On the table was fried meehoon prepared by the new cook Matha. But David was still expecting a roti cheese treat from me at an Indian restaurant at Bukit Beruang. While I was thinking whether I would bring Paul along, the soon-to-be full-time CCH worker Mohan informed us that all of us were invited by the former cook Letchmy to her house for tosai at 10am.
So, finally I stayed at the dining room for my first round of breakfast. With a roll of toilet paper, our artistic Luke who joined us later nicely presented my bouquet of pandan leaves as a decoration.
As there were only six boys and three adults, we went with the CCH van in which I sat for the first time. I came to understand why the children always preferred to travel with our cars. This time, Mohan was the one who transported us while the full-time driver George had become the instructor.
As Mohan was not used to this old vehicle, the engine died suddenly very often on the road due to the problematic timing belt. The short journey thus seemed to be a lengthy one and I prayed hard for avoiding any accidents.
The children who had not tasted Letchmy's cooking for more than a month were happy to eat her food again while watching the television.
After them, I was served three slices of tosai with different types of gravy.
Letchmy also poured coffee for us and continued to make those rice-flour based crepes on a hot greased griddle.
I was very full with my second round of breakfast. Our hospitable host still took over my plate to add two more newly fried tosai, one of which I passed to John who had already swallowed seven, eight slices. Isaac probably ate more than that! But I would not be surprised if David, who was at first a bit disappointed at the cancelled roti cheese treat, was actually the champion eater of tosai accompanied by either milo powder or curry.
I said to him, "If we went for roti cheese just now, you could only have one. Now you're eating more than ten tosai here. This is better, right?"
"No, I still prefer roti cheese. One piece is already big and it's tastier."
If you wish to win this boy's stomach, please put a lot of cheese in whatever little food you offer to him.
George was the one who drove the heavier us back to CCH. After the late lunch,
we started our sportive afternoon programme. As no other people came to carry out any activities with the boys, I took this opportunity to burn calories by playing football with them. I was often the "monkey" who was trying to catch the ball from the rest who passed it among them. Very soon, I lacked of stamina. To encourage me to run a few more kilometres, David shouted to me, "Now you've already lost five kilos. You need to lose ten!"
The next game was "Ice-cream soda 1,2,3" which I used to play with other girls during my childhood times. It was not easy to step on the feet of our CCH boys who were hopping around like grasshoppers. Isaac was kind enough not to choose me as his first victim to crash on the feet. But even when I attacked, I still ended up as a loser.
Lastly, I played table tennis with them. As someone who used to get medium marks for the physical education subject, I felt comforted to hear compliments from the CCH boys.
The result of that afternoon's running, jumping and waving my arm: I needed three days to recover from my tiredness.
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