Young, filled with dreams..yet...

Hi all!

I heard some very sad news this morning...news that brought tears to my eyes...

Some of you might remember, in Dec 2006, I went with Isaac and some of his church friends on a trip to Melahbou - Aceh. It was a humanitarian trip, where we spent about 4 full days with selected students from a school, and taught them English. We came up with the entire course on our own...and spent the 4 days interacting with these Indonesian girls and boys, aged between 12 to 18. It was an experience that I would never forget...an experience that brought my two feet down to planet Earth (not that it was very far above to start with ;)), as I saw the simple joys that these children still possessed, after many of them had lost family members to the tsunami that had hit 2 years back. They had survived the tsunami, and were full of zest in pursuing their ambitions.

Throughout the few days, we built bonds with these students...they shared their simple aspirations, eg. wanting to learn English well so that they could become a doctor and help sick people. some wanted to be a teacher to help students...yet another wanted to be a painter etc....
Towards the last day, we were giving away prizes for the different groups....these prizes that we brought, some were just simple erasers, pencils, some just small stuffed toys. I will never forget the joy I saw on these gals and boy's faces as they firmly held the presents. Things that Singaporean students would not even regard worthy of prizes were held in their hands with such gratefulness and appreciation. There were no fights, no complaints on whose prizes were nicer....just happy faces all across the room.

One of my students managed to email me just early this month. She mentioned that she had sad news to tell me, but would tell me only after i acknowledged the email. I replied, happy that my student had remembered me, and glad that I could be some kind of support for her....yet, somewhere inside me, I had a suspiscion about what the sad news was going to be....

This morning, she replied again.....she shared that she had not gotten accepted in a course to learn medicine and be a doctor. Instead she was now in Banda Aceh learning nursing....
then came the sad news.....one of the students in another group (under my other team mate), passed away last year due to cancer. Her operation in Sumatra was not successful, and she came back to Aceh, but died soon after.

Cut Yunidar was one of the 4 students who won the Most outstanding student during our 4-day course. She was good at her work and had great ambitions. Pretty, sweet and quiet, she was diligent.....

As i read the email, my heart sank and tears started to fill my eyes. I couldn't quite remember how she looked like..but after searching through the pictures and with the help of my other team mate, I remembered who she was. In the photo, she was all smiles, holding onto a small bear that she had won.....another picture was her holding onto the book which she won as an outstanding student.....

It's sad....thinking about it...that a young girl like Cut, survived the tsunami, had such great ambitions for her life ahead...but then, within just under a year after we were there, she lost her life to cancer.....
Would her life be saved if she had been in Singapore? I guess...but that is life, isn't it?

The fragility of life yet again displayed.....


Sad.........
~Lola