Jessie's Story
My experience with SCI Hong Kong
The first Workcamp
The summer in 2014 is made most memorable by a group of people, and those persons are special to me ever since.
I can clearly remember the time we first met in the super market, when everyone appears to be fresh, mysterious, and attracting to me. We had a short briefing of using chopsticks then some of us turned it into their first trial, what’s a great (tough) job! Girls are easygoing and we were familiarized in no time, and it’s pleased to find that Pa and Bonnie are at the same age as me :) I was a late comer so I settled in the mixed room. It was a great time getting on with Arthur and Mazi, who are very talkative and humorous, and very administrative Sam (hahaha). Talking about accommodation, I bet none of us would ever forget Tai Mei Tuk (my friends you must be laughing while reading this), the place being constantly complained due to its lack of transport convenience (it was called the North Pole of HK in our camp) and Wi-Fi guarantee—it turned out to be switched off on purpose—and switching of mobile devices to have more face to face talks becomes SCI culture (which created by Sam). But to tell the truth, Tai Mei Tuk is really a scenic place! I and Mazi would sometimes get up at around 6 am to capture the peace moment in the early morning and feed the fishes by the way.
The self-made dinners are unforgettable! Imaging that you try five or more different styles of food within a simple week with completely different fool material and flavors. Eating pancakes, stuffed bean curds and curry for one day and soon changed to spicy Thai dishes for the following day. Interestingly that I felt so good eating Pa’s Thai beef salad when seeing that most of us are “crying”. But the food are generally summarized to be “so good but so full” (what Bonnie and Niina would always say, haha)!
This is my first volunteer camp with SCI. By naming Human Library, we are “books” from various regions of world, and our cognitions compose the content which are to be “read” by local middle school students. I am “Ethnic Minorities in China”, for instance. We found it’s a great idea, liberating students from reading stereotype meanwhile providing them with insights into the outside world. From the second day on, we started our journey to different schools. The students are super cute (I don’t think like that at that time though haha because in most school they would rather stay silence) but from time to time they rose questions and between readers and us we could therefore build good binds through interaction. Students have shown their appreciation by teaching us Cantonese, calligraphy and offering us local foods which made our journey fruitful and full of surprises! (Although most of times I have to pretend do not understand these “Chinese” things in order not to pour cold water on enthusiastic kids but still it’s very fun).
We went to the Lantern Island, the Ocean Park, Victoria Bay, Star Venue; we hang out in the pretty cheap market for clothes and shoes; we showed our overwhelmingly strong love to dessert by going for dessert without having dinner; Billy came to stay with us from time to time, bringing with his games which turned to be dirty games in the end but still a great fun (haha). It’s fair to say that everyone in our camp is caring and lovely, and I miss you all.