I have to prepare things I want to take with me for two years of living in Cambodia. I can take 25kg with me, and a motorcycle helmet. Having packed four times already, but each time there's still too much, I'm finding it hard to decide what's necessary and what isn't.

It feels very unreal, thinking about going away for two long years without returning to familiar people and places. Everything I've heard and read about Cambodia so far is very positive, and I can't wait to see it for myself. Is it really true that they eat deep-fried spiders, and that they drink bat's blood? is Angkor Wat really that astonishing?

Well, I'd better get on. More later, maybe from Phnom Penh.

my leaving do from work

Also I feel better to go into the hospital, because instead of teaching unwilling staff about how to do nursing documentation properly, I did an audit with the nurses about it. The outcome will be put into analysis and diagrams and Setyll can use it for his next meeting to encourage about the documentation. And that audit was really good. I also put Channa in charge, so that he gets experiences with that and can add that to his CV.
In a conversation with the director of the RTC I also found out, that students shouldn’t do certain activities like giving iv- drugs or im- injections on their own without observation. He told me to write an incident report about that. Which made me quite happy. That shows, that things like that shouldn’t actually happen and there can be something done about that. This incident form needs to be developed first though. So I suppose I get one from the UK and adapt from that.
Today in the hospital I met again very poor sick people, and then at the end we were in AandE and there was a very sick looking girl. Five people in white around her, fiddling and laughing. One of them fiddled with her hip and I just saw that he gave her an im- injection. Not to the right place. So I was furieous and asked, if there are nurses. No, all students. So I went into the staff room where 3 nurses where watching TV. I made a fuss, and this will be my first incident report. I think AandE hates me now. Channa told me later, that it was the same student nurse, who gave him the im-injection when he had malaria. After that injection, Channa couldn’t walk for 2 days. He also told me, that this student nurse is only in his first year, so they didn’t even have injections in school….

Delia’s mum was here for a week from Australia, which was really nice. She is also a very generous person and brought and bought so many presents for the people here. Unfortunately, she’s leaving again tomorrow.

When I had my English class at Vanny’s tonight, a little dark kitten fell down 10 steps of a staircase. It looked very very skinny and underweight. The hair is quite grown already but from the fragile walk and apathic look it looks like it’s nearly dead. It is also so tiny and light and very smelly. I just felt so sorry for it, and Vanny and her family have already 3 dogs and 4 cats, so they don’t mind at all what happens with it. The mother cat had 3 kittens and 2 are already dead. So she is the only one left and I think the mother cat stopped feeding her or something. Peach actually doesn’t like it and wished it was dead. I just couldn’t do anything else and decided, to take it home with me to try. Vanny looked at me and said: but it doesn’t eat rice! Apparently all other animals eat rice here.
So on my way home I bought some thick sweet ‘kondens’ milk and tried to feed it. It wouldn’t take from the bowl, so I put some on my finger and it licked a little bit off. I also went to Delia and borrowed some cat food. Will try that out tomorrow morning, because at the moment she seems very tired. I put her on a blanket on the floor and since then she stayed there. I used the parcel, I sent my books over with, to make a toilet for her, because right at the beginning she peed into the corner of my house. I just hope she gets better. She can’t really walk. Her belly is so bloated. Maybe tomorrow I give her a bath. She is very smelly.
She is very cute though. Although the face is so skinny and the eyes look very tired, she has an interesting pattern in her fur. I think I call her Bella.

06.09.09, Tuesday

Bella was very critical over the weekend and gave me sleepless nights. She passed long worms and had fever. I contacted Hor to see if there’s a vet in Stung Treng and he referred me to one. I thought this vet might have only the name but not the skills, but I was completely wrong with that assumption. When he came on Sunday morning, she had diarrohea. He gave her 2 Injections, Paracetamol and Vitamins, and prescribed Water borbor only for her. Borbor is a local dish, it’s rice with meat and salt cooked for a very long time and from that the water. He also left a syringe to feed her. He promised to come back on the same day in the afternoon. He seemed concerened about her. Unfortunately, maybe because of the drugs or I don’t know why, she jumped of the balcony down 1 and a half meters. Fortunately onto a plant, which was under the balcony. But I think she hurt herself and broke her right wrist.
On Monday, she was sleeping more or less all day. She had 5 ml of water borbor every 2 hours. The vet even called to ask if she is better.
And she is better actually. She looks slightly more perky, crawls around more and looks more interested in things. She looks more like a kitten now, not like a sick starving hook. Although she hates the feeding procedure. No more diarrhoea. The vet said if she hasn’t got a poo, he will even give her a supposotory. The funniest is, that he also prescribed tiger balm to rub onto her bloated belly. I’ve never heard of that. But I do it and hopefully it works.

