A word/rant on mosquitoes
The mosquitoes in Cambodia decided from the minute I got off the plane that I was the best thing since sliced cheese. "Mind over matter," I keep telling myself, "pretend your legs don't itch. The itch is not there... the itch is not there..." And then all of a sudden I can't resist the urge to give the bites on each leg one "last" vicious scratch.
"Not to worry," I told myself the first few days we arrived in Cambodia- the mosquitoes where we are don't carry malaria- but a few days later when we met Dr. Mary, one of the first things she said was, "We dont like mosquitoe bites here! They don't carry malaria, but you can get Dengue Fever!"
Ahhhhh. Then began the days of fearfully watching the blotches on my legs, waiting to get the dreaded Dengue Fever, although I had no clue as to what the Dengue fever entailed (just the name was scary enough...) and spraying my legs with copious amounts of OFF (and nearly choking Andrew to death with the fumes) before stepping foot outside.
I finally got over my irrational fear of thinking that every new bite was going to result in sickness, and even came close to getting over my, erm.... intense dislike of mosquitoes--until this week!
It all started when I forgot to spray my legs with OFF before going to teach English one evening. The school doesn't specialize in doors and windows that stay closed, so needless to say, the mosquitoes saw the opportunity to snack on my legs, and the took full advantage of it.
Then Andrew and I borrowed the Freeze's car to go to the pharmacy this morning, and as soon as the engine turned on, tons of mosquitoes flew through the vents and into the car. It was as if they decided to use the engine as an elite mosquitoe hotel... and it was the only hotel open for miles that night.
Oh well.
A word on open sewers
You cannot understand what the sewers are like until you can smell them. They stretch out over several blocks, sometimes with houses on either side, only feet away from the water. The "water" is really a dark black sludge that stays stagnant and is constantly bubbling at the surface, with plastic bags, bottles, and other types of garbage floating, but not moving, as if they are stuck in place. It goes without saying that all types of flies and mosquitoes make it their home, and those that live along its edges tend to be afflicted with boils and other illnesses.
And yet it's a normal part of life.
We walked to a market that is relatively close to the Freeze's house today. The road seemed to be composed half of plastic bags and half of rocky, dusty dirt. At one point we had to cross a footbridge over a sewer-like swamp. A house was built at its edge, half over the "water" and half over dry land, with stilts holding it up over both the swampy and dry portion. Underneath the house there was collected what had to have been years of garbage, and behind the house it was impossible to see the dirt due to the sheer number of plastic bags that covered the ground. All of a sudden a rooster emerged from a pile of bags, tossing them this way and that to clear a path for himself.
I just wish I could capture the smell for you...
A word on teaching English
...coming soon
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Pic#1: Empty hospital ward. Most of the people prefer to sleep on the wooden slats, but they do have a mattress or two in reserve, just in case somebody wants one. Either way, the softest bed in Cambodia is probably the hardest bed in the States.
Pic#2: Outside of a market in Phnom Penh...busy, anybody?
Pic#3: On the last day that the Petersons were in Koh Kong, the director of the hospital invited the staff to a restaurant for a goodbye dinner. ...that fish was really good. Us westerners were sitting at one half of the table, sharing a fish, and the Cambodian doctors were sitting at the other half of the table. It wasn't long before one of them asked for the head of our fish, which is considered the best part.
(All of these pics are complements of the Petersons)
Pic#2: Outside of a market in Phnom Penh...busy, anybody?
Pic#3: On the last day that the Petersons were in Koh Kong, the director of the hospital invited the staff to a restaurant for a goodbye dinner. ...that fish was really good. Us westerners were sitting at one half of the table, sharing a fish, and the Cambodian doctors were sitting at the other half of the table. It wasn't long before one of them asked for the head of our fish, which is considered the best part.
(All of these pics are complements of the Petersons)
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Week Three!
It’s been a while since the last posting! Time is flying!!!
