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Published: July 26th 2011
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My hosp grounds & the rain
Indeed, the wet season is upon us in Cambodia - great for the farmers, not so great if you need to go to the TB Ward! Heellloooo!!!
Good day dear friends, has indeed been a while - a combination of business, laziness, internet issues and power cuts have conspired to ensure a somewhat long delay in updates! Alas, no more, will be on it like Sonic from hereonin, promise!
So, what's been going on? Well, loads really! Don't worry, I won't be giving a day-by-day account of the past 2.5months or so! I am feeling very settled at work and in my village, and enjoying every day - of course there are no shortages of challenges, frustrations and WTFs, but nothing could sully the wonderful experiences I am having.
Work has been interesting, and as I've been in placement now since April, I am making some good connections with the staff. From here on out is the time that I can start to properly support, advise and hopefully positively change things for the better - no doubt it'll be long road, but the staff are enthusiastic and open to working with me, so who knows, I may actually do some good!
I am trying to do a mix of tangible and intangible things at the hospital, and one of the most tangible things
Mooo-slurp!
A common sight in my hospital, a herd of cows grazing within the grounds I helped with is the paining of our paediatric ward. Myself, Jon, Hannah (a Education VSO vol based in Sisophon) and Hannah's friend Meg spent a couple of days painting the ward, with our intention to turn it from a cold, industrial looking place to a child friendly environment – look at the pics and let me know if we succeeded please! Thankfully Meg is a graphic designer, so all of my work was done under strict supervision – most of you will know my uselessness with anything to do with pictures, paint or drawing!
As a way to repay Hannah for her help in painting the paediatric ward, Jon and I went to a school she works at to do some football training and games with the children there. Great fun, but totally knackering! We did it on the morning during a week Jon and I did nights at the hospital, so after working at the hosp from about 6pm to 5am, we then went to play football with a group of kids who have more energy than a truck of Red Bull!
As well as my VSO work at the Hospital and Health Center I work
at, I have also been visiting - in a non-VSO capacity - a orphanage in the next village with my VSO compadre, Jon. We head up there about once a week, play some footie and volleyball, chat to the kids and offer some help and support where we can. For example, we are set to do some English and IT lessons, as well as some health promotion and hopefully some sex/love/relationship advice to the older kids. There are about 80 children in the Center, ranging from 3yrs old up to 21/22, as well as one young woman who has a severe learning disability. It is such a wonderful place, and in complete contrast to the notion that it should be a sad, depressing, destitute place - it is in fact the polar opposite! It's run by a lady from Spain and about 8 other Ka'mai staff, all of whom sleep in the Center and look after the children. As some of the children have expressed an interest in becoming doctors and nurses, we recently arranged for about 25 children to come to the hospital and hear from a doctor and a midwife - they found the visit very interesting, even
if we probably turned more kids off a medical career than those we might have encouraged to pursue one!!!
I am heading back to Phnom Penh in a few weeks for a second set of language training, which is in addition to the ongoing lessons me and Jon have been having with a local teacher. So whilst I cannot read or write in Ka'mai, I can now hold conversations and make myself understood most of the time - result!
I am also very aware I have yet to introduce you to my new steed, Natalie. Please let me correct that now! She is a Honda Dream, 125cc moto with a semi-auto gearbox and rides like an actual dream! Best of all, she has taken a lickin' and kept on tickin'! Yep, in a style true to my mountain biking days, I have had more than a couple of 'involuntary dismounts' (read 'crashes'😉!
By far the scariest was when a little girl, maybe 3yrs old, wandered out into the road from behind a food stall, right into my path. She stayed there, and as I swerved to go around her she started to (literally) walk backwards into my
front tyre - thank god I was only going about 25kpm. My only course of action was to purposely crash my bike, by slamming on the front brake to lock and skid the front wheel, then to push the bike away from the child to her left as I jumped over the handlebars and rolled across the road to the right.
Yes, it hurt. A lot.
Jon was right behind me and he said that it was one of the most scary things he ever seen...am not sure he meant the near fatal crash into a child wandering around the middle of the road, or my big ass flying through the air and commando rolling into the dirt?!? When I got up out of the dirt, and started to assess my injuries, I saw some older kid get a clip around the ear for not looking after the little girl....mmmm, "too little too late" me wanted to shout! Alas, Natalie was fine (bar a slightly bent front basket!) and me and Jon bugged outta there - it is not exactly unheard of for people in RTA's to be extorted by the rozzers for a 'fine' paid to them
Paediatric Ward Painting 2
...looking pretty grim you'll agree and for compensation paid to the family.
Other than that, it's been great! Have a great group of friends nearby, although two of them, Dan and Laura, will be leaving very soon. We've had quite a few weekends in Siem Reap recently, and also some random nights round our houses....it is fair to say a few shandies may be enjoyed on such occasions. One night round Dan's we ended up playing hide and seek in Dan's awesomely massive house! Very silly but very funny!
So, will quit my jibber-jabber and let you all get back to your day. I am so sorry for the lack of posts, and promise will be better in keeping everything updated. I'd love to hear from you all and know what is going on in your lives, so it would be wicked if you could either Private Message me though this blog or email me (you should have that anyways!) your news. Please please please!
Big love from Kampuchea,
Pete
p.s. The TravelBlog website had undergone a refurb, so the rest of the pictures are now down towards the bottom of the page - keep on scrolling!
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