Vietnam CAS Trip

On 28 May, a joyous bunch of 36 students departed Singapore for a trip that they never knew would touch their hearts in the ways it could.

The Vietnam CAS trip proved to be quite a journey for every of these students – an emotional rollercoaster that ranged from laughs and smiles on engaging with the young kids at the orphanages, to heartfelt cries on seeing the victims of the deadly Agent Orange attacks.

We faced numerous challenges in the first few days, starting from being punctual every morning for breakfast. Some of us made it on time while others didn’t. Besides, teaching the kids at the orphanage was another hurdle because it was their school holidays and they did not want to stay in class for the lessons we had planned for them.

Despite all the hurdles that came our way, we improvised and adapted our lessons, and were spontaneous. This trip was just not an intensive service trip – we had our chance with fun too. We spent a night at the Madagui Forest Resort, where we played an intense round of paintball and even got a chance to do the Zipline! An interesting part of our trip was the visit to the night market, where we got a glimpse of what Vietnamese shopping looks like and got to test our bargaining skills too!

On top of all the fun-filled activities, the greatest gift we received on the trip would have to be the values we received and the lessons we learnt. The service we gave spoke to our hearts, and we were reminded over and over again how fortunate and blessed we are to live, study and be where we are and be who we are as individuals. Seeing the children with disabilities opened our eyes to the marvel of our own ability to speak, be mobile and have a healthy body and mind.

Visiting the war museum allowed us to appreciate how safe and peaceful Singapore is. Bringing the children from Que Huong Orphanage to the beach was a wake-up call to how much our own parents love and take care of us.

The experience was a wonderfully rich nine days where we learned to look out for our friends and team mates. It instilled a great sense of togetherness and we all felt like one big family.

There’s no better way to sum up what we learnt from the trip than this quote, written on the back of a group picture and given to each student, by our loving supervisors – Ms Choo, Ms Chantal and Mr Ritchie – at the end of the trip:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy

I awoke and saw that life was service

I acted and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore

Anahita Bhesania, 5 CKS, and Sara Goh, 5 TCT