Lai Hock and some of the GUI members. One of the best kind of Singaporeans you can meet.We spent 2 lovely mornings (one for me, 2 for bjorn) with Lai Hock and the GUI members at Bottle Tree park in Khatib planting seedlings.
I think I mentioned before, GUI stands for Ground-Up Initiative and is a 2 year old NGO in Singapore that focuses on sustainable, organic living in our ever so urban Singapore.
Its the first time for us Singaporean, doing 'wwoof' work in Singapore! How ironic. And though we werent deep in the country side, the park is peaceful and green enough for soul-searching people like us to connect with the earth.
We met other volunteers, Singaporeans and residents from different walks of life. We started first at sunrise with Agnihotra which involves burning of a cow dunk cake as offerings, spreading the good energy with a short meditation to the seedlings. Definitely not a sight you usually see in the middle of a basket ball court in a park in Singapore! But it was a sweet and beautiful ritual the GUIers learnt from their trip to India in December.
We then did 30 mins of standing up yoga. Great stuff. A quick fruit breakfast and then its straight to good ol muddy, sweaty digging and planting!
After the 17 of us (a nice good number to get lots of planting done!) finished almost 2 rows of the terraces planting peanuts, black eye peas and other legumes, we sang Rasa Saya to them and called it a morning. (it was almost 11am and scorching hottt!)
The most delightful thing about it all, is the people that we meet. Usually in Singapore, its so difficult to get a smile or even an acknowledgement from strangers. At restaurants, lifts, even at your regular yoga classes. But here at Balik Kampong (the weekend farm work GUI calls it, which means 'back to your village' in Bahasa Melayu), smiles were generous, sincere and heart-warming. Truly and utterly non-pretentious, good people. We knew we all shared a common bond. That bond of wanting to find meaning in life. The desire to slow down and smell the roses.
Bjorn and I are so grateful we found this group here in our hometown, Singapore. And we'll always heart you guys!
More photos here from Soo Pin, GUI's resident photographer (and a great one at that!):
06 Feb: Transplanting seedlings of peanuts, black beans and black eye peas
- 20 people came
07 Feb: Transplanting sweet potato leaves
- 18 people came and 10 of them were Scouts
PS: Lai Hock, see I got link the site from my blog hor!!!!!! :)
Hey Crystal
ReplyDeleteMissed you on Sunday! Hope you are feeling better.
Somehow I knew you will be posting your Balik Kampung experience on your blog. When you took that photo of 4 of us, I suspected you will use it :) Thank you!
The actual number on Sat was 20. Yes! And 14 came to the Yoga..
On Sun, it was 18.
Such beautiful energy and don't we wish that everyone will touch the land more often?
Thank you for contributing to the beautiful energy and of course, your love to our land.
We will meet each other again soon!
Oh yes, thanks for the link to GUI finally. Hooray!
Lots of hug and love!
Lai Hock