ST 25.05.- 31.05.2009

Monday, 25 May 2009
I forgot to tell you about the glowing flies ( Gluehwuermchen in German). The first time ever I’ve seen some. It is completely dark and suddenly those little lights appear and fly around. Looked like fairies. Absolutely fascinating and it has something magical.

There are many things I’m doing or I’ve seen for the first time in my life since I am here.
Apart from eating many different fruit or veg or duck eggs, generally food for the first time, it is also new for me to go every night at 9 o’clock to bed. Also last night I experienced the loudest and heaviest thunderstorm ever. The house was shaking when the thunder came. I wonder how I will cope with that when I live alone…

On Sunday Joelle went to have another blood test and it revealed that she is clear now of malaria. So lucky. There are apparently 5 stages of malaria and she had fortunately only stage 1, the weakest form but also it can lead to dead if untreated. We want to go at the weekend together over the river by boat to see the a little village.

the Referral Hospital in ST

My Thai curry on Sunday evening was a success. I made it for the first time with all fresh ingredients. Delia and her boyfriend Scott, who visits her at the moment (lucky her), came around and Helen and me sat on the veranda, eating and drinking wine.
Did I ever mention that Helen is originally from Canada and Delia from Australia?
Both of them lived in England before they started with VSO ..

a street in ST

This morning, Monday the 25th of May, I went first thing to the bank with the new letter, Hor brought with him from PP. They made me a booklet, which you need to get money out of your account. The card for the cash machine will be ready in 10 days. Anyway, this booklet. When I received it after 30 minutes, I couldn’t help myself laughing. They put for my name: Katja Horsch Deutsch. When I tried to explain that Deutsch is my nationality, they wouldn’t believe me, because in my passport those three words are below each other. I tried to convince them for 5 min until somebody else came and said that I’m right. So they did another booklet for 30 minutes. This time, the stamp wouldn’t work and they had to repair it before putting it on. Finally I have my bank account and now money can be transferred for my house.

Hor asked me to type from Helens house contract a copy so that we can use it.

Work is fine at the moment. Just finding my feet. I think I was quite negative about everything in the last few mails. Maybe I am still, but at least I realize it now.

Channa in our RTC office

I think it takes time, I am just not used to it. Also I talked to a few volunteers about seeing the purpose of my position here and they all said, I need to be patient and set small objectives, not huge ones at the beginning.

Hor in our VSO office, very busy

So I’m trying. But generally I feel a little more relaxed and am looking forward to more challenges and how I will manage things. This is definitely a big learning curve for me and I realize slowly, how my life was until now. Have enough time to think about it…, and somehow I can see already what positive effects it will have on me once I let go. I had a disagreement with my mum about me being too impulsive. 6 weeks ago, I was very much disagreeing with her, but now, thinking about it, I think she is right. I am actually an impulsive person. But I think there is nothing wrong with it.
I also realized, how stress at work had influenced me for a long time and how it effected my private life at home in so many negative ways. I feel that I had so much stress in the last few years. I never want to have that again. Here it is not yet stressful, it probably will be at some point, but at the moment I really enjoy an easy life, I feel like I’m on a long holiday a little bit. Except from not being physically together with friends and family. That is not easy at all.
But people (mostly volunteers), I see here every day now become important, and I am really looking forward to see Helen after work for example. With certain people I click, like Helen and Joelle, with some a bit later.
Thinking about a conversation with Dave, a VSO facilitator from P2V and SKWID course, who asked me one evening in Harbourne Hall at the bar, what I want to get out of this personally. I haven’t had really thought about it until then, and I couldn’t really answer him back. I knew from the volunteers point of view I want to give my best to support the health sector here in North East Cambodia, but I also want to learn, just to be myself. And I have the feeling, I’ll have plenty of time to practise.

In the afternoon at RTC we were doing something really useful, I found. We went through each preceptors evaluation form. They did complete it after the workshop last week. So Hor translated and I wrote everything down and will summarise it to complete the Kadoorie report (they do the funding of the project). There were really good comments and suggestions, I can hopefully do something with. I really can recommend evaluation forms.

For supper, Helen bought a small roasted chicken. Chicken here in Cambodia is more expensive then other meet. Why? No idea. She’s having Khmei lesson at the moment. She’s trying to learn how to write it. It’s far too advanced for me.

Tomorrow, I’m going to see my house again and maybe sign the contract.
I’m actually looking forward to have my own space. I asked Scott ( Delias boyfriend) already to help me putting a hammock (Haengematte) onto the veranda.

Tuesday

Today I found out, how much holiday I really have. Not only the 20 days I have anyway, but 25 more days, Bank holidays. That made my day! I really want to try to travel to see as much as I can while I’m here.

