The Bus Is My Other Car.

Busy like hell before school starts... - Sandcastle Building

In SMU, school starts before academic lessons begin. I was really busy after I've changed my strategy - I'd want to clear at least two-thirds, if not all of the compulsory 80 hours of community involvement before school starts. So I emailed Project Summer on Sands (SOS) on 11 July, in the midst of my Summer Term, to ask if a last-minute insertion was possible.

The following Saturday 19 July, I met my SOS group at Bedok Interchange. Thanks to Iris, I was 20 minutes late. To my embarrassment, a group of ladies were waiting for me. I realise to my horror later that I was the only guy in the group. We took 197 instead of 401 to the destination. But thankfully I was late, for if I hadn't been, I'd not have known that I could walk over to Castle Beach from Siglap. 19 Aug was my first sandcastle building training, so was it for the majority of my group members. The weather turned stormy before we started, and we had to seek shelter in tents on the beach. I was wet and cold. The next day, we had the same training, but the weather was good.

In my opinion, manual labour beats selling flags. I did one full day of 'sales' at Marine Parade on 21 July. Initially there were two full days of sales but the second day was cancelled and replaced by a beneficiary visit. For someone who hates streets-sales, doesn't believe in flag selling and hates rejections, the donation has to come from himself. Fortunately, the facilitator for sales that day didn't believe in flag selling so we weren't pressured to sell.

22 July - Beneficiary visit to Chong Zheng Primary School. Our mission was to befriend a primary school student in En Community Service's after-school care and try to probe, as much as possible, about their family situation. I was assigned to Kervin, a cute primary 4 boy who has a strong interest in insects and drawing. He has another friend who shares the similar interest in the after-school care too, so together his friend's befriender also, we were running around with them around the school field and eco-garden to look at insects. We also played soccer. My school-mate wasn't really tactful in eliciting info from her student, so she got a scolding from the student for probing. "Can you stop asking about my family?!" he shouted. Thanks to regular sharing by papa and mama about their counselling sessions at CDAC, I was able to befriend Kervin, then find out about his family situation.

For the next three days, we had 'full day' sandcastle building, although the sessions were in two parts - from 9am to 12noon, and 4pm to 7pm. For the first day, my group headed to Changi Airport for lunch and the clean toilets. On the second day, we stayed behind to guard the bags. I had Roxy Laksa at East Coast Lagoon Food Centre. Also found a travel buddy :). On the third day, I had half a day training as there was OCS briefing and econs pre-camp dinner (at New York New York).

The actual event was on Saturday 26 July. Guest of Honour was Mr Teo Ser Luck. The sandcastles were magnificent. Children from the beneficiaries came and played on the beach. After the event, the barricades were removed and our sandcastles stand in the path of destruction, be it nature or man-made. Kind of sad when the event was over...

posted by 23degreecelsius @ 2:51 PM