A MAMILS' Paradise (#lockdown Singapore Day 1)

It was eerily quiet when we set off at 6.45am this morning ... until we had the weaving MAMILs on the road.

So much for getting my act together and documenting the life of the mother of an NS recruit in Singapore ... I suppose in some areas, I am not as organised as I really should be.

And now, we are in #lockdown - well, sort of. But, my eldest, now a third Sergeant, and a CQMS, has to report in each morning, collect the key and open up the stores.

Since he was posted to the Bukit Gombak camp, we've been up with the farmers, and I have driven him to camp, early - he likes to get in early and sit in silence before everyone else arrives. I suppose it's a type of "man cave" thing.

This morning, the first day of lockdown, which isn't really a lockdown, was no different.

Up with the farmers, and a sourdough (thank you Simply Bread) cream cheese and semi-sundried tomato sandwich (healthy and nutritious breakfast). A small box of grapes, a handful of vitamins, (well you have to, don't you?), a bottle of water and a tube of fruit tips for the afternoon (not very healthy).


As I sat in the car, waiting to leave, I wondered at the quietness of the car park. No families rushing out to deliver their children to early-morning school, no cleaners, no dog walkers, no one. Was this how the roads would be?



I'd like to say there wasn't a soul in sight as we drove out and turned onto Sixth Avenue and then Bukit Timah Road.

There was a distinct shortage of cars and red tail-lights - but no! There were red tail-lights, dancing around the lanes. MAMILs - that elusive creature, which appears on the road when the gas-guzzling monsters have disappeared.

This morning indeed was a MAMILs' paradise.


And now, after a regular early morning walk, avoiding the #workfromhome crowd that are discovering this novelty, I start my day.




As a private tutor, I have been working at home for years (and also visiting my pupils).

Now everything has moved online, and now, I am a master of multiple video apps. Sadly though, I have realised how lacking schools have been in reading students for learning remotely and using digital and shared applications.

Fortunately, my students and I have a headstart, we began working this way before the lockdown - and no visiting anyone came into force.

DiscoverLearning

But remote and online learning is for another post on another website ... 

Enlistment Day

Thursday. I am not sure why enlistment was on a Thursday. In two days time, it would be the weekend.

The day of enlistment was interminably hot. Well, it normally is hot, one-degree north of the equator. But that day was hot and humid. Not your typical November day in Hartlepool.

How often is he home and how does he seem?

The first two weeks of Basic Military Training (BMT), are confinement weeks, there is no book-out. Basically this is to get the recruits familiarised and settled in. 

I remember crying behind my sunglasses when we took the ferry from Pulau Tekong (where the BMTC schools and quarters are located), to the SAF Ferry Terminal at Changi. 

You certainly can't go awol at Tekong, it's a bit of a swim back to the main Singapore and the water is a tad murky. 

They make them call home every evening at around 9pm for the first 5 days. Which was comforting for all of us, and this is something that Jason has done every evening, unless he was on guard duty or field camp ever since. 

Jason got his first book-out on the second Friday afternoon and then had to fall in at the bus pick up at White Sands in Pasir Ris on Sunday afternoon. 

After that it has pretty much been home every weekend. Sometimes it was Friday night book out ans sometimes Saturday morning and a couple of times, he's taken the MRT and surprised me. 

Before his passing out parade (graduate from recruit to soldier/private), I was supposed to collect him one Friday morning. He messaged me and told me he was nearly at Sixth Avenue station, so we met at gurthrie house and had breakfast at simply bread. The ladies were all over him as in his uniform as they've watched him grow up. 

It took a few weeks for him to settle in - Jason is an introvert extra-ordinaire. However, he began to realise that life is very structured and there are lots of rulea that he likes. 

Is he eager to go back?

He enjoyed camp, most of the time because it was structured. But, he was also pleased to come home and have home cooked food and a bed that was long enough for him. Ha ha. 

Jason loves to run and he is one of the fastest in his platoon and company, so even at home on rest days, he would go out in the evening with me for a run. 

Probably the most annoying part for him was when other didn't pull their weight. Everyone gets punished then. 

He was the only ang moh in his training camp platoon and company. 

