Uni-Y@NUS: Vietnam YEP – Project Sparkle! Part II

Hello! I'm back to post Part II! =) The main things we did in the YEP trip were painting and teaching the kids at the primary school. It was truly a memorable and fun experience for me. It was the first time in my life using paintbrushes and the paint roller thingy and I guess it's probably the same for the others as well. Certainly, we were not as adept at the 2 professional workers hired to do the jobs, but we all had definitely put in our best effort in painting and scraping and stains-removing! =)

It was pretty tough work! My favourite task was actually painting the windows and doors coz I would feel a greater sense of accomplishment when I see the windows and doors turning from rusty grey to completely blue as I paint and paint, compared to whitewashing the walls where there appeared to be only slight visible changes as we were painting coz the walls were already relatively white (thanks to the workers ;) ). However, the smell of the blue paint was super strong and pungent. I was torn between whether to wear my mask to protect my nose or to go without it to get some oxygen.

I was most afraid of getting the paintbrushes and paint rollers dirty by the dust and dirt on the walls coz the dirt would be spread on the walls by the brushes and it would be difficult to get rid of the dark patches after that. We had to go over the dark patches with white paint several times. It was worse when the blue paint got onto the white walls coz it was even more difficult to cover. Lucky we had Gilbert to help remove the stains with the tinner =) Tho the tinner caused some mishap to one of our teammates (but fortunately no permanent harm done. whew!)

Due to my height I was a shoo-in for the task of painting the top parts of the walls. It was quite tiring and it kinda made me vertiginous coz I had to climb up and down the bench repeatedly to refill the paint and then paint the walls. I also learnt that if I pressed the rollers too hard against the wall or if I rolled the rollers too fast I'll get 'white rain' all over myself and others who happened to be painting next to me. =P

Over the duration of the trip I encountered about 5 lizards. It was horrible. I encountered 1 at the hotel restaurant (it was later murdered by Han Sheng, if I rmb correctly =P) The other lizards were encountered at the school while painting. I was so afraid that a lizard would suddenly jump out and land on me while I was painting the upper parts of the walls. I would most probably just freak out and fall backwards without caring what's behind me. So thankfully, that did not happen. The lizards were very fat. I saw a lizard which was so black and so fat it was disgusting. >_< Ok enough about lizards.

Below are some pictures of us painting. Over the 2 weeks we managed to finish about 5 classrooms I think.

The classrooms we had worked on

The kids came to greet us outside the school =)

Karen and Gilbert concentrating on their tasks =)

Child labour =P (The little boy volunteered to help us paint lol)

4 painters to a window – rushing to finish…once start, cannot stop lol (painting the windows' kinda addictive haha)

Shawn's makeshift protective gear coz he lost his cap

Taking a break!

Looking shag

Time-saving method of painting--- Do not learn =P

Our ad models for Uni-Y Construction Company Pte Ltd =P

Whitewashing the walls

难兄难弟

The sink where A Feng lives (this shot seems to have a creepy effect, no?)

Those who were not painting were allocated to teach the kids for that day. Teaching was very fun! The kids are so so so adorable! =D My first teaching partner was Shawn and Phat was our translator. I think Phat is amazing. He has a talent for dealing with young children. He was firm yet gentle with the kids and I can see all the kids love him! He could get the kids to quiet down and listen to him (although not for long coz they'd soon forget about all that he had said to them and start their clamor once more lol) His voice is like very powerful also. He could maintain his loud volume throughout the days of teaching =O Hmm I remember in my first class, we taught the kids the names of animals and we sang children's songs and played 'pass the bottle'. And after the break, they totally went out of control. We taught them some English phrases to write in the postcards (which we had sold for the fundraising) to bring back to Singapore. The kids started walking around the classroom and it was difficult to keep them quiet. In other words, it was pretty chaotic lol. But they were so adorable that I couldn't bring myself to feel any sense of annoyance. The kids love taking pictures! Whenever I brandished my camera phone they flocked to me and jostled crazily to be in the picture.

(L to R) Han Sheng, Quynh, Phi and Phat

The other building of the primary school which was about 10 minutes walk away from the main school building

A seemingly peaceful class

Teacher Han Sheng!

Er..it's getting a little chaotic

The kids are totally camera-UNshy. That feet in the air…haha

One of my classes =)

And they love taking pics =)

Xi Hui and her child labor boy lol

Benjamin and his kid haha

Jieying and hiphop kid

She's one my fave girls. She's super cute! =)

Sok Ee and the cutie

A kid showing us his breakdance moves

Guess who's over there?

My partner for the next 2 classes was Wan Ling. She had lost much of her voice after all the shouting in the classes. I think I was one of the few who managed to not fall sick throughout the trip. Many actually lost their voices after their first class of teaching. I miss the kids! They are so adorable, so innocent, and so pleasant and welcoming towards us! I even received gifts from some of the kids. I got a hand-written Christmas card, a crayon pen. an eraser, and a little toy figurine. =) I think the most interesting thing was when the kids ran to all of us for our signatures. I felt like a celeb lol. Some of the kids came to me repeatedly for signatures even though I had signed for them already but I guess they just wanna fill up their slips of paper with signatures.