Heading home

I'm leaving tonight on the big jet. Sad to go but it's always nice to be home.
What a great experience this has been. My main reason to come was support for Michael, but getting the chance to insert myself and help out in various spots of the hospital and make some orphan friends has been truly uplifting. My English students all hugged me after class on Friday and said "we love you, teecha"! We worked hard at pronunciation- their tongues have never learned the "th" sound and they cannot say "v" to save their lives. It comes out "wee" every time. They laugh at themselves.
Dr. Michael has 9 more days here. He will be missed- they are begging him to stay. He has learned to speak slowly and clearly using the simplest terms he can to say what he needs to say. The doctors and students are all leaning in to listen when I see him through the glass. After the Khmer Rouge regime, there were only 7 doctors left in the country and very few people who spoke English or French. Therefore, this country has been very slow to get back on its feet in medicine and education. They really appreciate whatever effort is made to help them.
It's been a great experience to be here as a resident instead of a tourist whipping through to see the sights. At first, the life you see on the streets is overwhelming and confusing, but after a while, it all makes sense and seems normal! Every day we face the extremes of rich and poor and it is unsettling. The begging children and hunched over old folks really break your heart. Last night on the big boulevard where the big cars park, we saw a shop window with, among other sparkling things, an $849.00 designer purse. Half a block down from that shop window, a woman was putting her 2 children down to sleep for the night on grass mats on the sidewalk. It’s hard to understand how the folks that participate in the corruption that leads to these extremes sleep with themselves at night!
We watched a very old woman come by our apartment building on night recently carrying a stick with pots attached at either end. On one end was a little clay pot of burning coal embers and a cook pot hanging above it. Hanging on the other end was a plastic bin with ceramic plates, some green herbs, some little sauce bowls for 3 different sauces she had, and little forks. She was a purveyor of fine fertilized boiled duck eggs for the dining pleasure of some people who work next door to us. She scooped delicacy out of the simmering pot and on top of the herbs and served them up with sauces accompanying. She then sat in a tiny stool, maybe 3 inches high (which she also hangs on her stick) and waited for them to enjoy their eggs. When they finished, she washed up their plated in the hot water and was on her way to her next customer. Fertilized duck egg delivery, anyone?

Lots of living situations!

THE MOBILE CLINIC

Handing out food supplements and Michael makes a new friend.

In town, most people live in apartments, some okay, some very run down. Every one has a clothes line on their balcony as warm sunshine is plentiful. Lots of shop owners have an open room on the street, a sort of living room with dark, shiny wooden couches and chairs and almost always a TV set. Shelves of whatever they sell, bread or toys or used auto parts, get pulled in at dark, along with the family moto, then get locked behind a wall of sliding bars.
A family of 4 easily fits on a moto. Not big people, these! Today I saw 5 on a moto- the whole family including the baby in its mother’s arms. Not the safest way to travel, but it’s what they can afford- and that’s if they are lucky!The poorer people often don’t actually have a home- they have a shelter. There is a building going up near our guest house so we have been watching the construction (another whole story, but it involves rickety bamboo scaffolding and 4 stories). The construction crew lives on site- we see them stirring about in the early morning, lighting cooking fires on the first level. We have no idea where they find toilet facilities and probably don’t want to know. I am sure they have a water hose to use for a bucket bath and clothes washing. We see clothes drying on a rope down there.
The tuk-tuk drivers, of which there are many everywhere, sleep in their carriages. As a person with a sorry back, I worry about them! Some have a cushioned platform that they can stretch between the seats, which must help. The best idea I saw was one with a hammock stretched from corner to corner, looked pretty cozy! I worry about mosquitoes biting them all night, though! Their hygiene facilities must be really challenging, but most of them seem clean, neat, and shaven. I see them having soup for breakfast early each morning at sidewalk restaurants, sitting on tiny plastic stools that you might expect at kindergarten. It works for them! They are happily talking and slurping away.
The poorest folks are the ones we have seen out in the provinces. We went on the hospital’s mobile clinic one day and there we saw some pretty sad living conditions. It was a village of people who had been displaced from their slummy area in the city to build a new apartment complex which was unaffordable to them. The government promised apartments for them, but so far that has not happened. They live in a group of lean-to shanties, some covered with plastic tarp, some with sheets. They have platforms to sleep on with all their worldly possessions piled up around them. The mobile clinic workers are frustrated that construction has not started yet on their homes, as the rainy season starts in a couple of months. It looks a lot like the situation in Haiti.
The mobile clinic visits 5 such villages of displaced people and takes medicines to them. There’s a doctor on board to see anyone who is sick. There are a lot of HIV patients among these folks, so the clinic takes them the drugs to keep the disease at bay. They also take a nutrition supplement powder which has a lot of vitamins, minerals, and protein. They say it tastes pretty good- they all made sure they got their packet!