In the afternoon, Hor and me met the landlady again and signed the contract. The house is sooo big! Two bedrooms, big living room, big hall, open kitchen, big veranda and a tiny bathroom. So I can move in on Thursday at 14:00.

Happy 30th Birthday Avery!!!!!!!!

Wednesday

Hor showed me today the Accommodation for the students, who have to live there because they come from different Provinces and can’t afford to stay anywhere else. There it is for free for them, and from my understanding, during their theory in the RTC ( usually 4 weeks), they don’t get any money. Once they are on placement in the hospital ( usually 4 weeks), they get $1 ( = 4000 Riel) per day. There are 4 buildings and in each building are 5 rooms. In each room are up to 6 beds and sometimes students have to share a bed. Currently there are 105 students in those 4 buildings.

one building for student nurses

Half male and half female. They relay on 2 water pumps to do their washing, cook, drink from it, flush the toilet and have a bath. One pump is rainwater and one has clean water and people are only allowed to use it for cooking and drinking. Electricity for fans for example is only available for 12 hours/day. There are only 4 old toilets. The rooms are stuffed and I wonder, how can they remain clean and be hygienic as it is appropriate for a nurse to be, when they live under those conditions. It is inhuman.

the clean water tap

After seeing that, Hor asked me, if I could do something like a charity run to get some money to build a new building.
I think he is great to be so committed and trying to change the conditions, the students live in now and of course I want to try and help, after seeing it with my own eyes.
So after sitting in the office and thinking how to do it, I thought I try to write articles about it and send it to different magazines and newspapers in Germany and England. My suggestion then would be to also write down numbers of costs (which we figured out already) and try to support in small steps. Maybe first of all with more new WCs. Then maybe with a water system around the buildings. Then maybe with electricity for 24 hours. If there is more money then maybe build a new building with water, electricity and WC for them. We only need $ 63.000 for that.
If any of you have any ideas or want to support, of course with money, e-mail me.

student nurses

The second project I was thinking of, in order for the students to learn English more easy, is that I want to find out if they would be interested in singing in a choir. And if they are, then I would start one. Looking forward to that if it is possible…

To be honest, I don’t think that the Role of TDA, I am suppose to act in, is useful at the moment. The clinical instructors from the RTC make such a confident impression and I think, they need only very little or no support, thanks to previous volunteer Kathy. I should concentrate more on the Preceptor Advisor role, which is still a vacancy at the moment. I want to be more active in the hospitals, working closely with the preceptor and the student. Generally that is possible, but the project only allows two visits to different hospitals per student placement.
I’ll have my first official visit with the Regional Chief Nurse in 2 weeks. Then we will observe together preceptors, working with students, and give feedback. Therefore we will go to Rattanakiri province for 3-4 days and I plan to stay over the weekend there afterwards to check it out.

Thursday

I moved! Looks all so big and empty. Channa helped me to find certain things in the market for a good price. I have the feeling, people charge too much from me when I buy on my own. Isn’t it handy to have a supermarket in England or Germany? Here, everything needs to be bought in the market. I still need to get used to it. So we bought a big pot for cooking water, a pillow, plastic bowls for washing, glasses to drink from, a jug, sponges and cleaning chemicals ( ants everywhere) and towels. Also toilet paper, a hammock!, Tupper boxes ( so that mice can’t get to food), and incense sticks ( against mosquitoes).

my landlady's wedding picture

It was sad to leave Helen, but I was also exited to have my own space. I think, Helen was also looking forward to that.

Friday

My first night on my own in the big wooden house… It was ok. There is the family living behind me who owns the house, so there voices and so on to not feel too isolated. I hope, that one day I can communicate with them properly.

living room

the veranda

There is a male hen, I think called a cock, and he’s not doing the usually kikiriki or konkedudeldo. He’s a little horse and so it is not nice when he starts in the morning with greetings, it is like somebody scratches with nails on a plate.

the bathroom

the kitchen

Otherwise there are dogs around, and in my house I have geckos, lots of ants ( don’t know where there are coming from) and mice. I put a piece of soap next to the sink in the kitchen, and each morning you can see little teeth marks on it. There must a mouse eating my Palmolive rose soap. I asked Helen and Delia about it and they said, apparently that mice love soap. Helen once went on holiday and when she came back, nearly everything of her soap was eaten.

my view from the veranda

They have mousetraps here, but there are cruel. It is like a box with sticky glue in it and once the mouse is in it, they are stuck in there and live until they die of starvation or whatever. I just can’t face that. So let the mouse eat the soap, as long as they leave my other stuff.

me in my living room

In the afternoon, we had a meeting at Louisa’s house ( VSO Maternal and child health Advisor), all of the volunteers who are in ST. Helen ( Behavioural Change and Communication Advisor), Delia (Nutrition Advisor), Louisa, Hor (Provincial Programme Officer) and me. We talked about a joint meeting with Kratie’s Health team in order to talk about headlines for coming VSO Health Sector Workshop in July. I liked that. We had a few good ideas and it was interesting to meet out of work but talk about work.
In the evening we had supper at the Riverside restaurant, eating VSO special. It was delicious. I was really craving for meat.

