On 12 June, Saturday 48 of us, mostly from volunteer organisation group, Apex Club and some friends made a trip to St Ignatius School in Batam. This was the second trip after SANL group last trip on 22 May.
The President of Apex Club, Chao Loy did a marvellous job in marshalling his ever enthusiastic volunteers to contribute a lot more things prior to the trip, from toys, clothes, shoes, stationery, etc - simply unbelievable! One of them who works in MTV Asia even managed to convince her company to donate brand new children's toys and shoes, among others, so nice of her.
The travel sequence was almost similar from the last group except this time around, majority will be spending one well-deserved night at Batam View after the day visit to the school.
Departed from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 9am sharp and upon arrival at Nongsapura Ferry Terminal, everyone was transferred to Batam View for light refreshment and some briefing. Everything went hitch-less, even some members didn't realise they had already cleared immigration and customs.
It was only 9am when we arrived at Batam View, rooms were not ready for early check-in. Thus, we proceeded to board the coach for the school after briefing was done and we left at about 10.00am.
When everyone boarded, each of them was given a lunch box to be taken first while the children will have theirs at the school. The last time with SANL group, we had lunch at the school and bringing with us some 250 lunch boxes to be taken with the children but it was a mess when our food was invaded by hundreds of houseflies. This time around, it was better to have lunch first and leaving quality time to keep the children entertained instead.
While on the coach and ya, the journey took some 1 and an hour and with plenty time to kill, Chao Loy who is known as 'Karaoke King' took the initiative to sing for us to keep us pepped up. For some reasons initially not known to me, there were some friendly resistance from other members. He was not swayed, took the microphone and started singing which didn't really rhyme but still acceptable lah. He went on for few more songs, everyone just 'tahan' somewhat. Halfway through his singing, the aircon suddenly went dead. Almost immediately, fingers pointed at him for the demise of the aircon. It gestured in jest, knowing too well his singing played no play to the aircon saga. Since we were already half through through our journey, we decided to press on. We simplyopened all the windows for natural air instead. It was quite sunny.
Unfazed, Chao Loy decided to continue singing but this time, most of us raised objections and one of us joked he might invite rain this time. With confidence, he shot back and assured us that Batam won't rain. He then started singing. Well, God is probably watching and true to form, rain came & heavy too and we had to shut our windows. Can you imagine? With windows shut and air-con down - all thanks to Chao Loy, his songs and his assurance. We were supposed to be angry under that circumstances, shouldn't we? On the contrary, we had a good time laughing and laughing away - poor Chao Loy, though he is the President of the Club but he has to be the 'joker' for the day to keep us entertained. We had a field day.
Again, God was kind to us. The moment we arrived at the school, miraculously there was no rain at all. However, shortly after transferring all the donated items from the coach, it poured heavily.
Everyone had a great time at the school. The new playground equipment was there, just delivered and the children were happily playing among themselves, well before the rain came. This nondescript playground is nothing compared to those in Singapore but to the children, it is certainly 'God-send' to them. From the donated sum we have had raised, S$6,010 to be exact and so far, we had already put in place playground equipment and 50 lockers in the school. We still have more than S$2,000 to be spent which will be utilised to the fullest, rest assured.
Thanks, once again to the good samaritans from Apex Club and friends for bring joys and laughters to the children at St Ignatius School.