But before I close, I must remember to tell you about the not-poor people. They live in very large villas behind high walls with razor wire curled at the top. They often have many cars in their courtyards, which I see on my morning walks, as the gates are often open. The house boys or guards are providing daily washing or dusting to the Lexus 470 SUV's, sometimes Lexus 300, and occasionally the 570, which we had never seen before here. Those require no plates and have curtains as well as very dark windows. As as Michael mentioned last year, they often have "LEXUS" in very large letters on the doors, just in case you weren't sure! I want to take a picture of one, but I am afraid I might be shot...

Our getaway at the coast

The older pictures are now at the bottom of the blog. If I could only figure out how to insert them above the blog they match....

I had a lot of persistent entrepreneurs while at the coast. One wanted to sell me “lobster” which I actually tried. They looked pretty tasty and had obviously been cooked, so I had one. It was fairly tasty- you sprinkle ground chilies and salt on the meat that is down their back, and then squeeze lime juice on them. I probably would have bought more of them to eat if they weren’t so messy and if I had a husband who didn’t think eating things that looked like this wasn’t disgusting!
While we were sitting around our little bungalow guesthouse, we were visited by this young fruit salesperson, who was carrying this tray full of fruits on her head. We bargained with her for a pineapple, 3 bananas, and 2 mangoes (total $2.00 and that’s high!) Anyway, after we bought from her and were just talking to her about her school and things, her cell phone rang! Wow! You’re peddling fruit on the beach and you have a cell phone! It was her mother, who thought she might be playing pool, which I thought was a stitch. She wanted me to tell her mom she was indeed selling fruit.
The bracelet kids were very eager, some annoyingly so. But the 2 in the picture were really friendly and spoke English very well, so we talked for a while. Their little fingers were expertly weaving threads for bracelet-making the whole time we talked. She wants to be a tour guide all over the world and he wants to work in a restaurant. I did patronize their traveling business a little. Begging is a huge industry here. A lot of adults use children in their plea, or send children out to beg. People are encouraged never to give money to small children- if you wish to help, you give them food. There are absolutely no social services here, so widows with small children are in trouble, as are amputees, the blind or deaf, the infirm. There are some interesting industries that have been created by ex pats that help certain groups- for instance- they trained blind people to become massage therapists. There are also industries for amputees around. On the beach was an amputee who got around pretty well on something that looked like a giant Frisbee and wore flip flops on his hands. We gave him a little money. Later that evening, Michael saw him counting his money and said it looked like he’d had a good day. It’s a problem that a lot of people do better begging than working. I guess it’s a sort of profession too!

