Today was truly the highlight of the trip for all of us. What we did, felt and experienced were truly priceless and would soon constitute sweet memories that will stay tucked in our hearts forever.
In the morning, we took a trip to the Coorg Boys’ Home. The orphans greeted us warmly with their eyes and smiles when they first caught sight of us while peeping through the windows.
Before we could interact with the very adorable children with wide smiles and even broader hearts, we were introduced to the superintendent of the orphanage and briefed about how the orphans had ended up there. The majority were abandoned, rescued from tricky home conditions or lost their parents at a young age.
Immediately, we felt very lucky indeed to have parents, and to be living such an easy life back home in Singapore. The orphans sang a folk song for us and it was a tremendous welcome even though we had no idea what they were singing to us.
After the initial awkwardness that accompanies first meetings, we started to warm up and resolved to do our best to be a blessing to the orphans as best we could. We played some ice breakers with them and gave them toy cars as prizes. It brought great pleasure to all of us to see the smiles on their faces. We had great fun teaching them Chinese greetings and numbers. We also sang Singapore folk songs and performed two Readers’ Theatre performances.
Although most of the orphans only understood simple English at best, they still participated actively in all our activities. We were filled with joy and a tingly satisfaction to see them smiling throughout our time there. We felt glad and well pleased to be able to have such fun with the orphans. To be honest, we wanted to stay on for a longer time, but time constraints and workers waiting to repair some parts of the orphanage meant that we had to say goodbye.
It warmed our hearts to see that the children were also very contented with the toys we had given them. After all, it is not often that people visit these orphanages and give the children toys or daily necessities. Our mission, as discussed in our debrief session the day before, was to help them forget their misery and experience joy. We felt that we had accomplished that with room to spare.
After we left the orphanage, with a tinge of reluctance and sadness, we made a long eight-hour trek back to Bangalore. At least we had a good dinner awaiting us at the end of it. We were treated to steaming hot pizzas (with a local twist) at Pizza Hut before checking in to VT Paradise, the hotel that would be our home for the next four days.
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