It’s been a super long day, but since my hair is still wet from my shower and I’m far too lazy to plug in my hair dryer and use it, I will just have to waste time while waiting for it to dry and blog

Today was the first session I had with the kids at the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) shelter in PJ and this wonderful group of water-fire influenced spiritual friends, whom let me tell you, have made me a very happy fish indeed. Since meeting them at various points in time over the last few weeks, and discovering many, many mutual friends (signs! Signs everywhere! *flutters Piscean fins happily*), I have been at peace and very, very satisfied. I shall attempt and uphold anonymity, because three of them are Scorpios, and we all know (or should know) that Scorpios love keeping secrets

Though obviously I’ve been crazybusy, in between juggling uni, work commitments, a vague semblance of a social life (though this point is very debatable—don’t bring it up with me, please) and planning for these sessions, I seriously cannot even begin to describe how happy I am.

Anyhoo, we met early-ish today and headed over to someone’s house to practice Bhangra dance moves—yes, we were to teach the kids some funky dance moves! One of the girls attends dance class, and she came up with the idea of dance therapy, which would also make for a brillo ice-breaking session between us and the kids. We also brought along costume-y stuff; scarves, sunnies, caps, jewelry—for the kids to get fancied up in as they execute their booty-shaking moves. The warm-up intro session we had among ourselves was hilarious—we (ok, fine, I) was tripping over my two left feet (can’t dance for nuts) and grinning sheepishly as I endlessly missed cues and stood gaping like a fish out of water.

The actual session was fantabulous though—every other week, we are to have about an hour and a half to two hours to hang out with the kids (14 of them in total, all aged between 3-11 years), and this being our pioneer session, we were needless to say rather nervous. The kids were great though, so helpful and friendly—some of them stuck to us immediately, and wanted cuddles and poked about the big bags of props we’d brought, and ooh-ed and aah-ed over the laptop and speakers.

Kids being kids, they had boundless energy— they leapt and screamed and poked at each other, ran away from us and jostled for our attention (there were four of us volunteers) and fidgeted like mad throughout the initial introduction-yoga-this-is-what-we’re-doing stage. But as we got into the dance moves, they really started to loosen up and constantly badgered us to “look, akak, look! See, I can do it!” before shuffling boisterously, huge grins on their faces.

I even got my bum patted by one of the six year-old boys, which was quite shocking. I didn’t know what else to do but laugh—I did however tell him that he’s not supposed to do that, which made him very bashful and apologetic. One of the other boys kept poking my hands going “hey, hey, look at me!” before I told him it was impolite to address someone as “hey” while poking them; he should say “excuse me” in lieu of “hey”. He looked really blur for a moment and then proceeded to poke at me again with gusto, but while going “excuse me, excuse me”. Haha, oh well, I tried.

The part where the kids played dress-up was hilarious. The girls grabbed at the array of scarves we’d brought, and pinned flowers and earrings and bangles on their skinny frames, while the boys fought over caps and gloves and sunglasses, and the lone pair of earmuffs one of the girls brought along One of the boys was a natural—he was all pimped out in a cap, sunnies, bling and gloves, while dancing and posing in a very hip-hopper-ish manner. He even had a huge gold hoop earring on!
They cracked us up and completely wore us out—I think we must’ve danced at least 20 times to that song. Haha I’m going to be Bhangra-ing in my sleep. Needless to say we were all pouring with sweat, but really getting into it towards the end once we’d mastered the steps. Even the child minders, and one of the mothers, joined in the fun The mother, who I’m told has four kids at this shelter (to protect their anonymity all I can say is that it’s in PJ) kept thanking us, saying they’d never had this much fun before and how the kids were enjoying themselves.

This made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside At the end, the kids kept asking when we’d be back, and gave us endless hugs and cuddles. One of the littler ones (a 3 year-old girl) who sat out the dance came up to me, wrapped her arms around my neck and cuddled me like she’s known me all her life, before proceeding to slide down and nestle her head in my lap *goes all wibbly*.

Children are such a joy, and I’m glad that these few hours we set aside for them made them so happy. The pure joy on their faces, and their brave little hearts, having to have gone through so much at such a young age…my heart really goes out to them. They made us promise to come again soon, and to bring our things (especially the sunglasses—haha!) so they can dance again. One of the girls jokingly exclaimed once we’d left the grounds that we need to do something more reflective and calming in two weeks’ time! Phew!

I realise it may sound like I’m ‘angkat-ing bakul‘ (literally, lifting my own basket, which means self-praise) by saying this but I honestly feel so happy being surrounded by kids and I know it’s a wonderful thing myself and the other girls are doing. Because time is so precious to us all, but I reckon for things that really really matter, one should make time. And things don’t always have to be me-me-me (though my Arien bits doth protest too much) because as cliche as this sounds, karma does have a way of coming back to either bite you on the bum or make you the happiest person alive. Karma points aside, I also reckon everybody needs a way of feeling as if they’d made a contribution back to society; this is my way of doing it.

I think this is definitely one of those things I was meant to do in life—work with kids. I can’t believe I’d ignored the signs before; even back in the day when the Interact Club of Subang Utama worked with kids and brought them to Sunway Lagoon, my days as a junior instructor during the Outward Bound holiday camps, the fun I had with the kids from Rumah Ozanam when my dad brought them up camping in Cameron’s…Yalah, it’s bloody cheesy, but I wish all you readers out there the same sense of fulfillment and happiness in whatever you do

*tip tappety taps way across room with face mask on*

I can’t wait for the week after next I have extremely happy feet, and a heart full of love tonight. It’s been a great weekend, indeed.