The school as usual has provided us with a one-way transport to our venue. Though it was quite near our school, but I can assure you that if I were to be going there by myself, I won't be able to even locate it with my poor sense of direction! LOL! The home was very---ulu..it was hidden deep inside a corner of the estate. There is a narrow pathway joined at the main road and a small inconspicuous sign leading to the home.
The building of the home was very run-down, a fresh coat of paint was badly needed to liven up the surroundings. It was really a stark contrast to the new condos outside the home opposite the main road. The compound was rather clean but the atmosphere was bad---it was gloomy...
The senior nurse, nurse Lee, brought us to the small conference room. Inside the conference room, there was this "high-honour" board that took up 3/4 of the right-side of the wall, was used to record down the donors and their significant amount of money donated generously to the home as a form of appreciation. Surprisingly, almost all the amount contributed was 5-figure digits, near towards the high end. I was wondering why with such sufficient amount of funds, the condition of the home should be more chirpy.
This query was answered shortly when nurse Lee began the introduction and the briefing of what we would be doing for the next 4 hours. The home consisted of 84 resisdents, age ranging from 4-61 years old. All of them were phyically disabled, while some were also intellectually or were slightly mentally disabled. Most of the care-takers were fillippinos and they lived in dormitories, segregrated at one side of the building.
Since we would also be helping to feed the resisdents as drafted in our proposal, we were also told that there were different diets catering to different residents. Some were on the full (normal) diet, while others were on soft or liquid diets. A small minority of them had to be fed through tubes, which I presumed they were on liquid diet, required more professional help. Some of the young children required special formula milk. One tin of such milk powder (dunno how big the tin is) can fetch up to the price of $30/tin! Expensive tins of milk powder, diapers (all resisdents wore diapers), accomadation, labour... No wonder there wasn't much funds left for infrastructure.
We also went for a tour around the building. Some of the wards were filled with those funny-sourly smell which maybe due to the lack of exposure of the sun. It was quite scary at the first go. It seemed that we had stepped into some kind of mental institution as some of the residents, sitting on wheelchairs along the corridors, kept screaming, making strange noises, while others were bound onto the bed or their hands were swaddled with cloth to prevent them from constantly scratching themselves, kept twitching and turning on the bed. It was later explained that these movements were just involuntary actions which they used to express themselves.
The most memorable time would be the feeding session. I had never done anything like this before, so initially I thought it might be quite a simple task. Afterall, it was feeding, in another way, it was eating!! Everybody's favourite!! But, nay, there were some skills and techniques invovled. It was not as easy as it sounds like.
I was assigned to feed this blind male resident who is on soft diet. He was bornt in 1987 as written, 2 years older than me. I was given a bowl of porridge and was instructed to stir constantly, make sure that it was not too hot for eating. At the 1st attempt, I placed the spoonful of porridge near to his mouth, but his didnt respond. Ms Liao then helped me by placing it onto his lips and tadaa--- he opened his mouth and gulped down the porridge. Feeding took up about 20 mins, occassionally I accidentally dripped some porridge at the corners of his lips and was constantly wiping his lips with the cloth placed around his neck.
Through this CIP, I felt more thankful to just been borned healthy with normal limbs. I perenially complained about how short I am, how unlucky I am, how.... Looking beneath these grumbles carefully, actually that's just some superficial stuff that holds not much agony.
