Of teenaged children and a teenager wannabe…

The past long weekend would have been a good time to just sit back and relax at home… but did I choose to do that? Nope!

For one thing, the leadership camp I had registered 4 of “my children” for was during that long weekend, and I was supposed to fetch them at their respective homes and send them to the place where they were supposed to assemble before taking a bus to the campsite.

I had to fetch 3 of the children – Fuzi’s daughter and Sofie’s 2 older sons. As for Aini’s daughter… well, her house is not that far from the assembly point, so she said she’d go on her own.

As early as 6.40 am, I left my house, heading over to Fuzi’s house first to pick up her daughter. I had told Fuzi I’d fetch her daughter around 7 am. When I got there at 7 am sharp, the girl was already waiting outside the house.

Then off to Sofie’s house to pick her 2 boys, who as always, would wait for their mother’s ramblings before they’d make a move!

All three were rather quiet in the car. Still shy. Although Azman, Sofie’s second son, is usually the talkative type, but that morning he too was quiet. We got to the assembly point at about 7.45 am, and after making sure they had registered and signed at the registration counter, I left them there and told them I’d be coming to fetch them on Monday evening when they come back from the camp.

So, did I relax at home until Monday evening? Heck no – I went to unwind myself! Back to my old school in Bukit Merbah, Seremban to become a teenager again! Ooops… a teenager wannabe, that is!

I actually spent the night at one of the dorms, together with some new roommates from various batches and various houses. Out of those who spent the night in the dorm, only one of them had been my dorm-mate before waaaaay back during my school days.

And the very next day guess what this close-to-fifty-but-pretending-to-be-fifteen female specie did? SHE PLAYED HOCKEY. Ah, but not to worry, the game was played at a much smaller field, 7 a side, 10 minutes each half with a 5 minutes break and players could be replaced at any time during the game. Our only problem was, by the time the game started, we had exactly 7 players! No reserves to replace any of the pancit players!

Our Under-50 players - The teenager wannabe in brown

I was the oldest player on the field that day – we called ourselves the OGA under-50 hockey team… and we played against the TKC under 15 team. That must have been the longest ever 20 minutes of hockey game I had ever played. Maybe the girls did kasi chan, I don’t know, but despite the lack of stamina amongst the oldies, by the end of the 20 minutes, the under 50 beat the under 15 team, 5 goals to nil!

Am glad to say that I didn’t suffer from any body aches or anything of that sort despite falling once during the game in my excitement to chase the ball. The girl whom I clashed with while chasing the ball, upon seeing me fall, got so concerned that she asked me twice if I was okay. And during half time she came to see me again to ask the same thing. She must have thought this orang tua sure dah lebam sana sini and she must have felt guilty she was involved in the clash. But hey, I’m A-OKAY, still standing, no bruises whatsoever and should still be able to participate in the 3km charity run on 15th May in Ipoh.

What matters is that I did unwind and I did enjoy myself at my alma mater. And at the same time I also managed to collect loads of toys from friends, to be given to the children of our HIV families during our Annual Family Day scheduled to be held in July. In addition to that, I also got more sponsors for my coming 3km charity run on 15th May. It was such a 3-in-1 weekend… I got to unwind, I got to collect toys, and I got more sponsors for my run.

I drove home on Sunday itself (yep, the same day I played hockey) and alhamdulillah made it back safely to Ipoh by 6 pm. Luckily the teenaged children who went for the leadership camp were only coming back the next day so there was no rush for me.

On Monday, I was told that the children should be back in Ipoh by 6.30pm. So in the afternoon, I made sure I went to the Buddies center to unload all the toys I had collected earlier on Sunday. Otherwise, there’d be space for only one passenger when I was supposed to fetch 4!

At 6.30 pm, I was already at the place where the children were supposed to be. The same place where I had sent them earlier. But as I got there, none of them were there yet. When I enquired with the organisers, I was told that there was massive jam in Simpang Pulai, and so the bus would be late. Apparently, the bus which was supposed to fetch them at the campsite in Tapah got there late because the drive from Ipoh to Tapah took 2 hours as compared to the usual 30 – 40 minutes!

The bus made it back at 7 pm. One by one the children came down, and when my 4 children got down from the bus… I could see immediate positive outcome – they were more open, more friendly and more cheerful!! Yayyy!!

I will definitely consider sending some of my other children for next year’s leadership camp!