Vast knowledge comes with a price

Last night, in a rather impromptu fashion, I joined Megan, Bernard and company to volunteer for Reach Out KL. Reach Out distributes food to the homeless of KL, going to various locations. We got to KL just shy of 12am, excited and eager to dive right into this new experience. Unfortunately expectations always lead to disappointment, and disappointment was had.

As the length of the food run is dependent on the amount of food procured from the donators, yesterday's one was extremely short given that only 30 or so packet of foods were available. As some of them had gone the week before and went on a run that lasted til 3 am, it was quite a potong stim moment. Nonetheless, the point of going was to gain experience and that was still done, no matter the length of it.

We visited only one spot in Masjid India, but even so it was a humbling experience to see so many without a roof on their head. Although some looked like the stereotypical hobo type person, some just didn't seem like they should be there. We took the chance to speak to the leader of that day's food run, a person with 5 years worth of experience who still was as dedicated as when he began. It's admirable to see young adults (<35) who are committed enough to do this on a weekly basis. There is still hope left for humanity after all.

Something he said struck me, which was that there's a fine line between us with a roof over our heads and them on the streets. The homeless obviously never intended to end up there, but a chain of events inevitably caused them to call the streets their home. The question is, how do we avoid those chain of events? Or even better, are they even avoidable?

Since it was such a short run, we decided to make use of the fact that we all traveled certain distances and so we found ourselves at a Mamak overlooking KLCC. It was a motley bunch of people, some whom I was meeting for the first time. Nonetheless, the conversation was good and many laughs were had. As much as the the point of going to KL was to volunteer, meeting new people brings life to new conversations which are very much as experience building as volunteering. Small things count too.

Tonight was spent with the original college four, and it was spent catching up given the last one we had was a few months ago. Although I have friends who are closer and with many more years behind us, these are the people I characterize my college years with. We even got free cake in Starbucks. That was a nice surprise.

Christmas weekend is approaching and the days building up to it seem rather activity filled. Yay.

Cheers. More later perhaps?