Monday, September 24, 2007

Orphanage visit

Hi! I'm a Caiman and this picture has no relevance in this post.
Limy called up this morning to remind me about our visit to an orphanage in Subang.
"Don't forget to bring your tarantula." Limy said.
As a matter of fact, I was having second thoughts about bring my tarantula to an orphanage, reason is that I have no clue how will the children and guardian react to spiders that is 6 inches in leg span and I was afraid that the tarantula might hurt someone or get hurt itself. However, the opportunity of educating people about tarantulas excites me enough to ignore my worries, so I packed up my Curly Hair tarantula and head to the orphanage.


Lokman playing with one of the cats that the orphans keeps as pet.


I met up with Limy, Tenten and Lokman at Giant, Subang and they lead me to the orphanage, the first thing that hit my mind when I first saw the orphanage was that the place was very well taken care of and I couldn't see how I can help these children in anyway.
Before we get to see any kids, we meet up with one of the care taker who is in the office, it was my first time there so Limy introduced me to the care taker. We were informed that the kids were still in the class so we'll have to wait for them to finish to go visit them, not a big issue since I got nothing on for the day and their cat was feeling playful at that time.

It was time to meet the kids, we got them to sit down in the hall and then we introduce ourselves, and asked to see if anyone likes or dislike spiders, and it seems only one girl raise up her hands when we asked who likes spiders. So we started asking them questions about tarantulas, I wasn't too surprised that they are afraid of it and don't really know much about tarantulas due to the misconception, and I have Mr. Hollywood to thank for that.
It was a challenge for me to explain about tarantulas in Bahasa, it took me a longer time to do it.
With every explaination comes more questions, and yea! These kids aren't shy to ask questions, and that's an excellent thing for them and for me, at least they make sure I keep telling them about tarantulas and how they lived.
In 30 minutes or so I turn a room full of children whom are afraid of tarantulas into a room full of children who are curious to learn more about tarantulas they are so into it that they kept on asking me questions about tarantulas and how I keep them at home. While communicating with them, I find my initial toughts of me not being able to help them to be untrue, even thou they have a very establish place to stay, they still hunger for love and care this could only be given by a living human being.
Well, I've got alot of values during my visit there, and being able to be there for these kids really give me a sense of peace. The thing that got me worried at that time was when one of the orphan holding my Curly Hair Tarantula and asked "Boleh saya simpan labah labah ini?", I am not ready to part with my most docile tarantula so instead of letting them keep my pet, I allow them to name my Curly hair tarantula and it's name from today onwards is "Comel"

Dennis eye view of the orphans and "Comel"

4 comments:

Heidi said...

awwww..... Comel is so comel~ hahaha. :P

glad you got to share your passion for Ts to the kids. ;)

HuonHengChai said...

Sharing is caring :)

Cookiemaker said...

:)

can't imagine you heng, in a room full of shy kids and there you are, speaking in malay some more! so proud of you!

ps - lain kali, ajak la kita sekali :P

Click to Climax said...

nice one, get them young, keep it up!