30 hour famine

齐心赶走饿势力-You've got the power! That's the slogan for this year's 30 hour famine. I didn't join any DIY camps this year though, I became a volunteer instead. And boy, was it so much fun. The first day was the volunteer training day. We got to eat a small meal of mcdonalds before beginning our fast yay. Ice breaker was fun and funny. After that was to educate us about World Vision and the theme of this year's famine camp - food crisis. Some videos by World Vision Australia were shown. Those poor kids. Well that's why I was there at the camp anyway. Finally, we got to the part where we were supposed to get ready for the big event on 23 August! I was arranged to the Collection Center team, where we were to give out the break fast soya bean milk, some garbage bags, child sponsorship form and a feedback form. Easy job. Were done within one hour? Something like that. Plus briefing, and some touring around the stadium, we finished at 4pm. 2 hours earlier than the scheduled time. So I borrowed Jennifer's phone to call my mum. She was so nice, she had agreed to lend me her phone whenever I needed to contact my parents.

Day 1 over. Day 2. We were supposed to reach at 7am, but since we had done everything the previous day, Sharon (our team leader) gave us special permission to reach at 8am. But I couldn't still. Had interview at 8:30am. No matters, she said I could reach at around 9. So reached at 9:15. Got my temperature scanned, cleared. Unlike school. Sprayed antiseptic, reported for duty, got the wristband. So there we were, at our station, waiting for people to come. It wasn't a very hectic work, since people came and gone. It was admittedly a little boring and uneventful. Anyway between work, I went in to the stadium quite a few times, to see which artist was performing. The crowd was huge, and the screams were deafening. Like a concert, not a famine countdown event. Ah well I've no complaints about that, it was sort of fun too. Fast forward. 3pm.

V-soy stock was depleting, but there were still cartons and cartons of Diamond water left, so Sharon asked us to give the water out. Tiring really. Climbing up and down the stairs, asking who wanted water. When we finished one carton, we had to go back to our room to get the other carton, walk all the way down, and up again. If we didn't have to fast, I don't really mind, but we were fasting, so it was a sort of energy consuming activity. We were hungry by the time we finished giving out the waters. There were several packets of food in the room, which were confiscated. People are not supposed to bring food to a famine camp.. duh. Even after break fast, the only food available was soya bean milk, and we could only drink their soya bean milk because V-soy sponsored this event. Anyway the food was so tempting! And the smell of cupcakes too.

We closed our center at 4pm and went down to the stadium to enjoy the remaining events. It was the conert. Gary, Athena, Yise, Hou Ren, Francissca Peter, Phoebe and Daniel came out to sing for the second time. They had already performed once previously. And at the final hours, they came to give us entertainment again. The peak of the whole event: appearance of World Vision Malaysia ambassador, A-mei. The cheers, and screams were again deafening. As a volunteer, I had the priviledge to stand in front, it was so awesome! She sang three songs and spoke a few words, and the final 10 seconds countdown came. Break fast! Congratulations everyone!

Unfortunately, as volunteers, we had to stay back to clean the stadium. Why can't Malaysians keep the place clean? We see everything on the floor.. papers, tissues, bottle caps, plastic bottles, and even masks! So unhygienic. And it wasn't that we didn't prepare garbage bags for you, we did! Sigh we had to clean up. And there was spilt soya bean milk everywhere.. well not really. Some places. And I left my gloves up there, but luckily, I forgot who, gave us another pair. Else we would be so contaminated with germs. But Evelyn picked up all the bottle caps soaked in soya bean milk with her own hands. I'm sure she had seen worse. Anyway, after cleaning up, we quickly sprayed antiseptic again. A lot of it too. Haha we're freaks.

Final session. Volunteer appreciation ceremony and photo shooting. Jolene, Nicholas, Roshan and fatty stayed back to take photo with us. So many photos! But I didn't bring my camera unfortunately, so I have to wait for some of my team members to upload the photos and send me them. And the whole event ended successfully. There was aftermath too. We went back to our stations. The whole team, well nearly the whole team of the collection center were waiting outside the room. For what? To collect some leftover stuff, which included soya bean milk, diamond water and can opener. The can opener was so beautiful. Sharon had promised us we could each have one, if there were left overs. And there were, since we didn't give any of the campers a can opener, except a guy who worked for World Vision. It was a successful haul. 6 bottles of V-soy, 5 bottles of Diamond water, a can opener and a certificate of appreciation. Thank you very much everyone!

Special dedication: Evelyn, Jennifer, Ching Wui, Sharon, Pei Ling, Joanne, Silvia, Ruby, Ice, Meng Ling, Loys, Lai, Sook, Aisha.. and anyone else I can't name, thank you very much for making this happen! Love you muchs!

"Family Photo" xD