The Trip To Taiping

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum =D

On 23^rd May until 25^th May, I went to Taiping for Program Za’ba Undergraduate Motivation 2008 (PROZUM) at Sekolah Menengah Teknik Taiping. The program included motivation activities for the Form 4 boys and girls of the school, volunteering work at Taiping Zoo, Explorace at the Taiping Park, visit to the Rumah Sri Kenangan whereby this is the FIRST time I went to an old folks home, Forum Perdana, expedition climbing Maxwell Hill, the kids performed for us and the saddest moment of all is when the kids lined up while we were all in the bus and saluted us and then waved us goodbye~

Participating in programs like this makes me love the teaching profession more as I was the facilitator of group 1 and the groups were named after a traditional delicacy. The 3 boys and 3 girls in my group agreed to be called LEPAT, hehe

I spent a lot of time with them, pulled out weeds at the zoo while chatting away with them, whining to be let go off quickly as I could hear the lions and tigers roaring my name, hehe, forced to participate in the Explorace with these kids and getting all sunburned while rushing to complete the tasks and teaching these kids strategies and how to cheat (a bit) in some tasks (what the organizers don’t know won’t hurt them, huhu), shared stories about what we got throughout meeting the various old folks, climbed Maxwell Hill with them and one of them said, kakak ni mmg bestla panjat bukit dgn kami, and compelled me to play hopscotch with them as part of the act, hehehe

I missed them dearly and treasured all those moments with these kids, they were amazing and SO CUTE! At first, they were so shy but I pestered them to talk and no one is allowed to NOT voice out anything! At the zoo, these kids were probably rolling out their eyes because I was more eager than them when walking around the zoo capturing pictures and talking to the zookeeper to gain information. For the Explorace, I kept telling them that they can do it! The funniest part was the Fear Factor task whereby we had to eat bread with chilies, crackers with some sort of spices, a lemon, sweets mixed with salt and Arif had to chug down coffee that was only mixed with water! Eeww! And he did it while holding his nose! And it was sooo funny that I laughed until the whole Explorace finished! I only regretted that I didn’t think of taking his picture! He’s so cute!

It was an eye-opener when I visited the old folks’ home. I have never been to one and even though I was extremely sleepy (the trip was after the break which was after the Explorace), I perked up when I came close to some of the old folks to hear their stories and the stories were SAD – that’s what I can sum up about the trip…

But I loved watching those kids approaching the elderly and wanting to know their stories, they were aware that it was all experience and lessons for them and it touched my heart that all the boys and girls wanted to know and learn. And then we would meet at the middle and exchanged stories…

That old lady said that her son was a drunk and that she didn’t care if he visits her.
That old man wanted to cry when I asked him about his family, so I had to change the subject, fast!
That old man said that he divorced his wife, why keep a horrible woman as a wife!
That old lady thanks us for visiting her as her children never do.

And then there were the mentally unstable…

What saddens me most is that we watched them as they were locked up because they were aggressive. It was like back at the zoo as we watched them wide-eyed and we tried to talk to them but we couldn’t at all make out what they’re saying. We crowded around the compound separated by the gate and I hated for feeling like as if they were some sort of freak show but they were so…sigghh~

This program was organized by my block at college, Block B so I’m pretty proud of the whole organization, hehe, my only grouses would be that I didn’t get to go around the whole of the zoo due to time constraints but that’s my only grumble because apart from that, I loved everything especially the kids, how I love the kids! ^_^