5 May visit

Hi all! My group visited Mr. Tan followed by Mdm Tan and Mdm Chua. Mr. Tan’s house was quite clean so we didn’t have to the cleaning for him. But the bedbug problem persisted. The bedbugs are coming from the cracks in the ceiling so we helped him to seal the cracks using some paint. Having done that, we chatted with him while watching tv together. Quite a jovial and knowledgeable elderly!

We then moved on to Mdm. Tan’s house. As usual, we helped her sweep and mop the floor then had a chat with her. She looked quite cheerful that day when compared to the previous visit. As I’m not good at Hokkien so I just sat down while other volunteers did the talking:/

The last stop was Mdm. Chua’s place. She was feeling a bit unwell. She was also quite depressed that time because someone put some packed food outside her door while she already had her own food(she thought that the person gave her the food out of pity) and she couldn’t finish them. But her mood got slightly better later after we chatted with her.  Then we ended our day by having lunch together at Mdm. Ho’s house. Well that’s all..see u all soon;)

csf

it's me again!

hello. this shall be a short post. we had 8 ppl in total today, surprisingly little considering that exams have ended. my group went to mr lin's house first. he was reluctant to let us clean his house at first, cos he said that some multinational company will be repainting his flat next saturday, and that they will help him clean the house as well. however, looking at the state things were, we carried on with the cleaning still. we swept and scrubbed the floor, as well as the toilet, and it is now clean and sparkly! see photos for evidence! good job yi an, shawn tan and kaisheng! :) we probably have to get more detergent and a mop drying plate for him though.

then we went on to mdm ho's house. she told us about her trip to japan, and dug out the caps that she got from the trip. she also mentioned that she'll teach us how to cook curry chicken!!! yay so looking forward to that! but the rest didnt want me to eat, and inisisted having the cook-out on 16 june *sobs* but noooo, i shall get the coconut milk, so dont fight with me k! :) oh and mdm ho missed quite a few ppl like jerome, hui ting, boon yong etc. do visit her soon if you see this k! oh we had lunch with mdm ho at her place too and that more or less rounded up our visit. as i'm leaving in a few days, i'll really miss the elderly greatly. :/ but it's okay, june will come by very soon! look forward to mdm ho's signature dish! aroy maak!

yinmin

last visit before exams!

Had a fulfiiling visit today! I’m sure those in my group would feel the same way too. :)

So we started off today’s visit with Mr Tan’s house and were greeted by his usual big smile. He told us that he bought a bottle of silicon sealant and needed our help in sealing the cracks on the walls and ceiling cos those were the openings through which the bedbugs enter his house. He has been experiencing this bedbug problem for a long time, and he even threw away his bed and wardrobe to keep the bedbugs away. We fiddled with it for a long while before the guys finally went downstairs to buy a caulking gun. Then began the sealing of cracks and fixing of lightbulb while we girls watched on.. :P

Mr Tan told us that he needed a new coat of paint to seal the gaps between the cracking paint too. Oh and he also offered us some dried preserved fruit (forgot what it was, but it was nice!).

After that we went to Mdm Ho’s house. We swept up many cockroaches as usual, but the coackroach trap thingy that yi an bought worked quite well. We also pulled the old luggage out to clean the area underneath her bed, and discarded this box of glassware that was filled with all sorts of dead bugs. The contents were washed and wrapped in fresh newspaper. Just a passing thought, it’s strange how we work so hard to keep the homes of these elderly clean when we don’t even bother to make our own beds haha. Oh well, guess the motivation is stronger when u’re actually doing for people you care for a lot. :D And Mdm Ho kept asking where yi an was, saying that he would have finished the free pack of fried rice if he was there, cos we kept rejecting her offer. Hehe! :D

After lunch I went back to check on Mdm Tan, cos we didn’t visit her today. When I reached there, I saw her emoing in her chair. Think she must be thinking about her son again. So I went in and chatted with her for a while. I realized it really is scary to live your life alone when you can barely see, and sad to not be able to see and recognize the people whom you care for as well as those who care for you. Though Mdm Tan sounded very resigned but it really was heartening to see how positive she remains by going for morning exercise everyday and participating actively in the activities at SAC to distract herself from all her unhappiness. As she likes to say, “开心也得过日子，不开心也得过日子， 不如快快乐乐地过每一天”(in hokkien). Really take my hat off to her. :)

Anyway, it was a great visit today. Last visit before exams! But it’s okay, let’s mug hard and we’ll see the elderly again in three weeks’ time. Jiayou everyone, if u read this post in time hehe. AJA AJA! :D

yinmin

31st March Visit!

Hi guys. Hope you all had a great weekend!

We had our usual visit on 31/03/2012. Was late for facilitation with Criss hahaha. There was a community event that day, so many seniors including Mdm Cheong were not at home. My group of 6 visited Mdm Ho and the legen-(wait for it)-dary Mr Lin, whereas the other group visited Mdm Chua and Mr Tan.

First up, we visited Mdm Ho. We helped her to get new boxes of tissues at the grocery shop nearby, as well as to help clean up her flat. After which, we made her the THE Seniors souvenir and helped her to fix her framed photo.

Buay hiao bai a bit, designed by Wynne, Criss and I! I cut out the sun and I'm very proud of it hahaha :D Hope Mdm Ho likes it :)

Fixing the photo frame.

