Before the workcamp, I was once occupied by the thoughts that how would the volunteers be. At the end, I just surrendered and let it be. I know life will bring the best to me. So to my little surprise, the whole group of volunteers was just in a perfect state of harmony. It was just like a bowl of very well-mixed salad, there were different ingredients from all over the world and they were all distinct in taste. But once the ingredients were mixed, the overall taste was enhanced and there was no conflict between different tastes. On the contrary, each ingredient helped to bring out the best taste of the other ingredients.
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We had a beautiful experience in Long Valley.
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The following introduction follows alphabetical order.
Audia，Rice
A devoted Indonesian Muslim whose appearance is more like a Hong Kong guy than Ben. I really respect Audia, who is only 20, can diligently observe the rule of Ramadan that he could only eat after sunset everyday. Especially in this workcamp, where delicacies from all over the world and different food in every meal were provided. Moreover he was also unmoved when listening to our eating sound. Later I knew that he started fasting 30 days in Ramadan when he was 6, no wonder he had such a high standard of determination.
His action did inspired me to pick up my fasting practice again. If he could do it in such an adverse workcamp condition, how could I have any excuses not to do it?
If he could experience the hungry of the poor during Ramadan every year, I believe there was nothing could worry him, so I always saw he was smiling and laughing whole-heartedly. Although I really didn’t know what he was laughing sometimes, the atmosphere around was indeed brightened up by him.
On the cultural exchange night, in addition of bringing over two pieces of traditional Indonesian musical instruments, Angklung, he also taught us to dance two pieces of traditional dance.
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Rice was teaching all volunteers Indonesia traditional dance.
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Ben，Uncle Ben
Why he was called Uncle Ben? Except the fact that he looked more mature than his real age which was 21, it was also because he had a specific diet which resembled that of Hong Kong uncles, eg, eating meat every meal, not used to eat oatmeal as breakfast, not used to western cuisine like raw salad, pesto bread and lasagna etc.
However, he should be praised for his excellent skill in cutting and chopping food. So when his skill was discovered, he was then turned into the official cutter of our workcamp, whatever it was watermelon, carrots, bread or apples, they were all under his ‘jurisdiction’. Besides, as he was planning to apply to be a fireman, his muscle and labour did lessen much of our workloads!
In order to introduce the concept of reducing our carbon consumption, there was the Tanabata campaign in the last day of the workcamp and every one had to make a promise about how to help lowering the carbon on earth. Unlike the most common promise like eating more vegetarian food, after a long and serious thinking, he did make a big step forward, ‘I promise I will not eat beef…in the morning.’
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Ben, who could not live without meat, was buying chicken wings.
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Candy，Watermelon
Candy is like her name, sweet and love eating candies very much. That’s why she had chosen to use watermelon as her nickname in the workcamp, because watermelon is sweet but also has a hard shell to protect herself.
Because she was always natural high and full of energy, bringing us lots of joy and laughter, that was how we survived in those typhoon days as we were trapped indoor all the time.
When we were leaving Cheung Chau and heading back to Long Valley, the still sleepy Candy slipped a flight of stairs! She got bruised in her arms and legs, her hips were shocked and almost hurt her old injury on her back. However, she was so tough that she didn’t cry and even smiled after the slip. A loss may turn out to be a gain, because of this, she could go back home rest comfortably in air-conditioning and ate lots of her favourite candies and snacks. After resting for a few days, though she could not move freely, she still helped in the farm and cleaning the house, I really respect a 19 years old young girl like her has such a strong mind and toughness.
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Candy, who was always energetic.
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Dima，Forest
Except being called, ‘Forest’, he was also called, ‘Russian Bear’ and ‘Russian Power’, mainly due to his powerful muscle and never tiring body. Everytime when we were half dead after work, he was always still full of energy. Because of his presence, our workloads were much lighter, even though we didn’t request, he always actively seeking areas to help, like moving the heaviest stuff and responsible for the toughest working procedure.
On the contrary to most of us, he ate very slowly. He ate so slow that he didn’t even mind us eating like wild beasts and continue on his food bite by bit. Therefore, it was always me who worried that he didn’t have enough and put the food on his plate before it would be eaten by us.
When there was the last piece of food on the plates, we always asked if he would like to have them. Although it was very obvious that he did want them, he was often very polite and gave them to others. After one week, he asked me, ‘Pink, weren’t you say that we could draw a new angel’s quality after one week? (When the workcamp started, I asked them to draw a specific angel’s quality to learn from, eg compassionate, caring, patient and selfless etc). At that moment, I got a blink and I finally understood that why was he always so polite in eating, because his angel’s quality was humble! After I realized that, he smirked. Afterwards in every meal, he was happily grabbing the last piece of food because his new quality was joyful!
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The hard-working Dima.
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A Parisian who started to join workcamp since she was 15, so she had joined seven workcamps until then. Because of this, her mental age was the most mature despite the fact that she was only 21. However, she still had the innocence of a young girl, eg, one day she was bugged by a bee and she accidentally knocked down two jars of water. Another example is that she loves spiders, she even has a spider tattoo on her left foot. But when she saw a palm-sized spider on her mosquito net, she was freaked out and at the end, a man had to help and caught the spider. She loves frogs also, so when she went for the night safari, she crazily 200 photos of frogs.
Although coming from a metropolitan like Paris, and is studying costume design, she is a very tough girl. Her only weakness is unbearable of heat, so she was always full of energy when we started working at 6am, and she could harvest tons of rice. Once the sun came up, she would be like under spells, not moving much and her facing expression was really dull. Only until sunset, she would become alive again, making lots of jokes and kept calling Uncle Ben as her ‘wife’.
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The little bit boylish Get.
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Hyorin，Tree
The one who most afraid to get tanned, she always had double hats and covered her face 90% with a mask when she went to work in the farm. I believe people who bypassed always wondered who this mysterious person on the field was. Although she was a typical girl who loved beauty, eg she needed to put make up before going out to the city and loved using iphone to take photos, she was a very tough girl. She always worked in the farm whole-heartedly and silently, you would never hear her complain, on the opposite, you need to remind her to take a rest.
She was not very good in spoken English, at first I thought it would be difficult to communicate with her about matters like working instructions and house rules etc, but then I found out she understood most of the messages I delivered. She was only too shy and lack of English practices. In the later stage of the workcamp, she had already come out from her shyness, not only regularly asked other volunteers ‘Why’ in a funny tone, but also admitted that she was hungry all the time.
Thanks for her teaching in lyrics and motions, after almost the whole period of training, the volunteers were finally filmed singing and dancing the Korean children song, the three bears, which was sung by Korean actress Song Hye Kyo in the drama series, the Full house.
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Tree was teaching how to dance the Three Bears.
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Mr Kan
Last but not least, there is still Mr Kan, who fought with us in the front line. His presence brought out a deeper essence of just a simple workcamp for us, he reminded us the way of living in harmony with nature. I respect his hard work very much, whenever I saw him totally absorbed working in the field, I could feel his love towards this piece of land and nature.
The most astonishing thing is about his physical strength and efficiency. I believe the work that seven of us had done in these two weeks, he could have easily finished within the same period of time. If you have ever seen this superman working in the farm, you will know that I am not joking!
Thank you very much, Mr. Kan.
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Mr Kan is ‘The man
behind the curtain’ in our workcamp.
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