to the fishing ponds to try to catch fish. My kid, Gesan, had little luck, and I wasn't so good either, but we got a kickstart when a superior gave one fish to us. It came as a surprise when Gesan, exasperated with his lack of catches, called me 'Uncle' and asked me to help him catch some. Me, 'Uncle'?! I soon came up with the conclusion that the caretakers at the home must have instructed the kids to call us 'Uncle'. Finally, with a lot of sweat and help, Gesan had 16 fish in his tank.
After that was basically lunch and games catered by McDonald's. The kids were quite a racket, and more than half of them did not partake in the games, which obviously led to a lot of exasperation on the side of the McDonald's staff. Everywhere you looked, there was a kid overlooked. It ended up all right though. The kids did have a good time messing around, and no one got hurt. I bonded with Gesan and his brother over Pokémon, while my colleague was clueless when he tried to listen to our conversation. It definitely pays to pay attention to such stuff. At the end, when the kids got on the bus, it was kinda sad, but a relief too. It's not easy.
I had to go home to wash up, before meeting Howe Yuan in town. Tonight was a night of the most laugh-out-loud moments I've had in a long time. I can't really post them online though; it's nothing much to laugh at in words. I'll just mention one of them being a comment on a scene in King Kong, where a native chants 'TOLENKONG', probably their name for the big creature. The chant is pretty much a hoarse and creepy whisper, but when I heard it, I pretty much heard 'TUA LENG KONG', which just sounds like dialect. The whole night, we spent laughing over the difference between my whispering 'TOLENKONG' and Howe Yuan's half-whispering, half-bellowing 'TUA LENG KONG'. See? It's not funny. You had to be there. I choked on my rice burger laughing so hard.
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