project letpabya GATHERING!!!!!! YAYYAYAYY!!!

yoohoo!!! wow today's been a really fun day!!!! just got home not too long ago... actually felt super tired wanted to dive into bed and sink into oblivion, but huiting inspired me to write... cos she said that ppl who blogged once in awhile is quite disappointing to those who read their blogs... and i'm really happy that ppl are reading my blog! thx hee =D yay very happy just read an email from soe thihahahahahahha... told him i'm trying to lose weight and he said theres a saying in myanmar tt says you are prettier as you are fatter... =P so sweet right! haha but it doesnt apply in S'pore lah all the girls r rail-thin! i thank u on behalf of all the girls who desperately wish they have the money to go marie france slimming centre... =D

hmm wakey at ard 11+++ today... had a really late night finishing my meteor garden II vcds... oh but love the ending!!! v sweet. :)
first thg when i woke up, check on my cheesecake!!!! hee had a hard time trying to get it out of the springform tin lor... quickly chopped it up and delivered a HUGE slice to zhimin mama!!! to thank her for taking such gd care of me and all the sick ppl during the trip... wonder how we would have survived without her... actually i have to thank alot of ppl, but hmm bake for u all one at a time bah... =D

yar, had a really great talk with zhimin at lot 1's mcdonalds... showed her my fotos, then chatted abt the project for a long long while... finally understand y the seniors seem rather upset about the trip, cos i realise they had alot of aspirations for the project. zhimin told me abt the pyramid that proj letpabya hopes to achieve: firstly to act as santa claus and give out donations such as medicines and stationery, secondly to teach the kids, thirdly to teach the teachers. then to go on to give the teachers responsibilities, meaning they take over us as teachers, and finally EMPOWERMENT. this is the final goal the seniors have been striving hard to achieve... that is, the day will come when we no longer have to go back to letpabya, cos we would have on what we know to the teachers, and they will have incorporated this important knowledge into daily lessons in school...

i must say that prior to the trip, these things did not cross my mind at all. during the trip, when i was having lotsa fun, i did not tink of all these as well... but thru talking to zhimin, it was as though she "forced" me to tink abt why we r in letpabya in the first place... i pondered for awhile, then the fishing story came to mind. instead of giving the villagers the fishes we had caught, we should be teaching them how to fish. this is the only way we can truly make an impact on their lives, not by making our superstar appearance every year for the rest of our lives but by allowing them the chance to become independent of us. but then again, this leads to another mind-boggling question brought up by zhimin. these lessons that we are conducting, r they truly beneficial to the villagers?? we may be teaching them things like lighting mosquito coils and using the mosquito nets, but the truth is will they heed our advice? after all they have lead all their lives without being bitten by aedes or anopheles mosquitoes... how do we know if they truly follow our suggestions?? theres no way of collecting statistics, and no way of us doing house to house visits to survey the situation. and even if they really want to light mosquito coils, how many of them can afford the luxury of it?? it was indeed a "think think think" chat which made me realise alot of things that were so blatantly obvious to me before but which i did not really bother to sort my thoughts out about... i realise i took alot of things for granted before i went on the trip, becos no matter how hard we try to envision how different the situation is in letpabya, there will be things we fail to think of. like electricity that we always take for granted. when i visited the station hospital, the anti-venom was kept in a hole in the ground. i felt a strong need to do smthg for the hospital, and so i said to kok wee: y don't we buy them a fridge?? in my mind, every household in s'pore has a fridge so it should not be a problem. but kok wee brought me back to earth. where will they find the money to pay the electricity bill? and y bother to use a fridge when the electricity supply is not 100% guaranteed to be available? i was stunned. i was brought back to the local context. i felt really... how to say, full of heart to do smthing but lacking the means to do it. as the chinese saying goes: li bu chong xin. *sigh* as i talked to zhimin, everything became clearer to me. about y i went on the trip, about what i want to achieve for the trip, about the legacy we want to leave behind in letpabya. are we going to go back year after year to do the same things we always do? Just so because we are all so deeply in love with the village? to tell the truth, if she had not asked me all these, i would have been contented to go back to letpabya year after year, just so i can see the kids i've come to love, and meet up with the friends who have grown so dear to me. but this selfish enjoyment aside, i realise that i'm quite a myopic person. the trip is not for my enjoyment alone, the main focus was to benefit the village. i tink i lost focus along the way, in the sense that although i can say in all honesty i did my very best during all the lessons to ensure that the kids enjoyed and learned smthg, i failed to think of the future of the project. oh dear i finally realise how hard it is on the planners of the project. throughout our chat, we keep bringing up things like "must teach them how to fish", "cannot let the project stagnate"... much as i love the village, i guess the best gift we can give them would be to leave behind the skill of fishing, and then to leave the village and move on to another village who needs our help more. we thought about whether it is worthwhile to go back when we are not sure if they actually follow the preventive measures etc that we passed on to them. but to this i can only say: as long as there is one single individual who has gotten the message we wanted to bring across, then i will feel encouraged to go on. never mind that the effort we have to put in i tremendous, i feel that this kind of progress cannot be rushed. as long as we dont give up, as long as the passion lives on, someday somehow, we will be able to leave behind a life-long legacy in letpabya. we can do it!!! (adapted fr soe thihahahahhaha)we also talked about the ppl we helped out but in the end did not go on the trip... i tink what zhimin says is very true. that in order to really feel for the project, you must experience the trip for urself first-hand. the trip was the one thing in life i can say for sure i will never regret. before the trip, i was floundering quite helplessly cos i know absolutely nothing about snakebites!!! and i'm ashamed to say that i did not feel a strong urge to read up so that i can conduct proper lessons for the kids... but during the trip, after i've experienced myanmar hospitality, sang and laughed with the kids and our burmese friends, it was then i feel like doing smthing really great for them. to thank them for their warm welcome, unconditional acceptance of us into their daily lives, and their willingness to put up with our foreign ways (such as the undemureness most of us exhibited =P) i really really wanted to do smthg spectacular for them that will improve their lives by leaps and bounds! and i came to realise that it is only after you've been there that you can truly improve on the lessons... like snakebites, i've finally heard from the doctor what the situation is exactly like. i've found a focus, somewhere to work on. =)