Feb. 9, 2010
Been away for a while. Michael is well again and we went to the coast for a long weekend. Michael needed a thinking break! His teaching schedule is intense this year and half of it is in French, so he had a tired brain. We took the Mekong Express, which is a pretty nice bus with a/c and nice seats, no chickens on top. The traffic is always interesting, whether in town or not. Size definitely matters! Bicycle trumps pedestrian, moto trumps bike, tuk-tuk trumps moto, cars trumps tuk-tuk, van and small truck trump car, bus trumps car, and semi trumps bus. Yield or get off the road to give way the bigger vehicle, in town or out.
It never ceases to amaze me what they can transport on or with one of these motos- I saw two heavy wooden beds on a small trailer, a people moving trailer with 15 or so people standing, HUGE piles of straw, a mattress, dead pigs, 6 or 8 cages of chickens,. a soup restaurant- you name it, they can move it on a moto! I am never fast enough to get a good picture.
The pictures are of a gas station- the more common gas station is a rack of large glass Coke and Pepsi bottles. The other picture is from the orphanage- a couple of sweet little girls posed in front of their garden that Michael helped plant last year. The banana trees are already producing bananas- Michael was amazed at the growth. I went out there with another American volunteer from the hospital and we played with them for a couple of hours. The little ones love to hold your hand or crawl in your lap; the big ones want to use their English skills to talk to us. I wish I had brought flash cards of animals or something- may try to find some before I go again so the little ones will get to try out their English skills as well.
Today I am being pulled over to the English Department here at the hospital to evaluate one minute speeches from the beginner English class here. All employees are encouraged to improve their English skills, so they offer classes for free. I am trying to learn a little Khmer, but they make sounds my tongue has never tried to wrap itself around! I have mastered hello, how are you, and thank you.
Later on Wednesday…
Listening to the English students’ speeches was great. For the most part, the people are very friendly and happy to learn. Most of them were very nervous and I saw bits of their faces quivering. One guy (who had obviously not prepared) shredded a tissue into bits while he was speaking. Then I had a cheater who must have gotten hold of a cassette of a tour operator for the temple area, for he said “this morning we will see the temple at Angkor Wat, then we will go for some lunch, then …..” They are all really great; to them I am “teecha.” What a hoot!

Friday, Jan 29

The streets are fascinating in so many ways. I remember Michael writing of the woman riding down the street grilling bananas on a grilled rigged to the front of her bike. I met this for my own eyes today and she allowed me to photograph her, which I shall post if only I can figure out the picture adding to the blog!

Every block has too many tuk-tuks, which are covered 2 seat taxis hitched to the back of a moto, which is a small motorcycle- 100 cc. The drivers are very eager to put our white faces on board, but we like to walk when we can and then ride when we are too hot or pooped. It turns out I have a partner in my limited walk capabilities. Turns out Michael went running at 5:30 am on Dec 27, stepped in a hole, and broke his fibula at the ankle. Not cracked, broken- made 2 bones out of one. Didn’t tell me, (didn’t want me to worry), but he’s in hot water about that! Fortunately, after wearing a boot to stabilize the bone, teaching when he could with his foot elevated, and walking with a cane, his latest x ray shows good healing.

The weekend has come and we are glad of that. Michael has been working harder than last year as he knows the lay of the land and jumps in with a more aggressive teaching schedule than last year. Between the constant heat and long days, we’re lucky to be awake at 9 pm.

Tuesday, Feb 2

Never got the last bit off. The weekend started out with a great walk on Saturday to the history museum, which houses a huge collection of the statues from the ancient civilization at Anchor Wat. There’s still a great deal of archaeological digs going on there and is by far the biggest tourist attraction in Phnom Penh. The courtyard was nice there, full of flowers and koi ponds with blossoming lotus flowers. Found a great spot for lunch of pho, Vietnamese noodle soup that we eat every chance we get in Portland. Even in the midday heat, it was delicious!

On Sunday, we went with the Hash House Harriers, a running group that has chapters in every nook and cranny of the world. We had to be walkers due to Michael’s still-healing leg and my back issues. We climbed rickety open air truck with 30 other kooks, left the city, and then took a really rickety ferry boat ride over to Mekong Island, where we happily left the noisy bustle of the city behind. There were massive spreads of beautiful fields of tomatoes, taro, corn, rice and lots of leafy greens, all with the Mekong River as the backdrop. Tethered horses and cows were here and there. We walked on dirt roads through the fields and then through a couple of poor but tidy villages where every house had children by the road to watch the parade of white people. They love to yell “hello” and did so at least 15 times each. Most kids were dressed but many were wearing only big smiles. We came to the end of our walk and were waiting for the others to get back amongst the grazing skinny cows. The Hash group gathers at the end to drink beer and sing silly songs and cut up for an hour or more. The island is famous for its weavers and the raw silk weavings were just magnificent. The ladies are highly keen to see interest in our eyes, so I was swarmed. If I just needed some raw silk- this would be the place!
During the swarming I noticed Michael sitting on the ground and turning a strange pale color. With no restrooms to be had and basically in the cow pasture, he got very sick very quickly. It was a long, miserable, hot wait to get back on the rickety truck, back on the rickety ferry, back to the central meeting place, then on a tuk-tuk for our ride home, which had to be a most excellent place for my poor sick man. He even missed work Monday, which means really sick for Michael, but is fine now other than being a little wrung out. I am happy to have dodged whatever that was and hope I can still say that in a few days!

