Eunos Flat Cleaning on 6 June 2015

They came with brooms, mops, brushes and pails in response to the call by Project Awareness for volunteers to help clean up Mr. Lim's flat. 

The fumigation has been completed and it's time to scrub the badly stained floors, walls and ceilings before the painting work can begin. The furniture had to be moved out and there were dead insects and cockroach eggs everywhere. Lizards scurried around and Mr. Lim helped to move his belongings to the corridor.

The rooms were in a terrible state of disrepair. The kitchen sink had corroded and the volunteers went about their chores without fuss. The RC volunteers came shortly thereafter. They appeared to be taken aback at the sight but soon found the courage to enter the flat to help.

I was surprised that they were mostly elderly folks but their volunteering spirit was truly commendable. Some began to help peeling out the broken vinyl floor tiles in the bedrooms whilst others helped in scrubbing the walls.

With the hard work from everyone, the cleaning was completed right after noon. The painters came later and by evening, the flat was painted. But there's some other work to be done on another day.

Lives have been lost to an unexpected natural calamity

5 June 2015 was meant to be a day of celebration. The 28th SEA games opening ceremony was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. that evening but 12 hours earlier, at 7.15 a.m, something untoward happened at Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, East Malaysia.

A group of primary school students from Tanjong Katong Primary School were making their way up Mount Kinabalu when an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 struck. At the end of that 30-second moment when the earth shook, six students, one teacher and an adventure guide perished. To-date, one student and a teacher are still unaccounted for.

The pain of losing these young children, who were mostly 12 years in age and their teachers, struck at our heartstrings. Our nation mourned their loss with our state flag flying at half mast on 8 June 2015. Sadly, this was the second national mourning in less than 3 months this year.

I visited Tanjong Katong Primary School on the morning of 8 June 2015 to pay my tribute. The messages pinned onto 3 large notice boards speak volumes of the impact of the loss. Singapore is one of the most costly places in the world to raise a child and Singaporean parents are exceptionally doting on their children. It was simply heart-wrenching to forcefully take these children away forever from their parents without even a word of goodbye. 

Those with children will probably be more sensitive to the acute pain of the grieving parents. My heart sank and rose again umpteen times. This fateful trip has drawn both sympathy and ire. There are those who question the wisdom of such trips for primary school children whilst there are others who see that the benefit of such activities outweigh the risks involved.

Whatever it is, lives have been lost to an unexpected natural calamity but there are certainly lessons to be drawn somehow. For those who never saw the light of day again when the earth shook on 5 June 2015, may they rest in eternal peace.

Walkabout in Tampines on 24.05.2015

NSP visited Tampines again this morning in their walkabouts. The familiar sound of a workout song drew me to the empty space near Blk 201C where a group of people, young and old, were doing zumba with a Health Promotion Board banner on the "National Healthy Lifestyle" campaign standing at a corner. The market was alive with the Sunday crowd and the stalls were doing a roaring business.

An elderly man sauntered up to me and expressed his pessimism about the future of alternative parties. He did not think they could do much especially when the ruling party has become so rich and strong. Another elderly resident approached me to highlight the concerns of people in his age group. He was troubled about the spiralling housing costs and could not accept that flat prices have reached hundreds of thousands when salaries for ordinary folks have not increased by the same.

One other elderly resident shared with me about the Pioneer Generation Package. He said he has given feedback to the PGP ambassadors and queried the partial coverage of medicine. He felt that all types of medicine should be covered and wanted to see the change.

There were also concerns about the weakening of our value system and how things will turn out for Singapore when our traditional values are not effectively transmitted. All the feedback from the ground was instructive.

Walking the ground is necessary for all those who aspire to understand the issues that ordinary folks are concerned with. At the end of the day, isn't politics about people?