Day 1- Thursday
After a 4:30 start in Bangkok we arrived at the airport tired but excited and unsure of what faced us in the day ahead. After what felt like a ten minute flight (actually 40 mins) we finally landed in Siem Reap. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, the sun was shining and there were small wispy clouds floating high in the sky. The mood among us was buzzing with excitement as we headed towards customs.
As soon as we got through customs we met up with Jo and Thomas, our on the ground team while we are in Cambodia, and got into vans on our way to Jasmine Lodge. The traffic on the road to Jasmine Lodge was epic, there were people turning left right and centre and every one drives on the right side of the road completely opposite from Australia. I swear that was the most nerve racking drive of our lives. When we reached Jasmine Lodge we settled in with some delicious lunch and a quick Khmer lesson, most of us picked it up pretty quickly and can now introduce ourselves and count up to 20.
As soon as lunch had ended and we had settled into our rooms we got back into the vans and headed out to the Self Help Community Centre School and the Krabei Riel Health Centre. The SHCC is an amazing place that helps children in the nearby villages by teaching them English, Sport, Art and other various subjects. They currently have just over 1400 students that take various classes during the day. We explored the grounds of the SHCC, which contains various buildings, multiple vegetable gardens as well as some animals that the children help look after.
One of the most interesting differences from Australian health care is the fact that no shoes are worn inside the building. By this point we were a little amazed with what we were seeing, knowing that we take the luxurys of the Australian health care system for granted. After our tour of the clinic we headed back into town for a tour of the local area whcih helped us a lot with finding places to go for dinner etc. Everything over here is so cheap and that night I got a large plate of fried rice for $2, finding that in Australia would be imposssible.
Today was another very hectic amazing day. After a lovely breakfast we walked into town headed for the Angkor hospital for children. This hospital was absolutely inspiring. When we first arrived we watched a DVD about how the hospital was founded and how far it had come. The waiting area of the hospital was packed with parents and their children waiting to see doctors and receive treatment. One thing that I will never forget from this hospital was seeing a girl aged around 2 laying asleep on a swing chair with a rash covering her body, there was nothing that any of us could do and no way that we could help her I just felt so helpless.
After seeing the waiting area we continued on to the kitchen area where the patients family would prepare food for the family either while they were waiting for treatment or while they were receiving treament. The hospital also had a vegetable garden where hey grew fresh produce to give to the patients family to cook if they could not afford to buy food. After looking around the rest of the buildings we headed off towards the Provincial hospital.
This hospital was a lot larger then any other of the hospitals or clinics we had seen however it still had quite basic facilities, none of the beds had sheets and there was no proper cooking area for the patient's families. We had a guided tour of this hospital, which is the main hospital in Siem Reap for the people to go. following the tour we had lunch and took approx an hours drive to the Military Handicap Development Centre which is another basic health clinic that we will be working in throughout our placement. we also visited the school and played with some of the children that attend the school. They were so cute and showed us how they could sing the alphabet as well as some other english songs.
Following our visit to the school we headed to the Cambodian Landmine Museum, which was amazingly insightful. It was extremely interesting to learn about how landmines are uncovered and remved from the land. There was plenty of information about Cambodia's dark and tragic history with the Khmer Rouge as well as stories from survivors of that time period. I have never seen so many landmines in one museum before and according to the information only 30% of the mines that have been uncovered were in that museum. The search for landmines in villages around Cambodia is still completed to this day by a very skill team and believe it or not they can detect the landmines by using a stick.
As we left the landmine museum I think the group had an improved understanding of the hardships that the Cambodian people experienced during the rough Khmer rouge time period. On our way back to the lodge we passed a small temple which gave us a taste of what it will be like to see Angkor Wat. The temple was beautiful and as the sun was setting it seemed to bounce off the uneven edges and jagged walls of the temples capturing its beauty in a way that couldn't be described. That night we went to a restaurant for a group dinner where we experienced some traditional Khmer dances, each dance displaying its own beautiful and individual story with such detail and elegance. Day 3 - Saturday
Today was the day of our home stay, we were all very excited to stay in a real Khmer house and gain a greater understanding of the way that they live in the villages. After a little bit of a sleep in we headed off on our hour drive towards the homestay. On the way we stopped off at a cute little restaurant for a really delicious lunch and some people bought fresh coconuts to drink the coconut water out of which were cut there fresh at the restaurant.
After lunch we headed out to a school called "My Grandfather's House"" to do some health education sessions to the children of the school. When we arrived we were greeted by approx 250 school children as well as the teachers waiting in lines for us to arrive. It was quite overwhelming at first because we didn't know how we could provide education to such a large group of students. So after a quick introduction we split the children into three groups and taught them three separate topics which were First Aid, Hand washing and Sanitation and also Teeth Brushing. The children were so eager and willing to learn and they all wanted to get involved in our interactive sessions.
