Life in Cambodia

The Life, Times, and Painful Death of The Gecko

Maggie:
Did you ever see a gecko go through a printer and make it out alive? No likely. Sounds like the beginning of a story for an 8 year old boy, but no no my friends, this is life in Svay Rieng. Said gecko did not make it out alive; in fact, bones and all were strewn across the 25 pages I had to print out after the mishap to clear the printer of the mess. Now before the animal rights activists get on my case, its not liked I crammed the little fella in there; I meant no harm I had no idea the poor little guy was in the printer sniffin’ around, trying to find bugs. I did what all of us do when we arrive at work on a Friday morning: start up the computer, then the printer, check emails and get down to business, which included printing out my expense report from a field visit the previous 2 days. And much to my surprise, when I took out my printed spreadsheet, it was covered in slimy goo…only after I opened the paper drawer did I find a small gecko tail, no other remains; however, it was enough to make a positive ID; DOA. I thought to myself: ‘Ah, Another day in Zamunda’ as a good friend from the Cameroon days used to say, referring to those key moments when you can’t believe what has just happened actually happened, and then you remember that you’re in the bush and well, it’s all relative. That one statement, often prefaced with a sigh (maybe a ‘gross’ thrown in depending on the situation) captures all the feelings: the annoyance, the amazement or disbelief that it could happen, the curiosity and then the realization that yeah, I am in the middle of nowhere and things like this happen… (yeah, yeah, it’s a quote from the Eddie Murphy flick ‘Coming to America’ but I still like it). Anyway, I’m likely to utter that phrase at least once a week here in Svay Rieng (actually, even more in Cameroon and not surprisingly, less in Thailand). Other examples of ‘Another day in Zamunda’ reflections were my first experience seeing my Khmer friends voraciously devouring half developed chicken fetuses from the egg and high level officials taking phone calls and yapping for a good amount of time in the middle of delivering an important speech in front of a crowd. I owe a shout out to Robert for this continually relevant, appropriate, and highly versatile phrase which will continue to serve me well and sounds a helluva’ lot nicer than ‘Oh, #%&@’.

I will however, leave you with those thoughts to update you on our coming plans, which are shaping up nicely. We’ve just received the 1st of 3 Japanese Encephilitis shots…no, we’re not going to Japan, but yes, we will be in the bush of Laos and southern China near Laos where this nasty disease can be found lurking in mosquitoes that will probably bite us as we trek around and sleep in pagodas and monasteries in the middle of nowhere. Moms, we’re all up to date now with our vaccines. Although I’m dealing with a bad cold right now, we’re doing ok. So, the trip! We’re heading north out of Cambodia on July 1 or 2 and might stop halfway to the border in Kratie, along the Mekong to see the rare Irrawady Dolphins living in the river—the pictures I’ve seen of them are really quite beautiful and they are endangered, only hundreds remain. We’ll then travel to Steung Treng where we cross the water into Laos and make our way from south to north taking in the countryside, cities and local food. Ok, I won’t run through the whole itinerary, I’m sure your eyes are glazing over by now…so quickly: after Laos we head to China (overland as well) and head east then north, visit with our dear friend Rohit in Beijing and hope to travel with him and make our way west, all the way to Kyrgyzstan, then Uzbekistan, Turkey and in to Europe (France, England) and NYC! So, this is the official shout out! : PLEASE let us know if you want to meet us in one of these places, we would love to travel with you. We are only held to a few flights, the first leaving Tashkent to Istanbul around October 27, Istanbul to Paris on Oct 31 and Paris to NYC on Nov. 14. Otherwise we’re open, let us know.

Matt:
Allow me first to mention that recently the Spanish NGO Whose Name We Dare Not Mention has finally paid up on their agreement, so for the first time since December of last year the staff are finally getting paid salaries. It’s been like Christmas all over again, and the Project Manager got a good laugh out of me fanning myself with $100 bills, a little joke that probably would have fallen pretty flat there in the West, especially since I was fanning myself with $400; not exactly an indecent amount to be flaunting. However, allow me to point out that this is not, in fact, the West and it got a good laugh (though admittedly he could have just been laughing at any number of my faults (rare though they may be), just as I am prone to laugh at him for his various shortcomings; I like to think that it was the joke). Milk and Honey, if they existed here in Cambodia would be flowing through the streets; and while you’re at it, I wouldn’t have minded a nibble of cheese, thank you very much. At any rate, this injection of cash has finally kick-started CCPCR and I regret that this wasn’t able to happen six months ago. However, so as not to mindlessly waste time during the slow months, I committed myself to mastering Minesweeper (I managed to complete the “Expert” Level; how many folks can lay claim to that gem? Not too many I’ll tell you that much.) This week has been particularly busy at the shelter; a bunch of visitors from Phnom Penh to help out with some stuff and I feel like its been really beneficial. Two folks wanted to come down and do a jewelry making class and I said sure. I figured it would be some string, a handful of beads, maybe some New Age music, candles and incense; but turned out to be a legitimate operation that I was excluded from since this was an activity for The Girls, and I, alas, was turned away. I could only look mournfully through my little window as The Girls swam in piles of beads, like piles of leaves during the Fall, of all different shapes, colors, creeds, national origins, and sexual orientations (all beads welcome) Big string, small string, leather string, copper wire, some kind of silver wire, all the requisite cutting and bending tools, and even coconuts that were cut into pieces and sanded into different shapes. No beads were harmed in the making of the jewelry, though some string, wire and the coconuts suffered greatly. Wednesday afternoon, one of the smaller children came in with a nice necklace she had made; solemnly placing it in my outstretched hands, me looking away so as not to show the tear welling up in my little eye, pondering the meaning and weight behind this token of appreciation, finally gathering my inner strength, looking her in the eye with accolades on my tongue, songs of gratitude in the air, thoughts of the high esteem I must be held in, visions of my people chanting my name (My people:) “Matt, Matt, Matt” (Me:) “Yes, Yes My People, I am here to serve you, oh yes, this is too much, thank you, thank you.” Or something of the like, only to have that vision trampled on like George Bush on the Constitution. “For Maggie.” “What my child, maybe there is some mistake.” “For Maggie.” Deflated like an old balloon, I consoled myself as has been done through the ages, “I didn’t want it anyway.”

