Years of Toys brings joy to orphans

Since Alex came into my life, I had pampered him with toys. It could be that I remember my own childhood which was virtually toyless. I remember that one Christmas when I was probably 4 or 5 years old, a church in Petaling Jaya gave me a plastic car which was pretty sizable - about 10 inches in length. I kept it for years. If I remember, I still had then until I was at least 12 years old. My one and only toy in my early childhood.

So I do not begrudge my son his toys. I have been trying to teach him to do collectibles like Matchbox cars or HotWheel cars. But in this age, the idiot box holds sway. He is easily influenced by the toys given with McDonald's meals or KFC meals. As he nears his 9th birthday, I took off 2 days to clean up his boxes (and I do mean boxes) of toys in the spare room. The end result was a bag of masak masak toys (cooking games), which he played with his girlfriends. One bag of big LEGO lookalike. 2 bags of those smaller size McDonalds and KFCs toys given with meals. One bag of broken down or semi broken down remote control cars - there must be like about 8 or so. 2 bags of pre-school blocks (matching shapes and colors) and 2 more bags of assorted others. And these bags are the BIG BLACK rubbish bags.

I gave away the LEGO lookalike and the shape/colors blocks to Sri Eden, a school for special kids operated by Elaine's mum, sister and friends. This school helps to educate mentally challenged kids to cope with life by teaching them the basics of looking after themselves. They have had some success in helping some of the students to assimilate into normal school. I don't envy what they are trying to do. I have a very very short temper and almost no patience and if you put me into a group of kids like these, I would probably kill some of them before they can learn anything.

The rest of the toys, I gave away to the orphanage that is run by Charis Church in Taman Billion. They operate out of 3 double storey link houses in Taman Billion, Cheras and currently have 16 orphans under their care. Even before I left, I could see the kids eyes light up as they rummage through the bags. One of them seemed to be collecting every toy car he could lay his hands on.

I hope I did not cause too much disruptions as it is likely that some kids would want to claim the same toy. I am sure there is plenty to go around. Early Alzheimer's kicked in again. I FORGOT my camera!! So - no pictures.