The other thing that happened is, that Sareth moved in with me. Well, temporarly. She is with me since Saturday night, mainly to have piece to learn for her forthcoming exams. She sleeps in my spare room and it is nice to have company. She also helps me with Bella and feeds her, when I am at work. And she persists to cook. Which I enjoy actually. Yesterday we had noodle for breakfast, noodle for lunch and noodle for dinner. But I don’t mind anymore. She is lovely and we understand each other although her English is not brilliant. But it’s getting there and she learned already a few new words. Otherwise she would be in the student accommodation where everybody is panicking at the moment because the whole school has exams. So she enjoys it and has her own space and piece to learn. And we get to know each other.

I went for my first run on Monday morning with Delia for 30 min. It was lush at 6 am in the moring, the sunlight so gentle. I really enjoyed it and did better then I thought. Today I can feel it in my legs and Delia texted me already if I want to run again tomorrow morning. Well want, I actually want something else at the moment, but I do it. For the shape and condition. And afterwards I felt better.

07.10.09 Wednesday
We went for a run again this morning and the flooding fades slowly.
Then I went to work and refined my proposal. The students have exams at the moment and all teachers are very busy.
When I came home for my lunchbreak, Bella was dead. She was lying very stiff and cold on her blanket. I felt so sad.
I burried her under a coconut tree.

11.10.09 Sunday
Without Bella and Sareth, the house feels empty. Sareth went back home to see her family, after her exams had finished. She was so sad to leave, but I’ll see her and the other two girls next week, before I go to Phnom Penh. They will stay in my house during my In-Country-Training for 2 months.
Last night I gave a party. There are not enough partys going on in Stung Treng. So I invited everybody that was in my phone list and alltogether, 6 people showed up. First we ate, I made a curry and salads, then we played a game and then we danced a little bit.

Yesterday morning, Delia, Louisa and me went for a photo-shooting.

getting ready for the phot shoot

Louisa got great hair

post photo shoot, Delia in the dressing room

Happy Birthday Regina!!! Where are you? Keep in touch, want to know how you are!

14.10.09 Wednesday

I’ve just about recoverd from the inauguration party from the RTC. Gosh, I’ve never been to something like that. First of all, Delia and me had our run at 6 in the morning, and that day I felt really tired, was looking forward to my lunch break nap. The announcement was to have the party after lunch, so I was saving my dress for the afternoon.
At 10:30, we were suddently invited to come upstairs to the meeting room to join the party. That is typical Khmei, unpredicted and completely out of the blue. So we went upstairs and there was so much food, haven’t seen so much nice looking food for a long time.. I wanted to sit with the other teachers, but the director invited me to his table, together with the vize director, the director of the Provincial Health Departement, the Chief of this and the Chief of that. Important people. It was ok, but boring. The party was going on next to us on the big table. I saw that they were all drinking beer, well actually binging it. So once one had a glass filled, they were drinking to each others health and the new building and to the King and Queen and then everybody had to empty the glass. Usually Cambodians don’t drink or at least only very little. But this was like a booze-up. I was sticking to Fanta and Coke, because I just wanted to see what happens and not to embaress myself.
At 2 pm, everybody was drunk, including the director and all the important people. I asked Mr. Chann Vann, a teacher, if it’s time to go home now, because I felt so tired and just wanted to go to bed. But he said, this will go on now for a long time, and I also had the feeling that nobody was allowed to leave really. So the tables and the floor looked like a mess. Cambodians throw bones, tissues, everything onto the floor. They also spit out whenever they like onto the floor.
I changed my place and laughed so much about the drunk teachers. Also suddently there were so friendly to me and I had the longest and best conversation ever with Dr. Tat Sovann, who is the Director of the technical office and who is usually very tight lipped. That’s when I started drinking as well. I’ve learned ‘Bottom empty’ and I taught one teacher to say: would you like to dance? So the time passed and yes, we were drinking, messing around with food, at the end a little bit dancing and chatting away until it was 7 pm. Most of the teachers were completely wasted by then and so some 3rd year students were invited to finish off the beer and food. I got myself out of it after having huged and kissed the director, vize director and Mr. Tat Sovann. So funny…

For the next day I had arranged to have a meeting with Mr. Tat Sovann. He was there, and I think everybody had a very bad hangover. I went through my Annual Work Plan with him. I was very happy when the day had finished.

Today I feel much better, had a run again this morning and I saw fog over the river. It just looks so lush so early in the morning. And then I am very thankful to be here.

15.10.09 Thursday

Happy happy Birthday, David Pilz! Am thinking of you and hope you are well.

This Friday, I am going to Phnom Penh for my ICT. The new group of health volunteers will arrive today from all over the world. That will be finally MY batch, I was waiting for, for 5 months now. So I am looking forward to meet new people, spend some time together and most important, learn the language properly. We’ll have language training every day for 4 hours, including Saturdays. At some point we will move to Kampong Cham, where a guest house provides for us accommodation for nearly 2 months. The ICT will be finished on the 12th of december. I have no idea if they will have internet connection there but I hope they will.
During the placement visit week in mid November, I am planning to take some leave to go to Japan.

