Eyes when traveling

I took a gap year in 2012 to rediscover myself and to find out what exactly I want in my life. I was lost after quitting from the course of Pharmacy due to emotional stress that I was facing from studies and some family issues at that time. This was one of the most major decisions I has ever made in my whole twenty years of life. Of course a lot of things went on and changed during this one year, but I will share with you guys my traveling experience and thoughts.

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!