Your Basic Wednesday in Cambodia

Hello All.

All is well in Cambodia after a few days. For those of you just joining us, please check out my previous post to get a handle on what the hell I am doing in Cambodia. It's only been a few days but I am starting to figure out a few things around here. The hospital gave me a bicycle to get around for the month which has proven to be quite useful. The driving around here, however, is just south of fucking crazy. Imagine a group of your average Rhode Island (or Massachusetts or whatever) drivers on a motorbike and then let them smoke crack and then, oh yeah, abolish all traffic law - that's driving in Siem Reap.

Today, I went on a series of home visits with my trusty medical student, Roy, the homecare nurse, and our driver. We took off to see some kids with chronic disease some 50 km outside of town. It was quite an amazing experience to see the countryside of Cambodia - but it was also quite incredible to see how most people live here. While I could sit back and wax poetic about the level of poverty here in Cambodia, I find that my best defense mechanism, HUMOR, can best describe what I saw today... If American Poverty and Cambodian Poverty got in a fight, Cambodian Poverty would kick the living shit out of American Poverty. No contest - like a 1988 era Mike Tyson knockout.

The trip was amazing. We went to see three different children (two with HIV, one with severe malnutrition). The first child lived in a makeshift wooden shack with his 78 year grandmother (his father was dead from AIDS and mom was making $0.75 a day harvesting rice). The kid was really cute although quite sick and living in total squalor. His grandmother allowed me to take some pictures of him that I will put up on the site once I get back to the States. After we saw the kid, we headed back to our truck only to find our driver stripped down to his boxers and wading knee deep in the water next to our trunk. While he was trying to turn around the trunk on this one lane dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the right side of the truck slide into the drainage ditch. I was really kicking myself, because I left my AAA card back in Rhode Island and I did NOT remember my account number offhand. Anywho, Roy and I watched as our driver wedged some logs under the truck ("What is he doing?"). So I look up the road and here comes a young man with an oxen-driven cart, clearly he'll help us! (right, right) - people drive oxen driven carts, is anyone else suprised?. Then comes a truck with two gentlemen (I use the term gentlemen loosely). I will from henceforth refer to the older gentleman as "the Colonel" for he wore some sort of military garb. Our driver and the Colonol rigged up some sort of cable system and for the love of God, they pulled us out of the ditch. Well, now the homecare nurse and the driver disappeared into the village to return something "we" used to get the truck out of the ditch. Here I am with Roy, my trusty med student, standing there holding a couple of bags of rice and eggs for the kids. The Colonel is starring us down, saying something in Khmer, and laughing - his gold capped tooth glaring in the sunlight- oh by the way, a crowd of some 15 villagers have gathered and they are laughing as well - very sinister like. I try to put on the Spaeder charm but found myself thinking, "If they want these eggs, they can fucking have them". So what seemed like an eternity ended when our driver returned and we paid off the Colonel for helping us and moved on to see the next kid. I joke but being invite into these kids' "homes" was quite amazing for me. One of the other American doctors I am working with say that the Cambodian have this crazy Survival gene and goddammit if he's not right.

I guess that I will leave it at that. Thanks to everyone for the emails and the comments on the website. See you all soon. big love, mike