Early Impressions by Diane

Here I am in Cambodia for six weeks. So far, so good.
It’s nice to be with my husband, who it turns out is a hero of the hospital. "We love you husband" I heard a lot the first day. He has learned to speak very slowly and clearly and look into the eyes of the 8 medical students, who rotate here for a month for Radiology training. We have to wonder what sort of training they get when he is not here, for the hospital staff is stretched thin to take care of all they have to do to mind the patients. He finds the fully trained doctors who are on staff here fairly limited in their basic knowledge, as they are evidently poorly taught in either English or French, which are not languages that they speak or understand well. So, he has to concede that he will do what he can do and hope that he “pushes the cart a little further up the hill.”
I am at the hospital now, day 3 for me. My function is still being defined. It seems that the first matter at hand is for me to help develop a management training program, seminars that will take place 1 hour at a time, 2 days a week, for 4 weeks. They have a newish HR manager, a nice woman from California. (Incidentally, this woman and her husband, a pediatrician with a successful practice in Southern CA, have committed to be here at the hospital for 3 years with their 2 children, ages 11 and 12. It never ceases to amaze me how many people there are who decide to spend time and resources to serve in the third world!)
Anyway, HR and management training have been neglected here for some time, and it is showing! There’s problems with conflicts within and between departments, extra long lunches and other work ethics, time management, teamwork, and so on. So my job shall be to help get this program together which I shall do with a little help from my friend, Google.
The director of development is also planning to yank me in her office when her current volunteer leaves at the end of the week. That’s okay, mix it up and I am never likely to be bored!
On Friday afternoon, I shall be visiting an orphanage for the purpose of simple interaction with the kids after school and helping them with their English skills. English is so crucial here because no other country speaks Khmer, the language of Cambodia.
There is very little office space here, so I work in a small conference room and hence have a much larger space than other people, but I can be thrown out at any minute if someone needs the space for a meeting.
How about home life? Michael has been living in a little apartment, called a service apartment, because it comes furnished and utilities are included. One of the best features of this is that the ladies who clean it daily take your laundry away each morning and it is clean and folded or hung when you get home. I haven’t seen a laudromat and wouldn’t mind keeping it that way! These ladies live on the roof of our building in a little shelter. They are always eager to smile and say good morning and are happy when we say hello to them in Khmer. The poor people all over Phenom Penh all have little charcoal or wood fires every morning I assume for making breakfast and maybe for heating up washing water. In the morning I step out on our tiny balcony and see the city waking up and little fires everywhere.
We have a little kitchen with a small double sink, a 9 or 10 cubic ft. refrigerator, and a 2 burner gas stove. No bakey here! We have a/c in the bedroom but not in the kitchen, so cooking goes quickly. There are beautiful vegetables and fruit to be had everywhere. Michael had a bowl full of 10 or 12 tomatoes when I came that he had paid about 50cents for! Maybe we need to have a better kitchen with all the great veggies!
Near our apartment are a lot of restaurants that cater to foreigners. We had a delicious Indian meal out Sunday night. Each entrée was $4-$5, and I think that’s fairly high here! Maybe we don’t need a better kitchen after all!
We also live near a park that is between 2 sides of a boulevard. It’s all nice and wide, thanks to the French laying out the city all those years ago. There are nice wide sidewalks on each side of the grassy area where I go walking every morning. There are lots of Cambodians doing Tai Chi and some martial arts and many folks walking slowly and stretching their arms. I am by myself, it’s 6:30 am, and I am perfectly safe. The scariest part is crossing the streets to come home!
Back to work- I have to earn my pay:)