Will keep you all up to date. I hope you are all well. As I heard, you have autum now. Here, the rain has stopped more or less and it is hot again every day and the sun shines and I feel good. Take care everyone, you are always in my thoughts. Lots of kisses from your Katja!

written by  katja-horsch on October 13, 2009 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia
from the travel blog: VSO experience in Cambodia
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The four weeks of exiting visits and visitors has passed quickly and now I am sitting on my balcony in Stung Treng, watching the scenes on the street, next to the river, where the cows pass along, looking for food. There are 5 little boys, playing on the pavement with a big plastic bottle which is connected to a string. One of them is pulling it and the others run after it in order to catch the plastic with their feet.

Another boy has a plastic machine gun and holds it proud into the air and screams words, I don’t understand.
It is Sunday, but it seems like a normal working day. Somehow, Khmer people don’t have weekends, they never sleep in or laze around. They have always something to do. So I am trying at the moment to adapt to that. I can make a fuss about building work next to my house on the weekend, starting at 7 am every day actually. But I won’t change anything. I only embarrass myself, like so many other times. So I am also getting up around 6 and go to bed early. Every day. And I like it.

Last year, mid December, after I picked up Carmi from the airport in PP, we stayed in a rather quirky hotel with a pool.

The next day we travelled up to Stung Treng. Carmi met all my other volunteer friends and had the opportunity, to see a dentist for her broken tooth. Fortunately she got reassured about it that she could have treatment once she’s back in England. The dentist here was actually surprisingly professional.

The other thing I am very grateful to Carmi is, that she helped me, sorting out the library in the RTC.

Also we met the amazing Dolores, who is a VSO volunteer but based in China. She contacted Helen to spend some time here in Cambodia. Carmi and her went to see the silk-weaving -and Stung Treng Women’s Development centre: ‘Mekong-Blue’, while I was trying to catch up with the RTC. Lola is a volunteer with lots of experiences and also worked for MSF before. I had a very good chat to her and found out a lot more about the work at the front.

Then it was time to say goodbye again to Stung Treng, and the next day we took the mini van to go to Kampong Cham ( where we explored the Bamboo bridge, which is only there during the dry season),

I would have been possible, that the excitement and anticipation might have lost some glance, because I just had a super lovely time. But it didn’t.

We cried when we fell into each other arms and it was just so unbelievable, to suddenly have them here, in Cambodia, my mum! I was so proud of her that she made it. I would have never thought it.

After a few days, we went up to Quatschi (as my mum calls Kratie).

Here, we explored the area and also went one day over with the boat to Thalla Borivat. We had a look at the pagoda and seen the orphans, who an NGO, called NOPAHA looks after. The other special moment there was, that we were allowed to go into one of the meditation houses where elderly nuns were meditating. They were really quiet towards us, but then my mother looked at one and she said: I know her, and the nun then looked also friendlier. They met on the bus trip a day before. Then the ice was broken and my mum got her camera out, showing pictures of our family and the husbands. I don’t think, that the nuns would usually interfere with barangs.

Antji and Mami saw the ‘Mekong Blue’ while I was catching up with the RTC again. In the afternoon, we visited the Stung Treng Referral hospital. It was pretty shocking for them but I am glad they’ve seen it.

We’ve also met my lovely friends Sareth, Srey-mom and Parim, who persisted to cook some lunch for us. We also invited Helen and Carol and had a great time.

To break up the long trip to Siem Riep, I decided to stop on the way in Kampong Cham, where I had most of the language training. There I knew accommodation and Gideon, the tuk-tuk driver. He drove us in the afternoon to Wat Han Chay, a buddistic theme park on a hill, where there are fantastic river views from Chenla-era ruins and a modern temple.

The next day we arrived at lunchtime in Siem Riep and checked in into lovely Smileys Guesthouse.

I suppose my favourite temple is Ta Prohm.

Fortunately, we had a bit more time in Siem Riep, so we had a few days to relax. In order to do that, we looked up Massage places (because Siem Riep is not only well known for Angkor, but also for pleasure). We found in Antji’s guidebook a place called: Massage from the blind, and so we booked ourselves in. We were massaged by blind people, and the difference was so noticeable, that we went there the next day again.

On Friday, we went for an adventure. Together with my mate and volunteer friend Oli,

In the evening we even went out for a bob after sipping cocktails at the FCC, where ‘ladies night’ was.

The next day we had to head back to PP, sadly, the end of our amazing time was near.

On our last day, we explored the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda as well as the pool in the ‘Himawari’.

My dear friend Dr. Daniel very kindly donated money for the RTC. In the name of the director, the teachers and the students I want to say a big thank you to you.
Most likely we will either buy new fans, because all fans are broken in the student accommodation or we will use the money to buy a new toilet block.
It is really needed and with your kind donation, you make a very positve impact on peoples life here in Cambodia.So thank you a lot again.

written by  katja-horsch on February 2, 2010 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia
from the travel blog: VSO experience in Cambodia
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