Settling Into the Routine

I managed to purchase an internet phone so for the next two years I will have internet several times a week right here in my room! I've been at my site for a month already and time has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined. My day starts off bright and early with the barking of crazy dogs and the wailing of my neighbor's infant. After a quickly getting ready I head off to the market where I either partake in a variety of foods ranging from a simple dragon fruit, to a delicious beef/bean sprout filled crepe, to a bowl of steaming fried noodles served with a side of egg. The market is bustling anywhere from 6am to noon and is THE place to buy fish freshly gutted and swimming around in a pot not 2 minutes before they get the butcher knife, meat of all sorts hanging on hooks surrounded by a cloud of flies, pickled and fresh vegetable sitting in buckets of brine, fresh fruits that American grocery stores only dream of, and of course food stands that serve pretty awesome breakfast with coffee (on ice). After sitting with my mom on her food stand where sells this sweet rice desert, I head to the health center where my day really starts.

As of now, my job at the health center has been slow and somewhat dull. Since starting 4 weeks ago I have only managed to sit at every service offered by the health center which are vaccinations, pre/post natal care, pharmacy, and consultation. I saw a couple infections popped and drained which is actually very painful because they use no anesthesia here, and I also managed to see a mother give birth from the hallway! Sitting in vaccination consists of watching mothers breast feed, infants recieving injections, and infants screaming afterwards. The pharmacy has shelving on which several kinds of medicines sit before being dispensed like candy on Halloween. After obtaining a prescription from consultation they will hover over to the pharmacy and push and shove until they are given a bag containing 3-5 different kinds of pills... with no markings or directions on how to take them. Consultation is actually quite interesting because all the sick have to travel through this station to receive services. They will describe either having a headache, cold, or fever and are quickly given a sheet of paper with a list of drugs to take. This is what I have been occupying my time with over the last month and on the times where patients are filtering out I tend to break out the Khmer notes and study language because I definitely have a ways to go before I can speak fluently with the locals.

It's not that this stuff does not interest me, but I feel as though I should be doing so much while out here and since arriving I have only managed to observe and study khmer. I went one week on an outreach service my health center conducts for half the month where they travel to a surrounding village and administer injections to those who can either not get to the health center or are too poor to afford services. That was very interesting to say the least and I wish I did more of that, but I have not been doing anything substantial in the health education field. Many of my fellow health volunteers are feeling the same way, but I am guessing thats the way it is going to have to be for the next couple months. We don't know nearly enough language to go out and create a health club of some sort, we don't know the true needs of the community because we are confined to the health center due to our lack of language, and this program has never been attempted before in this country so how are we supposed to know what to do, when to do it, and where it is to be done at. As for now, I will go to the health center in the mornings and try to start SOMETHING... I guess I will have to try and convince myself that that is all I can do at the moment and projects will come as time passes.

After work at the health center I bike on home for a lunch of rice and some sort of meet and vegetable pulled from the ground. The food is becoming second nature to me and the large amounts of rice are something I kind of look forward to when pondering about the upcoming meal. My mom has been making large amounts of food for lunch so she just has to heat up the left overs for dinner... so variety is not a gift I granted in food selection. Then, if its rainy or a workout day I will turn on some itunes and lift with my one dumbbell I bought in the capital. Its amazing how many exercises one can do with a simple dumbbell and nothing else to accompany it with. Then I either fill my time with movies/tv shows/music or I take bike rides through the many trails offered by my village and the surrounding area (weather permitting). There are some amazing trails through the rubber trees and whenever I am feeling upset or frustrated I take a long ride through the rubber plantation and any reserves I may have previously had are gone! Today for instance I rode through the miles upon miles of rubber trees, crisscrossing in and out of rows and rows of trees which differ in height from batch to batch. While riding through them it eerily reminds me of a forest found in America... the air is cool and the harsh sun rays only penetrate where there is an opening in the canopy. I rode and rode until I reached the top of this incline and fyi any incline gives breathtaking views of Cambodia due to the flatness of the landscape. Once up there I could see for miles the rolling plains of the rubber tree tops, palm trees sprinkled throughout the land, and farms which stretched on forever. The mist was reflecting the golden sun and I could only describe it purely as Cambodia. There was a slight breeze and the noise from everyday life was absent. All I could think to myself is that I definitely could uproot my shack of a home and plop it right there without hesitation. Rides like these make living here that much more awesome!

So strolling throughout the village on my bike also gives me an opportunity to make myself known. Part of my job is to get these people to trust me and the only way that is going to happen at first is to get my face out there so when it eventually comes time for me to educate they will be receptive to learning from a friendly face instead of hesitant to learn from a stranger. Whenever I pass ANYBODY i'm always greeted by a hello! or susadi! They are all too eager to drop whatever they are doing to run to the edge of the road and scream a greetings my way. At first the constant barrage of hellos gets annoying, but these people are never going to be able to say hello to another american again so why not let them get it out of their system! After that I make it over to my food stall where I get this lime tea... freshly prepared with awesome limes and loads of sugar. The owner knows a very minute amount of English so I can sit there and speak English with atleast somebody throughout my day. After finishing my tea I sometimes will head over to my counterpart's house where her husband teaches english to a group of teenagers. They have gotten to know me and I have taken a liking to them all so visiting the class and helping teach english always puts a smile on my face. By now its dinner time and I navigate the jungle trails with barely enough light to make it home for my meal of leftovers. Sometimes my mom likes to eat at my aunt's house so in that circumstance I am faced with navigating jungle paths filled with large puddles and potholes in the pitch black with the helpful aid of a flashlight. Nights consist of either reading, watching tv shows, or finding something to occupy my time with... studying fits in there somewhere. If I can fall asleep on time then its lights out by 10 and lately I have been making it through the whole night without being woken by rats or dogs fighting so thats a good sign!

As for me, I am doing much better than I originally was. The first couple of weeks were very rough, as I thought they were and I wasn't sure if I could do this for 2 years. Cambodian culture is very different from American culture and being thrown into another family with no one else around completely immerses one into a culture that can sometimes prove frustrating and hard to deal with. My family is great and they will do what they can do please me, but some things are getting old and I found it very hard to cope with in the beginning. Invasive would be a word fitting for a description of what Cambodian culture is like. There is no privacy in this society and everything is thought of as communal. When i'm doing something, my family has to hover over me and the second I do something they don't approve of or think is wrong they try and fix it their way and do things the way they see right. They treat me like a son of theirs that is 10 years old, but first of all I am an adult that volunteered to come from America to live in a third world country, and secondly I pay them money each month that could be considered rent. They are under the impression that I have to do follow every command of theirs, but that is not the way things are going to work over the next two years. We have been arriving at some understandings between us lately and they are starting to realize that I have my own schedule to maintain and our cultures are simply different, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There culture has taught them how to behave towards someone like me living in their household so I have to understand that and not hold it against them when annoying occurrences happen. I have been having other thoughts and feelings about the society I am living in, but it is constantly changing and I don't feel ready to draw upon any conclusions as of now... that will come in future posts!