The campsite had a holiday feel to it. Clothes hung on makeshift clothes-line. Small stoves and barbeque pits occupy the floor around the park shelter. There were fishing rods, crab traps, guitars, styrofoam boxes, unwashed plates and utensils as well.
At one of the shelter, there was even a table on which were two containers of syrup. People – mostly Malays – sat in the shelter, chatting, laughing. A couple arrived with their kid pushing a small shopping cart of groceries. I counted 23 tents pitched on a grass patch about 50 meters long. The kampung spirit certainly lived on in these people, one would assume.
Except that most of them would rather not be here at Sembawang Park. They were here because they had nowhere else to go. You could say they are homeless, but you would be wrong. The homeless do not exist in Singapore. They are merely ‘temporarily displaced’.
Andrew (Chief Editor of TOC) and I spoke to a couple seated inside one of the shelters. The male – his name is Zazali – had a place to stay, but he came on weekends to see his friends staying here. He was a very friendly chap, but as he spoke about the people living here (he claimed there were about 15 households), you could sense the frustration in his voice.