Saturday December 4 2010

December 4, 2010


Breakfast today is a unique rice concoction made with sticky rice and dried fruit along with coconut, stuffed into bamboo sticks, sealed on the end and roasted over an open fire. You peel back the bamboo until you get to the rice, and then you pull the rice out of the its bamboo canister. It is warm and very tasty. Sort of like thick oatmeal that is sweet and moist with a great dose of coconut. Yummy.

After breakfast we depart on a 60 km ride along the river to a small village named Bak Proha. This village sits right on the Battambong river. This region is one of the poorest in the country and is a former Khmer Rouge stronghold The Khmer Rouge were the communist army forces who followed Pol Pot in his attempt to turn the country into an agrarian communist paradise. Because of this history and the killing fields, these villages have been largely ignored until recently.

This river region is actually a bustling center of river commerce. The river is busy with flat boats, sampans and all types of other water craft. They carry supplies, bring crops to market and move commodities such as food and fuel. On one side of the single lane dirt lane we travel for 45 kilometers are rice farmers and cattle herders going about the day to day life of poor dirt farmers and cattle farmers. On the other side of the road is the river. At one point we come across a single lane wooden bridge that will not support the vans with all of the passengers so we unload, walk across this rickety bridge and then hold our breath while the vans come across one at a time. We all make it and are back in the vans for the final few clicks to the village.

We set up in a school again today. Where in the past the schools were concrete block buildings with tile floors and in one instance electricity, this school is pole construction, corrugated walls, dirt floors and a corrugated roof. There is no electricity. There is no running water. There is no toilet facility. There are no fans.

We set up and quickly realize that these folks are even more poor than our prior villages.

Dr. George is ill today and so he stays at the hotel to recover from his case of Delhi Belly. I know how that feels as last year I was down for two days with the runs. His not being with us makes me the only treating doctor. I see 329 patients today. Early in the day I organize our clinic so that we rotate through our three exam tables, I Teach Cyndy how to do leg checks and I use the drama team kids to perform a number of little tasks to keep things rolling. We get started at 11:00AM. The last patient is treated at 5:00 PM. With the one hour lunch break, that makes it about 65 patients an hour! But it is a team effort as they are each registered, vitals taken and meds prepared before I see them. This team of 11 folks along with our 9 interpreters as well as the 8 kids of the drama team have come together to create an efficient and effective medical team. We see the typical case mix today with several patients with special circumstances. One 80 year old man has been sick with acute TB for several weeks and is down to less than 100 pounds. He is emaciated and feverish. I do not expect that he will be around much longer. The prayer team comes together to pray for him and his survival.

Cyndy and I are befriended today by a little girl who wants to help us do everything. She is about 7 years old and wants to do everything. She steps in and starts changing exam table paper, wants to escort patients to the tables and endears herself to us very quickly. Apparently she is an orphan as the interpreters can not locate a parent. Seeing all of these orphaned kids is tough because you know that they have little chance of even what passes for a normal life in Cambodia. As much as Transform Asia would love to pick each of them up and take them to the TA orphanage, TA is limited by support funds and a facility that can only hold so many kids. I hope each of you who reads this blog goes to the www.transformasia.us web site and reviews what it takes to sponsor a child. Your support is definitely needed!

Tomorrow being Sunday we will be taking a day of rest. It will be a welcome day for all of us.

I am still not able to post pictures to the blog due to the poor speed and low bandwidth of the internet connection. I am thankful that I can even post this so I will try and post pictures later.

Bye for now!