Part II :



Influenced them to put up my infamous V pose!


To them its luxury
I learned their usual fare consists of only boiled cabbage with rice. The way she slurp it up made magiee manufacturers proud.



Brave girl had a badly infected wound. She was limping around and caught the attention of our trained nurse who sat her down and cleaned up her pus-caked cut. She washed, she dug at it and brave girl kept a smile thru-out! It was painful alrite, she tensed and clenched her teeth at times. I felt so sore and held her hand while the cleansing was in process. After cleaning and dressing up her wound, she went to play hopscotch in the dirt..geez..



Things we did together. Taught the alphabets, simple english vocabulary, shared stories about Jesus birth in the manger and coloured 'Jesus Loves You' pictures.



We gave out blankets, clothes, toys and some medical supplies.

Siam: Deep in the forest down some creek, 'Silent Night' could be heard at a little Karen village..

+ It was the most romantic outback stay. mosquito nets (pink!) lined the ceiling. tons and tons of blankets as cushions and covers for the cold. Candles burning dimly at some corner. All snuggled alongside each other falling aslp to lull of crickets and snores.

+ Was adventurous enough to bathe by the icy river. Amid washing hair Timotei style, heard my travel buddy Joyce laughing. Looked up and saw my Rejoice shampoo bobbing along with the current downstream. Ran after it for dear life creating big splish-splash. Places like these, I need my damn shampoo. Rescued it alrite.

+ 'Ter Berlerk' (made-up spelling) is Karen for 'What's your name'. We kept asking each other till it's like some form of greeting. To me, they all looked the same differentiated only by the clothes they never change out of. To them, we all looked the same too. I introduced myself as my chinese name 'Su Jun' , 'Cherandy' would be a real challenge I reckon. They got the hang of it and kept calling out 'Su Jun' just to evoke a response from me. Be it a look, a smile, a wave sometimes even a 'What/Simi?' from me. Initially I trained them to call me 'Chiobu' just for the fun of it. But dropped it as it became too gross for me to handle.

+ Early morn. Brushing my teeth at the washing area. "Su Jun, Su Jun". I looked up and saw a bunch of them across the grasspatch. I waved and they waved back amused. Continued brushing "Su Jun, Su Jun". Waved again. This happened afew times and became quite routine.

+ A platform of wood slabs was put together near our house. We lined blankets on it and snuggled under more blankets while staring out at the stars. The max no. of shooting stars under 2hrs was 6.

+ I imagined myself being tied-down with the bridge building but the truth is, there really wasnt much we could do. The best we could offer was to transport planks. I find myself more drawn to the educational class we conducted. This is where I could interact with them the most and is also the most cherished episode of my trip. We sang songs, taught the alphabets tho I guess they have hardly a clue what was being sung, they sang along anyhow. Languages,cultures are no barrier when there are smiles and love being displayed. Imagine Captain's Ball and Poison Ball was played there. Imagine the word 'Chiobu'could be heard at that part of the world..

to be continued..

Changmai Missionary Trip 2004

Tribes we'll be visiting: Karen and Hmong
- Karen Beeyawta Village School
- Panakok Hmong Village
Building Bridge and Teach (I'm sooo looking forward to the Bridge Building but doubt I'll be much of a help anyway).

Allocated Departure Baggage - 5kg Hand Carry , 7 kg Check-In (this is for ladies. Men 5kg Chk-In)
Climate: 15+ degrees by day, below 10 by night. No fear of mosquitos = probability of Malaria minimal.
Taking a chance with Cholera so no jabs taken.
Dysentery - Charcoal pills should provide some relief.

I'm so gonna try find me some elephants to ride!

Santa would most prob trip and fall visiting a particular unit in Ah Hood Road..

Christmas is approaching and this year i would really like a Christmas tree but my mom is right, our house is always in such a big mess there wouldnt be a clean spot for the tree.
The last tree we had since pri school had lost all its 'leaves'. It was a real plasticky tree that had leaves slotted into branches slotted into the tree. Few years back I tried to set it up but it looked so ugly cos we lost most of the leaves and if they were still around, most were pressed out of shape. And I bet like most of you, come Chinese New Year, the tree would still be glittering with neon bulbs and laden with cotton snow.
So I looked around and felt books have got to be the most common in my HDB flat. We have a total of 7 bookshelves overflowing with it. The Genre is wide: "Chen Style Taichichuan", "The Complete Medicinal Herbal", "How to Get Extraordinary Results from Ordinary People", "Mastering WordPerfect 5" (do people still use WordPerfect these days?), "New Syllabus Mathematics (latest edition, revised edition, complete edition etc)". We've long ran out of space for bookshelves, hence piles of it are stacked neatly at some corner. Occasionally pile would topple over and stuff at the bottom rises up to the top. Upon entering flat for the first time, friends would almost always display the by now classic expression. Imagine dropped jaws and a 'wah...' followed by long pause. One thing's for sure, our unit would burn the brightest if there's ever a fire hazard.

Random clutter-check:
1. two refrigerators

2. four TVs (1 not working but not disposed of bcos 'it can be fixed')

3. three VCR recorders (1 not working but same as above)

4. four vacumn cleaners (1 not working but same as above)

5. three iron (1 short circuited when my mom last used it, not disposed just cos its simply not disposed of)

6. twelve phone sets!! (4 connected, the rest is spoilt in some ways. Not disposed cos I'm beginning to suspect we have a fetish for these instruments.)

7. five desktops (3 in use while the rest is being kept as antiques)

8. four laptops (2 in use while the rest were 2nd-hand bought at very good rates but with no planned purpose of use)

And I hafen got to the kitchen...

I Sing, You Like, I'm Your Idol..

Caught the final ep. of the Singapore Idols last night and I'm happy Taufik clinched it. Not a supporter of both finalist but just by the fact that I cant stand Sylvester with all his excessively 'cute' actions puts me off and had me rooting for Taufik by default. When Gurmit announced the voting had ended Sly actually 'pretended' to cry. Just by that alone makes me feel like hitting him.

Taufik is undeniably a better singer and has stronger stage prescence but I doubt his career as an idol will have much development. Sly on the other hand might stand better chance.