Next up, we visited Mr Lin. During Facilitation, Mr Lin said that apparently, a group of volunteers came to his flat and cleaned up. Nonetheless we proceeded with visiting him, albeit like barging in hahaha. The flat didn't feel like it has been cleaned the previous day, there were grains of rice and dirt everywhere. That's why his house is notoriously legendary. So we got down to work and cleaned up his place, including the sink cabinet where we found a dead lizard (photo can be found on Criss' Facebook profile). Expired food was also cleared from his 'war supplies'. These war supplies included sacks of rice infested with weevils, and he gives them to the foreign workers for consumption! So during debrief, Wynne mentioned that we should not only help clean up the folks' homes, but also to educate them on how to maintain basic cleaniness.

And that sums up our visit on the 31st. Looking forward to the next one! :D

-Jeremy

GUESSING TIME!

HELLO ALL,

Sorry for the late post! this post shall be interesting!

So ... on 17th march, we visited the elderly as usual. since the elderly assigned to our group seem happy happy, and we have nothing much to do, we decided to .. TAKE PHOTOS!

GUESS WHO THEY ARE! FIRST TO GUESS ALL CORRECTLY SHALL WIN A LOLLIPOP FROM WYNNE! :)

a)

b)

c)

d)

POST YOUR ANSWERS ON FACEBOOK NOW!

*people who were in my group are not allowed to participate.

Regards,

Wynne

17 March Visit=)

Mdm Chow's biscuits

I am so sorry because I was supposed to log for the previous time but I totally forgot what happened for the last visit I went for. So i tried to made it up by volunteering to blog this time:p There were relatively few volunteers for visit. There were only 8 volunteers for this visit. My group consisted of Swee Fen, Chen zhang(I am sorry if I got the spelling wrong), Yi An and Yin Min.

We visited Mdm Tan first and made the momento for her. She was very unhappy and stressed because it seems that her elder son was hospitalised and was going to be discharged soon. But the elder son's wife is a Malaysian and was not in Singapore to take care of the elder son. The elder son bought a flat together with his brother, but the brother seems unwilling to let the elder brother stay in his house, so they suggested to let the elder son stay in Mdm Tan's house. But Mdm Tan was worried that she could not even see properly and could not even take care of herself, how can she take care of the son. Furthermore, the son seem to have kidney problem and have to undergo dialysis. She is very worried about the hospital bill as well. When we are making the momento for her, she said actually we no need to do this for her becasue she cant even see. She said it is hard for her to feel truly happy nowadays=( Feels really sad to hear her saying that. She said she is already living on her own so that she wouldnt be a burden to her family but now her elder son has to contract such an illness. So if we do visit her in future visit we should try to talk to her more, encourage her to face life more positively. Also she has been coughing for almost a month already. If we do visit her in the future, do make sure she takes her medication. Because she said before due to her vision problem, she will accidentally pour her medication away, causing her to be afraid to take the medicine because she is scared that she will waste the mediaction. (my English sucks, please pardon me=x)

Next my group split up. Yi an, swee fen and chen zhang visited Mr Chiu while Yin Min and I visited Mdm Chow Moi. Mdm Chow Moi told us her house is always very clean because there is a female volunteer who will clean her house almost daily. But she doesnt know where the volunteer was from. She say she is happy enough that people are willing to help her so she doesnt ask much. Always feel very happy when I see her. She is always so positive with life. She says she like to watch tv show with little kids/youngsters fighting. Haha. She also say when seh feels hungry at night she will just wake up to eat some biscuits. And we realised her house really have alot of biscuits. We also played with a torch-light thing in her house. We were rather fascinated at how the lighting will change everytime we pressed the button.

Last but not least, we visited Mr Lin! His house was not very clean but still better than the first time we visited him. There were rice grains all around his house. Yinmin realised he has the (do u call it special?) ability to spit rice out even though he ate kway teow for luch@.@ There was a stove on his ktchen floor and when Yi an asked him about it, he said it was bigger than what he preferred. So he didnt use it. We also threw some spoilt brinjal and biscuit away. He keeps alot of drinks in his fridge. So when we visit him in the future, we should check whether the drinks has expired already or not since he could not see clearly. I invented a way to mop his floor which is rather effective in removing the stains on his floor. (right yinmin?=p)

Yup that's all for the visit yesterday=)

Sheng Xian

Our lovely Saturday Affair :DD

Sorry everyone for my late post! Finally ended my mid terms today! :DD WEEEEE.

Last last Saturday my group visited Mr Tan and Mdm Ho’s house. We
did the usual cleaning for Mr Tan’s house and we realized that Mr Tan
has been facing the problem of being bitten by bed bites. He has
difficulties sleeping at night as that would be the time when the bed
bugs are out and active. He has highlighted this problem to the people
from touch and they have helped him purchased a bottle of chemical for
his bed bug problems. As such, we might want to check with him during
the next visit to see whether the problem is still persisting. Also, Mr
Tan has been coughing during our last visit. We may want to check
whether he is feeling better during our next visit.

After which, we visited Mdm Ho’s house. She wasn’t really feeling well during our
last visit and she was taking Panadol to relieve her pain. Thus, I think we should
check whether she is feeling better during our next visit. Nonetheless, Mdm Ho seem bubbly and cheery on that day. We did our usual cleaning as well during our stay at Mdm Ho’s house and we took pictures with her to conclude our trip! Here are the pictures as
promised:

I will get these pictures printed out
really soon as Mdm Ho wants the pictures. Yuppp. Seee everyone during
the next visit! <3

Carline