_Day 1

I was placed in the computer department for the AM shift, where my task was to remove hard drives from PCs, plug them into a monitor and (from what I could tell) erase their contents. Theoretically it was easy, but I managed to slighlty mess up the process once or twice -_-. I don't know if I trust myself to deal with pricey electronics. Luckily there were other more experienced volunteers to help. They seemed surprised that someone as young as me would willingly become a regular volunteer. I think I should have gone for an intership instead... same tasks, but probably sounds better on paper.
For lunch, I decided to eat in the canteen. The food was... well I can tell it catered to non-local tastes. I've never seen any canteen/food service station that provides raw vegetables. Aside from the dry chicken and egg tart (the only Chinese item), it was very vegetarian. But I didn't mind that much, as I need more fibre anyway. Another volunteer sat at my table and we made small talk, she was from Germany and was in Hong Kong for a sabbatical, working as an admin. She mentioned she came to Hong Kong because it was the only English speaking region aside from India, but was surprised that many people couldn't speak good English. It seems many people have the impression that English is fluently spoken here, even in Mainland China too. In reality it seems like Singapore fits this mold more, even though from what I've seen some people online aren't even aware that they speak it there.
I switched to the Bulk department for the PM session, despite requiring more physical labour, the tasks were easier for me. I basically just packed boxes. The other volunteers in this department were a big contrast... they were all special needs, and the manager spend most of her time instructing them carefully. She sent me out to do my own task since it was easier that way.

_Day 2

I was assigned to the local donations department in the morning, where I only cleaned and tidied up. It was much more boring than before and I was glad to go to lunch early (the food was slighltly better this time). I ended up sitting in a table with a bunch of Germans. One of them asked everyone if they celebrated Thanksgiving or if it was just an American thing. Apparently Thanksgiving is the trademark holiday for America. They remarked on how nice the weather was and how they wanted to stay for longer... I think they'll change their mind when summer comes.
Luckily my PM shift in the clothing department was much more enjoyable. I met a graduated uni student who came from a similar background to me so we got to talking. The task of unboxing shoes and flatening cardboard boxes was much more stimulating too, but not too difficult.
During the mid day I stumbled upon a couple of shorts of what seemed to be a building on fire. By the time I got home the entire block of buildings, home to 2000 people was blazing. This was quite near my house so I could hear sirens going back and forth.

_Day 3

I woke up to news of 279 missing and 44 dead, and the fire still not put out. This staggering death toll (because likely speaking, all those that have lost contact did not get out) was the result of shoddy construction work and corruption. At the NGO, the staff of the local donations department were super busy and lots of people rushed into donate their stuff. As for me, I clocked into the clothing department, but instead of unboxing shoes I upgraded to moving and packing boxes, logging in pallets in the inventory system. Obviously, there was also tons of cleaning up.
After lunch I fed the goats on the NGO site with 2 interns, including the uni student I previously met. I was assigned to electrical, but aside from briefly wrapping up donations most of my time was spent helping other people load donations for Tanzania. Well, they did the loading. I mostly cut and folded up cardboard boxes, occasionally moving furniture around. Did not enjoy the latter, it was fine earlier when I was doing with smaller boxes in a larger area but not in this case. The girl I was working with was very nice, although I heard her call those 旺旺 crackers spicy!!! Do they not put seasoning on German food?
The fire was still burning by the time I had dinner.