-I got accepted to Case Western Reserve Med School (!!!!!)… but as of now, and unless Case offers us a huge scholarship, we’ll still be going to Penn State. Anyway, that’s enough of non-Cambodia things J
-Dr. Peterson was able to perform seven surgeries last week, and Andrew and I were allowed to observe all of them. The docs allowed me to scrub up on the last surgery and assist some! It was a great experience and Dr. Peterson even took the time to teach me how to put some sutures in… it felt like I was all thumbs, but it was really exciting. Unfortunately, Andrew left the OR before I started suturing, so he didn’t get a picture of it.
On Thursday night the director took all of us and the hospital staff out to a restaurant for a goodbye dinner for Dr. Peterson. The food was amazing! I really think I could live off of [most of] Cambodian food for the rest of my life… except for Kwat/Quat. One day the girls brought this fruit that they kept calling “Food Fruit,” or Kwat over for me to try. I can’t even begin to explain what it was like… it was round, about the size of an orange, and the outside was scaly like peeling sunburn, with a greyish-green color. The outside, which is inedible, has to be hacked off, leaving only the solid, dry, white inside. It’s a little crunchy, and the taste is somewhat reminiscent of a grapefruit, but what you notice as soon as you put it in your mouth is that it makes all of the moisture in you mouth and throat instantaneously disappear. It took half a glass of water for me to swallow every bite. Even the girls started coughing like they were going to choke after a while, and had to drink a lot of water to recover… but for some reason they still like it. Explanation???
-I didn’t mention about our trip to Thailand in the last post… Hubert was going to put Heather and Tricia on the bus to Bangkok, where they were flying out to the States from. He was then going to go to Chantebury to pick up some stuff for the hamburger shop and purchase a water filter that a friend in Phnom Penh asked for. He asked if Andrew and I wanted to tag along, and we agreed to- the only catch is that we had to be back by 5:30 for the English class that Hubert teaches. We left the house at about 8AM and expected to get through the border quickly to catch the van on the Thai side that leaves for Trat every 40-50 minutes or so, but there was a huge crowd of people at the border waiting to get through. It took us a lot longer than we had expected to finally get into Thailand. Needless to say, we missed the early van to Trat and had to wait for the next one to leave. When we finally got to Trat, Hubert made sure that Heather and Tricia had tickets for the bus going to the airport, and we headed off on a bus to Chantebury… to make a long story short, everything took longer than was expected, so even though we were rushing the whole time, we got back to Koh Kong too late for Hubert to make it to his English class, and we didn’t get to see much in Thailand. We hope to be able to go back for a day or two to visit Eva, my old housemate, who’s studying abroad in Thailand this semester.
- We’re back in Phnom Penh with the Freezes right now. Mary, the Petersons, Andrew and I left Koh Kong yesterday morning (leaving poor Hubert all alone)- Mary’s heading to Thailand for a two-week long medical conference, and the Petersons are heading to Bangladesh for 10 weeks to work in another hospital. Andrew and I will be teaching English at a local private school for the next two weeks. When Mary’s done with her conference, she’ll swing by through here and we’ll all head back to Koh Kong together.
- Life in Koh Kong is somewhat slow for Andrew and me (no complaints there). We wake up at about 6 o’clock, get ready, eat breakfast, and leave for the hospital at 8. At 11 or 12ish, we head back home with Mary for lunch (pretty much all the staff in the hospital leaves for lunch around this time. A lot of the time, the only staff left in the entire hospital from 11 till about 2 is a cleaning lady and one doctor or nurse). We help get lunch ready, eat, and nap during this time. At 2:30 I have a language lesson, and at 3:00 Andrew has his language lesson. After our lessons we usually head back to the hospital ‘till ~5 o’clock, but sometimes I just spend time with the girls (our teachers and some of the other typing students that Hubert has in the afternoon). Everything stops at the hospital between 4 and 5 o’clock, when the staff head off to work in their private clinics. Every other day, Andrew or I go to Hubert’s English class with him, which runs from 5:30-6:30. After that, we eat dinner, and the day winds down from there.
