I finally made a few trips to different parts of the world that begins with India, followed by Paris, Taiwan, with ending at China. The main
purpose for going to India and China was for volunteering, whereas Paris and
Taiwan were dedicated to leisure enjoyment. In India (Kolkata), I went to
volunteer at one of the many homes that Mother Theresa had set up and was
assigned to one of the women homes in the large city of Kolkata. Those women were either elderly or middle aged that are mentally or
physically disabled. The tasks involved include helping to shower them, doing
their laundry, interacting with them during their free time, feeding them with
their lunch, and helping to decorate the home with Christmas décor. I was there
during December 2012 hence they were preparing for Christmas at that time.
When I first arrived the home, I was shocked and sad to see
most of them had lost their sense. Most of them were living in their own world,
unable to decipher what others were telling them. The most common sounds that
they were making out were just “eee”, “ooorrrhhh”. Even though some do still
speak a bit, it was still in Bengali which most overseas volunteers including
myself, do not understand any single word of Bengali. Hence, most of the time we
depend on body language to communicate with them. There was this old lady whom had left me a deep impression, she was most probably in her 70s, being both
physically and mentally disabled, she was bed ridden all the time. While I was
showering her, she was crying and speaking Bengali the whole time. and when i was checking to see if she was in pain, she wasn’t able to answer as well. To add on, the helpers were not helping at all, they just simply ignored her and insisted me to quickly get her showered as
there were many more waiting to be showered. However, she returned to her normal state once dressed up. And in noon, when I was feeding her lunch, she
started talking again but it was still in Bengali and so I just nod and smile
to her. Suddenly she was holding my hand with both her palms as if wishing for
something. And that left me with a very saddening thought that she may had mistaken me as her daughter or grandchildren who had came to visit and look after
her. This comes to me that we should cherish the time we spend with our
grandparents, not taking them for granted. No matter what, I believed that
everyone was once brought up by their grandparents also, so now when we are
older we should repay them for their love and care.
In the next half of the day, I volunteered at a girls’
home which was beside the women home. The girls were mostly from as young as 4
to as big as 16 years old, who were also both mentally and physically disabled. The activities were mainly interacting with the girls like playing with them and telling them a
story. Interacting with them half a day was filled with mixed feelings. As they
were mentally disabled, the response that we got from them were mostly even worse than those mentally ill elderly. They were either staring
into spaces or living in their own world and no response were received when talking to them. Hence, it bcame very mind draining when telling them a story. We tried to act out the characters in the story to attract their attention but it was not successful. On the other hand, the interactions with them taught
me something which is very precious as well. Their simple mind allows them to live happily with just basic wants. Thus small little stuffs like giving them
a flower or playing with them is more than enough to make them happy. We are living in this hectic environment and due to the presence of
many temptations and wants, we are never satisfied with our present and always
demand for more which had given us unneccessary stress and unhappiness. However, life can be very simple and happier if we were contented with what
we have, and stop making demands that we can’t even handle them. In fact, sometimes if we stop dwelling too much about
certain problems or stuffs that we can never solve, we will be much happier with
lesser stress and troubles in life.
Back to the people on the streets, it made me realized how fortunate we are to be
living in Singapore, where we have most of the basic necessities within our
reach, however, we are always taking them for granted and even complaining
about them. But people in India are typical suffering because of the lack of
very basic needs like fresh clean water to drink and shower. Many were
beggers that were sleeping along the streets with few pieces of clothes covering
them. In night, it was commonly seen that rickshaw pullers slept with their rickshaws tied closed to them. This was to prevent their own earning equipment from being stolen if left unattended. The amount they earned was really
very little that barely feed them full with three meals a day. Therefore, food wastage became such a sin after seeing what the locals were suffering. This
serve as a signal to me that I should cherish whatever I get to enjoy now even
the simplest things like food and water.
Volunteering in China (Qinghai) was a total different living
expectations and experiences from India and actually it was much worse because
it took place on a mountainous area. This means that water and electricity
were really scarce, the toilets were in the nature where you would just do your
business in the open nature. This volunteering project was to deliver free traditional
Chinese medicines to the villagers living in that area. Being in the
mountainous area, it was very hard to get accessed to medical attention and
usually they would need to travel for hours in order to reach the nearest
hospital in the nearest city. In addition, the living condition there was really
bad, the locals could not earn much and usually were not able to feed themselves
full. Going to the hospital for medical attention would be a luxrious treat to them. As our base was set at a monastery,
many villagers would need to climb over long and steep stretches of mountains to come and get the free medications which was only available once a year. The locals told us that the climb usually required at least 4h and they
would have to set off early in the morning even before the sun started to rise.
After experiencing their lives, I start to become more
appreciative of the presence of our public transports back home. No doubt that it has been
disappointing us with poor services, we are still able to get to our destination
without too much of troubles. I also become more thankful that we are living in
low lands with no harsh environments. Living in the mountain will mean battling with extreme weather conditions where temperature in the winter could drop to as low as -40°C. Where in the summer, they can be easily sorched by the hot sun due to elevated highlands. I also realized how pampered we are to always have a toilet bowl in each and every
cubicle and starts complaining if squat toilet were given instead. Whereas,
having a squat toilet in that area will actually be equal to finding a
treasure.
All these volunteering trips in different parts
of the world had helped to raise my self-awareness of my surroundings that were
once taken for granted. It also makes me realized the enormous of the world and
there is so much more to be discovered and seen. Singapore being a small dot in
the world map is not able to let us have a real view and understanding of the
word “suffering”, if we are to only confine ourselves in this dot. Venturing
out is a way for us to understand other cultures, telling us how other people
in the world operates and making us realize that nothing is impossible in this
world - which is one of the best gift that one should actually ever take out
from traveling.
As I started to get used to my hectic lifestyle in NUS after
one semester, I guess is time for me to venture out once again. For this semester,
I hope to be able to take part in some community based CCA. Having Thursday as my free day, I decided to make a trip to an old folk home near my house to volunteer and visit them. Those folks there can be really lonely as their family member seldom spend time with them and especially now is the festive period, this will make them to miss home even more. At the same time, my friend has started to engage me to take part in an overseas community involvement project planning which is going to be held during this summer vacation. As for
bigger goals will be traveling to more of the developing countries like Papua New Guinea and Africa to volunteer and as well as to have a look
at the cultures and the locals living over there. And I strongly believe that
nothing is impossible as long as I have put in my best effort to try it!
