Akela! We Will Do Our Best!

Our Akela shouted, “Paaaacccckkk…..pack…pack…pack…pack!”.  After all these years, I could still remember his voice and intonations, his enthusiasm and above all his dedication to teach us living skills.

We would run to form a circle.  We then squatted in a circle with our index and fore finger touching the ground and Akela stand upright in the middle. We shouted with all our might: ” Akela, we will do our best.”  Then we would jump and stand tall with our index and fore finger placed against our temple, and the person that faces Akela would say, ” Dip, dip, dip dip.”. We then end the ritual with the our salutation, saying “Dop, dop, dop,dop”.

That’s how we begin our weekly Cub’s meeting at the padang beside our school on Thursdays at 4.30pm.

Standing (L) : Mr Ong Tit Hoe (Akela) Standing (R): Miss Lee (Baghira).  Seated (middle row from L-R) ?, Lian Chin Chew, Hashim Kamal, ?, Woon Tong Boo,?,?

Akela was the macho Mr Ong Tit Hoe in his Akela uniform and Baghira was our beautiful Miss Lee in her stunning dark green uniform with her green beret always slightly sengget! :)

I had always looked forward to this meetings as only then I could proudly wear the Cub’s uniform – a short sleeved grey khaki shirt designed not for tugged in, brown rubber shoes with socks, a neckerchief colored blue and yellow (the colors of ACS) and crowned by a green cap with golden yellow laces.

We spent our meeting days with all sort of games and camp fire songs.  It was all fun and laughter.  Above all we learned the true meaning of team work,  tolerance and respect.

Being a Cub was for only for 3 years. That is from Std 3 till Std 6. After that we had to resign automatically I suppose.  It was sad to leave the primary school but was excited to go to the upper school.

It is a kind of mixed feelings. Probably it is the first mixed feelings of our life.