Wednesday, January 26, 2005
The Boy...
Let's see, I have refrained myself from blogging about all the sadness or anything that touches my heart in Cambodia. I wanted to stop feeling depress. Imagine this, My second day in Cambodia, we visited the Toul Sleng museum which was the concentration camp used by the Pol Pot regime during tha Cambodian Civil war in the 1970s. Then in the school itself, we saw how the kids and gals struggled just to study and at the same time make a living. We also went to Poncherai village which i will talk abt later. When we backpacked to Vietnam, we went to the War Remnants museum and they had real exhibition portrayal of the Vietnam war, all the atrocities done by the American soldiers. It was then that i found out the real history. When U are studying history, you dun really feel the horrid events but when u visit these places, the events haunts u for nights.
After the museum, we went to the Chu Chi tunnel where the Viet Cong army bravely fought and won the Americans. Again all the horrid events haunt me when I sleep.
When I was at the hotel, just came back from Chu Chi, I read the news on the Internet and was shocked and traumatised about the tsunami wave that hits Asia.
Therefore, you can imagine, how depressed I was. I was so depressed dat I was tired and sick of it!So depress that when I reached Thailand I didn't wanna visit any ruins or museums or anything that reminds me of horrid events in history.I didn't wanna be reminded of that emotion when I come back but then I realised, I can't escape from it.
Back to what I wanna write today, something that really touches my heart when I was in Cambodia. We went to Poncherai Village Don Bosco school to visit the children on a Sunday morning. It's not supposed to be a school day but the kids were there to welcome us with such sincerity and energy.
We only came prepared to carol for them but then, we felt it wasn't enough because we were touched by them. Therefore, we sang and dance for them(impromtu....we are quite good at doing inpromtu stuffs)and they joined in.
Then we gave out toys for them...The donated items.Bear in mind that the donated items are hand me down toys and not new toys.Yet, these children smile so widely when we placed the toy in their hands.
The boy. He had a normal look on his face. A straight face. One dat instills no feeling, devoid of emotion. When I hand him the pokemon toy, his face lit up instantly, a sincere smile, a smile that brighten up his eyes and definitely my day. It then dawn on me that that kind of smile is priceless. A smile that he don't give everyday.
Imagine a Singapore kid with that toy, the hand-me-down pokemon toy.My bet is the kid will refuse to share with his/her siblings or that within 2, the most 4 days, the toy will not be cared for and will be left to collect dust. And then his mom will pack the toy and donate it to YEP grps to be donated to children like dat particular boy.
I was so happy when i saw the boy smile like dat. I followed him around after everything ended. He walked home barefooted and his sister greeted him somewhere along the path. He went up to his 2 yr old sister and gave her that pokemon toy which made him smile. I know I was touched at that vey moment but I also know that what I was feeling was something more than just dat- being touched. Then, Sister Ophuni (the head nun in that school) came up to me and whispered "Do you know that the boy has aids?" What was i to feel then? That 5 year old boy who acts so cheerful and takes care of his sister so dearly is suffering from an incurable disease. I cried but stopped when the boy who piggy-back his sister came up to me and told his sister to greet me "Jum riep su, teacher" (Hello teacher)
All this while, I thought that I was burden with my own family problems but the 5 year old boy taught me something. Life is full of ups and downs-yes u've heard dat before but how many of us actually believe dat and tried to make the most of that? The downs in our lives will only pull us down if we drag ourself along with it. If we choose to live up the downs, our lives will be so fulfilling like dat of the 5 year old boy.
Until now, I will always remember that boy especially his smile. That priceless smile. I can never ever, ever smile like that!
x Fizzzzzz shouted out loud 6:54 PM x
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