~ 19th December 2008 ~

Tonight, I have been awed!! Mum had two tickets for a charity dinner and she wanted me to go along with her.
For some reason I kept forgetting the date and when she spoke of it yesterday, I was wondering what she was talking about. She sms-ed me this morning to remind me and believe it or not, I had forgotten..again! * eyes rolling *

We were there early, mum being kiasu about parking space and made me leave her at the entrance when it appeared I was going to have to park in the back, up the hill and all gravel and stones. I let her out, saw an old friend further up and as I approached his car, he looked at me and I asked if he was going out and he said yeah and hehehehehe....I got to park not far from the entrance where mum waited for me. :P

Theme : The Bright Journey Of The Buddhist Seeds From Africa. It's this place in Malawi where there is an orphanage run by Buddhists and together with Malaysia and Singapore are now doing charity shows to raise funds. Sorry I can't tell much as I dropped the brochure somewhere. Will post in when I get another copy. Found the website but can't understand the text. If you are curious....
http://www.amitofocc.org/

To continue,  I thought I had seen most of these song and dance whilst in Africa quite often so when I was tucking into a vegetable (the menu was vegetarian), I had a familiar feeling half listening to the song being played. As the children started singing, I was at first confused when I realised they were singing a very popular Malay song and very well at it too. So much so that if you closed your eyes, you would think they were Malaysian kids instead of these African kids! Song - Rasa Sayang! Next song was Can Mali Can. Another Malay song. Seriously they sang so well I almost cried. Yeah well i got a little emotional. Apparently they took two weeks to learn those songs.

Then it continued with a series of mandarin songs, an Alisan tune, mainly the ever popular oldies. Amazing really. Their diction and pronounciation was good.

Later on they had martial arts performances ( yes, professionally trained ) where a long metal piece was broken on one of the kid's head with a very loud 'ping'. Then a cute little fella was doing a series of stretching and sucking his tummy in and out like a belly dancer. Another came out with a small metal bowl with a long coloured loop and tassle attached to the bottom. The little fella place the bowl over his tummy and it stayed there.
Next a long pole was looped through the long coloured loop at the bottom of the bowl as the little fella bent himself backwards with the bowl pointing up. Then the two older boys on both ends of the pole lifted him up and made a slow 360 degrees turn before setting him back down. Awesome!

Soon a series of acrobatic and martial arts acts followed before they ended with a few more songs in chinese. It was really such a lovely evening.

I am glad mum made me go, I have to admire these kids for accepting their fate and faith and teachings and their hard dedication to help them and others back home by doing these tours to raise funds.

I shall look for the brochure and post it in in case anyone is curious and keen to check it out.
Have a good weekend all...;)