The team captain, Krison, was waiting for them outside the changing room.

“I am so glad you are coming.” He looked at Jessica, genuinely pleased.

“We’re happy to help,” Andreae chirped. “Are we sharing a taxi?”

“I have a motorbike. I’ll meet you there,” Krison said. “The venue is called Lucky Tongue. You can locate it using Google Maps.”

Jessica rolled her eyes again. She was pretty certain he would not be paying their taxi fare.

It turned out that the NGO ran a soup kitchen in a coffeeshop that was not open on Sundays. Krison waved them over as they entered. He was seated at a corner table with a lady who looked to be in her forties. The latter stood and shook their hands warmly. “So nice of you to join us, ladies. We can always do with more volunteers. I’m Omala. I am the director of Migrant Workers Count Too.”

“We are glad to be here,” Andreae said. “Do you need us in the kitchen?”

“We have enough manpower in the kitchen tonight. You can help us serve at the counter when people start coming at six. We are catering for 250 people.”

Jessica was pleased. She was meeting her boyfriend after dinner. They had something exciting planned and she didn’t want to turn up smelling like a simmering pot of mutton curry; she could tell from the distinctive aroma emanating from the kitchen that that was what was for dinner.

Krison slipped into the kitchen and returned with four plates of white rice topped with servings of fish moolie, curry mutton cubes and sayur lodeh. Omala urged them to take their time. The place would not get busy for another half an hour.

“The soup kitchen is a such sweet idea. I am sure the migrant workers are very grateful,” Andreae muttered while she chewed on the mutton cubes, mangling her words and making “sweet” sound like “swee”, which meant “pretty” in Hokkien. She added, looking at Omala, “You are such a sweet lady.”

“I am neither a sweet nor ‘swee’ lady,” Omala said, tickled. “If anything, I am an enraged and indignant woman.”

“Why?” Andreae exclaimed, but she dragged her syllables too long and came across sounding like an enraged and indignant cat screeching.

Omala pointed at a table behind the girls. “You see those two Bangladeshis? Their names are Majumder and Bhimul. I will tell you their stories.”

Jessica and Andreae turned to get a good look. Both men donned striped polo shirts and faded jeans, and looked nondescript. But they shared an aura of dispiritedness, their eyes downcast and their shoulders slumped.

“Majumder started work for a construction company in May. To date, he has not received a full month’s pay. He has a family of seven back in Bangladesh going hungry, while he is stuck in Singapore jobless and homeless, awaiting a financial settlement between the Ministry of Manpower and his employer.”