Saturday

I met with Joelle at 9 and we then went over the river to Thala-Bariwat.

We both wanted to get out of the house and I got the idea from Helen. She was there before and she could also tell me the story behind it, which goes: There was a pregnant women once and she asked her husband to get her a coconut from the palm tree. But he went away without getting it for her. So she went up the tree herself, fell down and then gave birth to twins. One twin was a boy, the other one a cow.

So there is in a small hut the stone statue of this secret bull now, his name is Nandin.
The statue is flanked by two shrines to an old man, Dah Jouh Juet.

Also there are ruined brick towers of Prasat Preah Ko, probably build to control river traffic, as my guide book says.

The most impressive modern pagoda I’ve seen so far is Wat Tasar Moi Roi

, the pagoda of One hundred Columns,

which was built in 1986 with the express intention of beating the number of columns at any other Wat in the country.

There we met a monk who let us into the pagoda.

There were a few kids around him and when I asked him about them, he said they were children without family.

Some parents died of HIV, some were just left alone. He cares for them now and he also is about to start a charity, involving Education, Health and Livelihoods.

He was very friendly and he also explained some pictures inside the pagoda.

It was very interesting and we were glad that we went there.

After that we explored the village a bit more and just walked and talked in the hot sun.

Joelle told me about the research she is doing.

Jo standing infront the big drum

There is a dam to be build near the Laos border, and when that happens, the people there have to move away because of constant severe flooding.

a giant butterfly stranded on the street

One dam has been build already. She is trying to raise awareness about the next one. She is here from University in Switzerland and has to return in 2 weeks. She stayed here for nearly 4 month now, after having her stay even extended. I think I will miss her.

Of course both of us got a sunburn afterwards although we creamed.

one of my favorite pictures

Then we felt hungry and went back to the little harbour where there had little restaurants. We had a fish dish with rice and it was quite nice.

It then started to rain and we were stuck, because when it’s raining, no boat will go. The owners of that restaurant then started to talk to us and invited us into the back of the restaurant. Then they asked, if they could take some pictures of and with us. It was so funny. We all posed for a family picture, taken with their mobile phones. Joelle has more pictures on her camera then I have, so there are more to follow.

Joelle is posing with a girl

On the way back we sat together with a group of drunken Cambodians. There were probably our age ( Joelle is as old as I am), and it was really funny. Fortunately nothing else happened and we landed safely back in ST.

We had a quick fruit shake at the “Riverside”, which is so far my favourite because it has a slightly European touch and nice chill out music. Two guys from Belgium joint us. They do an Asia tour and came just from Laos. It is funny to talk to people who travel and see lots of places. It must be funny for them to hear that I’ll stay in ST for 2 years… So far I have the feeling that travellers are interested in other people, but only for a short time. Because is it worth it to go into deep detail and to know each other? And that’s what I think. It is great to meet and chat about this and that, but then, you say goodbye and that was it, because I’ll stay.

I then invited Joelle to see my house and we had banana cake and self-made ice-tea.
She was my first visitor. It made the house more lively. I need more visitors.
Next Saturday I decided, my housewarming party is due. I try to invite lots of people.

In the evening, I watched a DVD: The boy in the striped pyjamas. It is a sad story, but I liked the film.

Sunday, 31st of May 2009

I woke up during the night once because I felt, something dropped on my face and I thought it was a mouse or something. I couldn’t find anything with my torch. Maybe it was just a dream..

In the morning I washed some clothes and did some cleaning. At lunchtime I got a call from Evic, she is a VSO volunteer living in Kathy’s house, working in Livelihood. She gave me an iron ( yeahhh!!, otherwise it is very expensive in the market) and some speakers for my laptop (yeahhhhhhh!!!, also very difficult to find). That made me very happy. After my smart linen clothes have been washed, they definitely need to be ironed. So that’s what I’m doing next.

Azaleen I think Mami

Otherwise I hope all is well on the other side of the planet. Aren’t there elections in
Germany at the moment?

I’m here now for more then 3 weeks and it feels already like 3 months.
I miss you all and give you a big hug. And my letterbox-pigeon whole is hungry!

written by

katja-horsch on May 31, 2009 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

from the travel blog: ST 25.05.- 31.05.2009

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ST 25.05.- 31.05.2009

a travel blog by katja-horsch

ST 25.05.- 31.05.2009

Phnom Penh, Cambodia