I realised I shld've put my topic as such, if not some ppl might think why I went to Sri Lanka. Haha. It's really a success though there were some hiccups here and there. But well, there's always some mistakes happening during events like this.
I really learnt alot from this YEP.
I learnt to appreciate the simple things in my life in Singapore (ok, I'm repeating this, haha). For example, my bed (we slept on our sleeping bags on the floor), my clean toilet (the toilets there are really dirty like I've said), the clean tap water in Singapore (we used well water for non-drinkin activities, n it tastes abit salty, mayB cos the water was contaminated when the tsunami came in), my hot shower (the shower there was cold n salty), my broadband internet access (internet there is not common n the speed is back to 56kbps dialup), my fan (we din even have windows @ the place we stayed), my lights (the lights r dim @ the place we stayed, n the lights danced with the rythnm of the music played on the radio! Haha), Chinese food (Sri Lankan food is super spicy & salty & large-portioned. Luckily for us there's Cailing, Big Kelvin & Weihan who can cook. Oops! Looks like the gers lose out here! Haha).... etc etc. The list is quite long. I sound like I'm complaining, haha.
I learnt that the life there is really v simple, unlike Singapore's hectic life. We wake up in the morning, brush teeth, go toilet, eat breakfast, walk for ard 600m to 700m everyday from our house to the work site, start sawing n hammering. Cooking party leave for home to cook, the rest leave 1 hr later, eat lunch, walk back to work site, continue sawing n hammering. Cooking party leave for home to cook (dinner), the rest leave 1hr later, eat dinner, shower, debriefing/briefing, leisure time (the only things we do are playing cards or talk, haha), sleep. The cycle goes on n on 'cept that sometimes we play with the kids @ the work site. Like wat Steph & Weicong said, the only things that we look forward to everyday are meal times & shower time. Haha.
N I found out that the dogs there live a simple life too! In S'pore, when a dog is sleeping n u go near it, it'll immediately become awake & look @ u as if u're an intruder. The dogs there... sleep alot! Even if they r sleeping n u go near em, they'll slowly open their eyes, stretch abit, take a glance at u to see if u're a danger to em (dun ask me how they judge... they juz bark @ u when they like... -_- I ganna barked twice by the dogs reared by the monks), if u're not, they'll stretch again & go back to sleep. -_- Good life eh? I was jealous of this dog @ the work site when we were sawing & hammering... cos it juz slept in front of us!! =/
Also, some ppl in the grp has attained enlightenment!! Cailing told us her secret in sawing, "The secret behind sawing is not to think that you are sawing and juz keep doing the sawing action." Tai Nam was so amused that he tried it & he said that it actually works!! Haha. Steph can sleep standing up or sitting down. I wanna learn also!! =P Small Kelvin can go on stoning for god-knows-how-long w/o closing his eyes. Muahahaha.
Some ppl in the grp has special talents too! Candy can do a split (n of cos she can smash tiles, woohoo!!). Steph can roll her eyes like the MSN eye-rolling emoticon (I bet u can't do it! Ur eyes will juz go in a diamond shape, haha). Josh & Weihan can sit with their feet pressing against each other with their legs flat on the floor & bend their whole upper body forward (which is difficult for guys cos they r less flexible than gers). As for me, I can whistle thru my teeth!! Haha. As for all of us, we can pluck Tai Nam's hair!! Haha. Anyway, I shall elaborate on the last sentence when I get hold of the team's journal, =P.
I learnt to realise that I'm not that optimistic bout life afterall. The ppl over there r even more happy-go-lucky than me! They learnt to 4get bout what they have lost during the tsunami & went on with life. If u tok to some of the villagers (those who can somehow talk in English), u realised that they dun tok bout wat they have lost during the tsunami but rather how they escaped the claws of Death and wat happened aft that. A mother of a then 1-month old baby and a 4-year old daughter ran for her life carrying the 2 young ones. Their house was only about 50m away from the coastline. 2 children (they r siblings) of ard 10 to 12 years old climbed a coconut tree to avoid the waves. The temporary sheltered homes (made of wood) that they are staying in now, were all built by them.
B4 I embark on this trip, I was quite disappointed when I get to know that we'll be building beds n shelves instead of houses. Aft this trip, I learnt that building beds n shelves is not as easy as we think, especially when the wood that came in were RAW materials -- the wood were cut from the trees and delivered to us -- no other process were done in between. Turns out that the wood came in different sizes and we had to do mix n match & also sawing. Hammering the nails is a skill too. U've to make sure that when u do nailing, the nails won't protrude out of the wood. There's a technic to hammering too so that u won't waste energy: u need to use ur wrist to swing the hammer like a pendulum instead of juz hitting the nails straight. Though we were quite xia suay cos the locals did a better job than us, we really did our best. Some of us even got v bad blisters on the palms (I didn't cos I din do much sawing).
Other than these, there's some more little things that I've learnt. Of cos I've learnt a few pronunciation for Sinhalese (their words are hard to write...), but still v little as compared to Josh, haha. I learnt to do a balloon sculpture on dog. Thanx to Miss Liu (Qiulin) who taught us balloon sculpture & to overcome our fear on twisting the balloons. I learnt that hermit crabs pinches like crabs too (cos Chris was pinched by 1). I learnt that touching the burning part of a mosquito coil is super painful (me & Cai stepped on mosquito coil while Chris got burnt by 1 when she was sleeping). I realised that I'm not used to short fingernails cos I cut em b4 I went Sri Lanka. I learnt to scold ppl in front of em while smiling (of cos the ppl dun understand Mandarin, haha).
And the list goes on.....
All in all, this trip is a v fruitful one and I nv regret joining Operation Orion'05. I shall upload the photos and team's journal in the time to come. Meanwhile... I need to look for a job. Pls tell me if u've lobangs!!
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