-I got accepted to Case Western Reserve Med School (!!!!!)… but as of now, and unless Case offers us a huge scholarship, we’ll still be going to Penn State. Anyway, that’s enough of non-Cambodia things J
-Dr. Peterson was able to perform seven surgeries last week, and Andrew and I were allowed to observe all of them. The docs allowed me to scrub up on the last surgery and assist some! It was a great experience and Dr. Peterson even took the time to teach me how to put some sutures in… it felt like I was all thumbs, but it was really exciting. Unfortunately, Andrew left the OR before I started suturing, so he didn’t get a picture of it.
On Thursday night the director took all of us and the hospital staff out to a restaurant for a goodbye dinner for Dr. Peterson. The food was amazing! I really think I could live off of [most of] Cambodian food for the rest of my life… except for Kwat/Quat. One day the girls brought this fruit that they kept calling “Food Fruit,” or Kwat over for me to try. I can’t even begin to explain what it was like… it was round, about the size of an orange, and the outside was scaly like peeling sunburn, with a greyish-green color. The outside, which is inedible, has to be hacked off, leaving only the solid, dry, white inside. It’s a little crunchy, and the taste is somewhat reminiscent of a grapefruit, but what you notice as soon as you put it in your mouth is that it makes all of the moisture in you mouth and throat instantaneously disappear. It took half a glass of water for me to swallow every bite. Even the girls started coughing like they were going to choke after a while, and had to drink a lot of water to recover… but for some reason they still like it. Explanation???
-I didn’t mention about our trip to Thailand in the last post… Hubert was going to put Heather and Tricia on the bus to Bangkok, where they were flying out to the States from. He was then going to go to Chantebury to pick up some stuff for the hamburger shop and purchase a water filter that a friend in Phnom Penh asked for. He asked if Andrew and I wanted to tag along, and we agreed to- the only catch is that we had to be back by 5:30 for the English class that Hubert teaches. We left the house at about 8AM and expected to get through the border quickly to catch the van on the Thai side that leaves for Trat every 40-50 minutes or so, but there was a huge crowd of people at the border waiting to get through. It took us a lot longer than we had expected to finally get into Thailand. Needless to say, we missed the early van to Trat and had to wait for the next one to leave. When we finally got to Trat, Hubert made sure that Heather and Tricia had tickets for the bus going to the airport, and we headed off on a bus to Chantebury… to make a long story short, everything took longer than was expected, so even though we were rushing the whole time, we got back to Koh Kong too late for Hubert to make it to his English class, and we didn’t get to see much in Thailand. We hope to be able to go back for a day or two to visit Eva, my old housemate, who’s studying abroad in Thailand this semester.
- We’re back in Phnom Penh with the Freezes right now. Mary, the Petersons, Andrew and I left Koh Kong yesterday morning (leaving poor Hubert all alone)- Mary’s heading to Thailand for a two-week long medical conference, and the Petersons are heading to Bangladesh for 10 weeks to work in another hospital. Andrew and I will be teaching English at a local private school for the next two weeks. When Mary’s done with her conference, she’ll swing by through here and we’ll all head back to Koh Kong together.
- Life in Koh Kong is somewhat slow for Andrew and me (no complaints there). We wake up at about 6 o’clock, get ready, eat breakfast, and leave for the hospital at 8. At 11 or 12ish, we head back home with Mary for lunch (pretty much all the staff in the hospital leaves for lunch around this time. A lot of the time, the only staff left in the entire hospital from 11 till about 2 is a cleaning lady and one doctor or nurse). We help get lunch ready, eat, and nap during this time. At 2:30 I have a language lesson, and at 3:00 Andrew has his language lesson. After our lessons we usually head back to the hospital ‘till ~5 o’clock, but sometimes I just spend time with the girls (our teachers and some of the other typing students that Hubert has in the afternoon). Everything stops at the hospital between 4 and 5 o’clock, when the staff head off to work in their private clinics. Every other day, Andrew or I go to Hubert’s English class with him, which runs from 5:30-6:30. After that, we eat dinner, and the day winds down from there.
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