A nurse from New Zealand also came into Svay Rieng to help us formulate a better “Health Policy” for the kids at the shelter. It recently came to light that the current “medical care” provided consisted of quite a few inadequate methodologies. You would not think that questions such as 1) Can you hear me? 2) Can you see me? 3) Can you breathe OK? 4) Give me an estimate of your blood pressure 5) Do you have HIV would be enough to diagnose the complete health of a patient, but here according to the leading medical professionals of Svay Rieng, you would be wrong. Anyway, so we made the rounds among the hospitals and clinics to see who would offer actual physical exams (and actually do the tests) to our kids when they first arrived at the shelter. “Why would you bring a kid here who wasn’t sick” was the question we got at every place. The idea of annual physical exams has not, understandably, cracked the hard candy shell of Cambodia. The visits became a laundry list of medical misadventures, laughable follies and disheartening inadequacies. Specific examples of what I heard may be in bad taste, but wrap this little point up and keep it safe with you: I could aimlessly flip through a Red Cross First Aid booklet over the course of a few hours and by the end of the day, be just as qualified as the guys we saw. Or I can just pay the going rate of $1,200 to buy my doctor’s license and necessary degrees. What makes change so hard is that this is the type of medical care that the Cambodian staff are used to getting and don’t really know any better. They cannot see that it is wrong and don’t understand our frustration with it. They see the child going to the doctor and getting a clean bill of health, why should we change that which, on the outside, seems to be working? The emphasis has been on the little stamp that signifies “good health,” which is often required for employment and education and the actual physical health of the patient has been relegated to a little song and dance that must be done to give the examination a veneer of legitimacy. A veneer which many Cambodians seem quite unable to pierce while many others mock it as we would a Soviet era election. We can come and build hospitals or schools and feel good about ourselves, but what good are they if they aren’t properly staffed? Children learn things by rote memory alone; can tell you 4 times 5 is 20, but can’t tell you what 5 times 4 is. Doctors whose physical exam is based on the single question “Are you sick?” We are, one little bit at a time, trying to break that and hopefully it will bear some fruit. Over the coming days, we’re having some (highly supervised) physical exams done on some kids and I hope that these kids will get to experience the first physical exam of their lives.

Which allows me to segue into my recent falling in with the medicos in Phnom Penh. As you know, we are headed out of here in a few weeks, and since I haven’t had a decent physical since 2000, Maggie figured I should start making it a habit; we had a little medical checkup date. Maggie went first at the Western run clinic in Phnom Penh and I followed right afterward. As the Doc was trying to shake me down for my medical history, I heeed and hawed, ummed and aahhed about how I hadn’t been to a doctor in years and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Wasn’t she supposed to put her hand on my forehead and yell out “Demons Out!” or something like that? Anyway, she saw right through me, “Maggie made you come didn’t she,” she asked. I could only look away sheepishly; beaten. Anyway, other than being declared obese by an unjustifiably strict interpretation of the Body Mass Index quackery, I was pronounced a Healthy Boy, though my request for a lollipop was turned down (see the aforementioned “obesity.”) We also got conned into getting the Japanese Elephantitis (whatever) shots. They suckered us like used car salesmen, “this shot’s a beauty” “you’ll love it” “yeah, that’s an authentic 8 track deck.” I’m a cost-benefit man myself, and thrifty as well; qualities I would think appealing in a mate. Maggie, however, sees me more as being anal and miserly. I don’t particularly care for paying hundreds of dollars for a vaccine that I don’t expect to need; similar to my distaste for insurance (like to live on the edge you know.) We got the 3rd world price of $100/each for the vaccine instead of the $500 or so it costs in the States. We were warned of adverse reactions to the vaccine, and while my rock hard abs, oh! I mean rock hard immune system fought off the poison; Maggie was felled. The vaccine probably made her sicker than she would have ever gotten without it; and we got to pay for the pleasure as well! This weekend, we go for Round 2 of 3. Thank you, the first one was great, can I please have another?

posted by Life in Cambodia @ 9:26 AM 0 comments