After teaching them our topics we taught them some simple English games such as Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, Simon says and also the Hokey Pokey. They all had such a good time and it made our group feel good that we could make an impact on their lives by teaching them basic skills that we take for granted. The next part of our day was also amazing we got to go on ox cart rides...Yes believe it or not OX CART RIDES! we boarded our ox carts in an extremely awkward fashion at my grandfathers house and got off an hour later at our home stay house. The ox cart ride was quite bumpy but extremely enjoyable and there were many laughs along the way. I had never experienced anything like that before and a lot of us found it so surreal and quite relaxing.
During our ride we traveled along dirt roads, past local houses and across vast fields and witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets that we had ever seen and although we couldn't quite capture it's beauty on film I think it will be a memory that will stick with us for quite a long time. When we reached our homestay house we all got back into the vans and headed to dinner at the same restaurant we had lunch at previously that day. It was at this dinner that we learnt that not everybody had quite gotten the knack of aiming in the squat toilets and someone had accidently missed and hit their foot. If you had seen a squat toilet you would understand how easily that could have happened.
I also learnt at dinner that mosquito repellant and eyes really don't go together and I had to get Peta to wash it out.... so tip from the experienced dont scratch your insect repellant covered arm and then wipe your eye. We also had our first experience with begging children who were trying to sell bracelets to us at the restaurant, they were really cute and knew really good English however it was really sad to see young children trying to sell items on the street at night rather then laying in bed getting excited about thier next day at school.
After dinner we headed back to the homestay house and walked upstairs to where we were all sleeping. It looked like any kids dream, there was six mosquito net tents lined up in two rows each of them with woven mats laying on the floor which was the equivalent of a bed. We then each had a blanket and small pillow and there were two or three of us in each tent. It took me back to my childhood when i used to make cubby houses under the kitchen table for fun except so much better! The weather that night was quite cold which none of us were expecting so it made sleeping a little bit uncomfortable but it was good to see how Cambodian people lived and slept. The was the first night that we actually felt the cold of the Cambodian winter. Day 4 - Sunday
This morning we all we up before sunrise after having a not so comfortable sleep the night before. As soon as everyone was up we piled into the vans and started on our hour drive back to Jasmine Lodge for breakfast. Today was our free day so after breakfast and some much needed sleep everyone dispersed to explore Siem Reap. Some people went shopping, others lazed around and watched movies however most of us went out and had $5 and hour massages. I personally went with Katie and Anna to the Seeing Hands massage clinic to get a massage from people who had become blind. The massage was amazing and we felt so relaxed afterwards. Knowing that we had our first day of prac the next day we all went to bed pretty early not knowing what to expect from the day ahead. Day 5- Monday
Today was our first day of prac and we were all feeling quite nervous and unsure of what to expect. We were all ready to leave by 7.15am with one group going to the Krabei Riel clinic and the SHCC school, one group going to the MHDC clinic and the final group going to the MHDC school. Each one of the groups had planned education sessions to present to the men, women and children of the villages and also some of the staff of the SHCC. My group consists of Jane, Amy, Abi and Maddie C and this week we are based out at the krabei riel clinic with included education at the SHCC.
When we first got the clinic we were all so nervous unsure of what we were ment to be doing, how we were meant to do it and how we were going to overcome the language barrier. it was just very confronting first up and with Monday being the busiest day at the clinic there was already a lot of patients there. The group split up and some of us went with the nurse doing triage and the rest of us sat in with the doctor and the translator to listen to the consultations with the patients. Even thought the doctor couldn't speak any English he was so willing to teach us and help us gain a better understanding of his processes and also to let us have a go.
There were also vaccinations going on at the clinic as well so all of us got to watch some babies get vaccinations and watch thier needle disposing technique which is quite different from Australia. After a morning at the clinic we headed to SHCC to do a health promotion class with some of the staff and social workers from the SHCC school, today we focussed on Hepititis B and taught them what it is, how you can contract it and how to prevent it.
The class were so eager to learn and at the end of the session had some extremely relevant and interesting questions which was great because it ment that our class had understood and taken in what we had taught. That afternoon, after lunch, we can back to SHCC and taught the children some basic first aid and wound cleaning and also how to bandage a snake bite, they picked it up so quickly and they looked so cute wrapping themselves up in bandages, hopefully now they know what to do if they do happen to get in that situation, hopefully that won't happen though. By the end of the day we were in high spirits we felt like we had accomplished something that day and now had a bit more of an understanding of our role in the clinic which we knew would help with our confidence the next day.
Thanks for your trip accounts Nalani, we are all enjoying hearing your news. Love the photos especially the ox cart.
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