He was accepted and I think they began to appreciate his caustic sense of humour and his whatever attitude. 

Is he changing already?

Definitely. He's got more confidence, he's very responsible (but then he always was). 

His room looks like a bomb has hit it when he comes home. I asked him how come he can be so neat and tidy in camp, and yet a slob at home. 

Answer: it's home, and my room, not camp. 

I'll try and write again about the parade and also his training camp. 

He's now a private and is training for his vocation as a CQMS (quarter master) sergeant. He'll be in charge of a contingent responsible for logistics for some area of the army after 9 weeks of course, and about 3-4 months of OJT. 

He will have another passing out parade as a sergeant in November. He has to wear Smart Ones for that. The black trousers and white jacket. So he'll be an officer. 

He's told me lots of funny stories, but I'll need to be careful what I describe as they're a bit funny about that. Right down to the fact that Jason will now only cross the road at a proper crossing area. Ha ha. 

Fuad had a chat with Dyson, but not much came of it. Nor sure they had anything for him. But we'll see. He's now in charge of asset management and an area of BD (that's engineering focused). 

Must go now as I have to sort dinner. We went out at the back along the canal and Jason made Max run 2.4km. He's such a bossy soldier

An Island off an Island

Pulau Tekong. An island off an island. The island every Singaporean male either comes to love of to loath.

Yet, islands off islands are no different to the Isle of Wight off the south coast of the UK, or the Orkneys off the north coast of Scotland, the Isle of Mann to the West, or even Singapore's playground: Sentosa. But this island is a little different.


Pulau Tekong, roughly translated as obstacle Island, is not so named because it is home of Singapore's military recruit training schools with their Standard Obstacle Course (SOC - as Singapore loves acronyms), but because it sits, somewhat blocking the mouth of the Johor River. Well, that is one explanation. 

The history of the island is thought to go back 3,000 years with evidence of settlements, but what is certain is that Tekong was originally two islands. The smaller of the two, being Pulau Tekong Kecil (Kecil Malay for small). During the 19th century, the island of Pulau Tekong served as a trading post between Johor and Pulau Ubin, another island a little further to the south (and closer to Singapore). Tekong had a thriving community of settlements or Kampongs, growing fruit and even tobacco (perish the thought in smoke-allergic Singapore!).

In 1987, Pulau Tekong was established as the Basic Military Training Centre for many National Service men, and over the years, other training camps have been relocated to the island. 

The NS journey, as we discovered, does not quite start the moment you step off the ferry and onto the terra firma of Tekong. It starts before that. And, if you are Ang Moh (a Caucasian), and no matter how hard you try to integrate, you miss out on the build-up to IPPT through the Singapore education system, then you will find yourself spending not only the standard 9 weeks of basic military training, but a further 8 weeks to build your fitness up.

But, I won't go into that. The early mornings over at Toa Payoh stadium, watching painfully as (not situps but) pushups were struggled with before a 2.4km run in sweltering heat. Nor trying to make sure there was a supply of large plastic ziplock bags, loo roll and underpants - no trunks - underpants :( and whatever else was not on the packing list. 

Nineteen Years and Counting

I suppose, when I arrived at 7.45am on a humid Sunday morning, my two cats rather annoyed at me for their 14-hour flight ordeal, that it never dawned on me I would be here for this long. Nor, that one day, two teenage sons in tow, that I would be experiencing my own form of National Service. 

My tale does not start at the beginning. Mind you, what decent tale ever does? Neither am I certain that it starts in the middle. But then time is relative, and who knows how much we really have?

I begin my recount at one of those momentous turning points. No epiphany, no revelation or sudden inspiration, but rather at a point when you realise that perhaps there is a choice of where you call home.

National Service in Singapore is a right of passage for any male over the age of 18 who is a Singapore citizen or has been born in Singapore as a Permanent Resident. While the mandatory nature of National Service has riled me at times, this journey within a journey, if embraced correctly, is a path to appreciation, and on so many levels. 

As a parent of an NS man - A term I still find hard to digest as my son is still a boy, although in the UK he is technically an adult - the first few posts will be a reflection of the intriguing experience I have been through over the past eight months. With another sixteen to go.

Then it will it start all over again with son number two.