It's finally over!

From last Monday til Saturday, I was working at a cartooning camp for children. Had responded to an ad in Recruit asking for helpers, which I assumed was to facilitate group workshops i.e. teach the children how to draw. Listing my past experiences in art, I was selected by the organisers all the way from Sydney. I was keen to work at the camp even for the miserly $6/hr pay, as I would be able to learn cartooning while facilitating the workshop.

Or so I thought. On the first day of work, I realised we were just glamorous nannies and maids. Herding children, playing games with them, filling the water parade table with cups, mopping the floor, handing out toilet paper at the loo doors... I was totally drained by the 1st day and aching all over. Not to mention a sore throat and internal injuries from tolerating naughty children. I actually got a blister on my finger from sharpening pencils at the speed of light. Disappointingly, I was too busy running around getting my tasks done that I couldn't even listen to any of the drawing lessons :(


Too bad I had integrity (haha!) which made me return on the 2nd day of the camp to undergo another round of torture. It was horrifying! The organisers made the mistake of choosing a new venue this time round, and got a community centre hall, which had no walls and allowed the children to run all over the place. They also underestimated the brattiness of Singaporean kids, only hiring 5-8 helpers for 200+ kids! It was a futile task trying to keep them under control.

After a few days I got used to the aches and learnt to ignore them. By the end of the entire camp though, my big and index toes were purple from running around in sports shoes. Sometimes I nearly forgot and had the urge to scold rowdy kids on the mrt and streets. Up til today, I still have daily nightmares of shouting and running after children!

Luckily, some of the children were made my efforts worthwhile. My favourite was Taylor, a little boy who came with his big brother but was always wandering around on his own. There were other children like Julien, Ryan, Chloe, Yusof, Sean, Esther, Stephen and Rachel, who would stick to us like velcro.

Some of them just were not used to hanging out with strangers, while some had conditions like ADHD or autism. It was difficult trying to remember their background and not scold them. Most of the time we put them to work helping us distribute pencils etc, which they enjoyed. But there were moments of heart attack when these kids with conditions nearly wandered out of the CC's huge open back gate.

Biting, hitting, showing of middle fingers and spouting of vulgarities by such children were also common. Their mums must have felt such relief to 'dump' them on us for the full 6 days. If I had a child with such conditions, I would stay around to make sure he stays safe, especially with the scary 1:40 ratio of helper to child.


These photos were taken on the last day of the camp, a market day of sorts for the children to peddle their old toys etc to one another, as well as use up the fake camp currency we rewarded them with during the week. They impressed me with their savviness, opening a manicure parlour, many-hands massage service, draw-on-the-spot business, bank (to change big fake notes into smaller denominations) and one boy even bought an illustration manual and sold it page by page to those who couldn't afford the whole book.


Here are some of the drawings I bought from the kids, as well as presents they gave me :)


Overall, it was a good experience. I surpassed my own expectations by only starting to scream at the kids on the 4th day haha! By then all the helpers, as well as the organisers, had given up and were going around yelling at them. There were some glitches in the camp organisation, such as providing half-cooked maggi mee for lunch at an exorbitant $2.50 and getting slammed by parents for it. But I would attribute it to lack of cultural understanding on the organiser's part. Hopefully they will make adjustments the next round.


This is Pricilla, a teacher-in-training and my unofficial partner during the camp. These photos were all taken by her. Somehow we had good dynamics and ending up working as a tag team for many of the tasks. We performed so well that the camp organiser has invited us to help out in the Hong Kong and Taipei camps next month! I suspect he needs us as a bridge between him and the local helpers. So in July we'll be flying over, all expenses paid! Yafoo!!!

 

Labels: Designing My Future