Serve Thailand 2005
Ngee Ann Poly
10-23 Oct 2005
One Heart Touching Many Hearts
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Today we did commnuity work for the ex-leprosy patients by cleaning up their wards at the Silva Home at Buangkok. Mr Ben and Mrs Jenny made arrangements with Gladys, who is from the Leo Club of Singapore Metropolitan, for Serve Thailand 2005 to do community work there so that we can serve and bond together and prepare for the trip.
There were 3 meeting avenues, one at Ang Mo Kio Mrt, one at Seng Kang, and the last directly at the Silva Home, 9am. All of us attended and contributed to the cleaning of the home. We mainly cleaned up level 2 wards. With all the arms in hand(rags, brooms, mops, water), we set about making the wards a better place to live in. The work was distributed among us and we started cleaning and scrubbing and washing the dirt off this place. With not a moment to lose, we raged war on the filth in the wards. There were 2 wards on level 2, so we divided ourselves.
Some of us cleaned the beds, some did the walls and railings, some did the windows and mainly the guys did the fans and changing of water... Our rags became dirt black within a moment, from cleaning the many beds in there to scrubbing of the dirt of windows and railings, the water was changed so frequently as it turned black the moment clean water was splashed inside.. We worked and worked, our arms and backs were aching from all the cleaning. We had a break in between, water and snacks were provided. We took the time to stretch out and relax our aching bodies. After that, it was back to work. This time, we raged war on the floor. There was a mini flood and grime was stuck all over. So we set to work. Some of us continued on cleaning the windows, fans and beds, while some attempted to rid the floor of the flood and dirt. There was only one pipehole where we can push the water into, so we swept and mopped, trying to push the water down the hole, but the hole was too far and the water kept flowing back. Kinda unsuccessful. So the guy told us to get rid of the dirt off the floor and after that he'll use the hose to wash everything away. We took all the weapons we could find, mops, brooms,dustpans and that 'rake' or whatever its called, and sweep and scrub and mop... quite tough as the stains are very stubborn. There were not enough tools to go around, so Mr Ben told us to use our feets, which we discovered were alot more useful to get the stubborn stains off. After the 'hosing', we proceeded again to rid the room of water. But it seems they are forever there. We worked together in sweeping them to the toilets where there's a pipehole, mini tsunami, or so we termed it. After much hard work and 'fun', we got rid of most of the water and Mr ben told us to let the fans dry them. We proceeded to lunch. Oh yea, did i mention Mr Tan broke 2 tools while working, soooo hardworking.
Lunch consisted of chicken rice, charsiew, egg, shao rou... a mixture of 2 in different lunch boxes.. it was sponsored by some organisation. There was enough to go for 2nd helping, but not many of us did. So after lunch, we headed for home.
It was our concentrated effort that managed to turn the wards into a clean, healthy living environment for these ex-leprosy patients. And we were glad to be given this chance.
4:35 PM
