HSS Girl Guides Service Learning Trip to Chiangmai, Thailand – Day 7 (16th Nov 2009)

That day was our last in Thailand. We started off having a great time building the fence around the fish pond using cement. We all learnt how to mix and make cement from scratch.

Then we have to wash Phii Chai and Phii Tom’s car and got ourselves wet. At night, we went to Huen Nam Jai Orphanage (HNJ) and had dinner with the children there and taught them how to make friendship bands. In return, they gave us a tour around their home.

When all's done, we boarded the lorry and went back to pack our bags to get ready to go back to Singapore the next day. We should learn from the children of the different homes - even though they have a sad and pitiful past they continue to be cheerful and be strong to face the future.

This service learning trip built our character and taught us skills that we cannot easily learn in Singapore. Things are often not as easy as it seems to be therefore, we should not judge a book by its cover. For example, we saw the professionals’ wood carving, painting, cementing the wall and even making lanterns. We thought that we could do just the same, but we were wrong. Even though we did not do as well as theirs but we have fun (sanook) and we learn from what we did wrong and we try hard not to repeat it.

We also learnt that we should respect those older then us no matter senior, teachers, parents or principals. From what we saw, the students in Sanpatong Secondary school respect whoever older then them by bending down a little when they sees them and the students will usually take off their shoes to go into the classrooms and the teachers do not have to do that. We should also learn from the children of the different homes, even though they have a sad and pitiful past they continue to be cheerful and be strong to face the future.

Furthermore, we learnt that we should treat others like how we want others to treat ourselves. e Amway (home stay buddy) treated us gently; we also treated her with care like how she treated us. Most importantly, we learnt that even if we don’t really know each other’s language and we often got it wrong, we just laugh and sometimes it acts as an ice breaker to one another.

Not frogetting, we also learnt skills that we can never adopt in Singapore like rice harvesting and wood carving. Lastly, we should appreciate what we have in front of us and never let go of any opportunities to learn and change for the better.