following the thought-provoking session, i went orchard for proj letpabya gathering!!! ayayayayayaya!!!! huiting, sijin, mavis, sharon, xinyi, mich, shaofeng, yuyang, kok wee, jeremy, enhao, belinda, claudia, yunxin, tay zar and lin tun all turned up!!! i was really excited to see evryone again! but quite sad tt zhimin, rita, weijing, meizhen, longfang, sennie and ek khoon couldnt come... *gloom* hee after which the Great Photo Exchange took place!!! wah i lugged down my two humongously huge and heavy albums lor... almost died from the massive weight!!! hehe and brought down my cheesecake to "poison" everyone... which was promptly cake-napped by kok wee the pedophile who tried to pass it off as his creation GRRRRRR. then tay zar the shepherd tried to get us all moving, and after much serious discussion, we ended up at wheelock's nydc!!! yayay!!! (almost ended up at mc's or kfc lorrrr) and we still can't take our hands off the zillions of albums in circulation... ahah managed to tear ourselves away for a teeny while to order food. ahhhh was sooo nice reminscing about the village days!! i felt happy and contented, not like the hermit i've become since i've came back to s'pore... was telling claudia abt my anti-socialness since i came back, and how i hate orchard cos it seems so modern! signs and symptoms of Severe Myanmar Withdrawal Symptom =P had a good laugh over all the photos... discovered to our utmost shock (esp for shaofeng) tt theres actually a photo in which he was BEAMING!!! wow! must present award to him lor... =D no sign of his s'pore ah beng's The Look, hee. talked alot abt the days when we will all squeeze into lin tun's car, over 10+++ of us! abt the scandals btw xinyi n nyi hmwe, huiting and aung phyo ahhaha... and relived our diarrhoea days! hey we were even discussing our current loose bowel syndrome! woohoo in vivid technicolour detail smmore, ahha we were all quite gross... =P scolded lao ban for acting so demure when he took a pic with me... until i totally dont look demure lor! haha then had a secret discussion with sharon abt buying a bdae cake for the birthdays-ard-the-corner ppl, like lao ban, mavis, sijin, huiting n jeremy!!! too bad zhimin didnt cm =( ahh but due to sm trick of fate, sijin knew of it alas the surprise wasnt a surprise for her anymore... =(((( hee but was really fun cos we told the nydc ppl to put alot of candles on the cake!!! so in the end there were 20 candles on the cake hahaha... and the bdae ppl sat in order of "oldness", which coincidentally was in order of height teehee (oops sorry ting!) after tt we moved to lido to continue our chat!!! but most of the seniors left cos they still have lessons tmr... EXCEPT lao ban!!! wahhh so slack!!!! ehhehe we all admire his spirit man!!! at lido, huiting told us all abt her horrendous experience at work... sounds really tough!!! had to mop the floor, clean tables, clean utensils, memorise the menu, endure scolding when she spill water etc... poor thing!!! she even cried the day before, so sad! *patpat* hai. nvm thgs will get better!! jia you! and we continue to relive our myanmar experience... like how i got put on 2 drips, got 3 glucose injections and had my first ever dose of morphine!!! i remember myself saying nite to zhimin happily before i went into dreamland... really had a insipidly blissful feeling u know!!! ahhhaa. and huiting did an imitation of how okkar imitated sijin, herself, aung hein, ek khoon and kok wee... ahhaha v funny!!! and lin tun told us the difference btw electrical engineering (himself) and mechanical engineering (tay zar)... while e.e is more abt brains, m.e is more abt hands!! ahaha and happy-go-lucky tay zar juz answered with his signature reply: so? never mind what! hahahah and the memories just all flooded back =)

we finally said our goodbyes at ard 1040pm... yawn. i was dropping off to slp already by then!! too many late nights...zzz. was a nightmare as me n huiting ran after the bus!!! our albums were totally not light at all lorrr.... chatted on the bus, but now cant remember what leh! hmm. i'm getting old darn. ohhhhhh got home and saw tinky and diggy, my beloved dwarf hamsters... and i couldn't stand their accusatory stares!!! argh i'm so sorry will clean your cages tmr, promise!!! sob, i tink my hamsters must hate me...

yayyyy end of blog... time to happily sleep like a log... niteynite, slp tite tite! sigh, i miss the stars in myanmar... =P