Sokapeip and the Bamboo Train

Its been a while since my last entry... things have been really busy on this side of the globe. After my visit to permanent site I went to the Khmer Rouge Tribunals being held in PP. They currently have Dutch on the stand, who was the right-hand man of Pol Pot, and was responsible for the genocide that happened at tuol sleng work camp/killing field. If you want to know more abuot the details of this trial, please send me an email, or visit any number of websites about the Khmer Rouge. Anyone over the age of thirty five in this country will tell you horrific stories about what they had to endure during the regime, the number of family members and friends that they lost to either starvation or execution, and how it has affected every single day since the regime ended... I know a few volunteers who are working with NGOs to document stories about the Khmer Rouge in particular regions and what happened during that time. My permanent site has a very different story- my town was one of the last garrison towns of the Khmer Rouge until their official disposal in 1996 because it is so close to the Thai border. I have already heard stories about how people were still running away from towns and hiding in the jungle when the Khmer Rouge came through up until fifteen years ago.

Currently, I am on a health trip with the 10 other health volunteers. Like I said before, we are the pilot health volunteers for Cambodia, and we are SO excited. So far we have spent the last few days working with Khmer staff from several international NGOs in different villages (some of which are VERY isolated, up to 100k away from the closest health center which may or may not have a nurse or a doctor and over 200k away from the closest referal hospital wich may or may not have one or two doctors on staff- this is the story of almost ALL of rural Cambodia- more than 80% of the country). We went to see a community education project on maternal and baby health in a town in Kampong Chnang yesterday. I will recount first how we got there:

1) A bus ride about 30k down a dirt road
2) A 'bamboo train' (a bamboo platform with an engine and a large wooden stick for a break situated on four wheels that fit over train tracks) that we rode 18k down the train tracks where the 20 of us riding it had to get off three times and dissassemble the 'bamboo train' i.e. get it off the tracks to let other 'bamboo trains' and a REAL train go by... (mom and gran, im sorry if you are reading this, we were safe I promise and no one got hurt)
3) another 20k truck ride down more dirt roads to the village

That, also, to put things in perspective, is what any person in this village, or surrounding villages would have to go through to get to the nearest refferal hospital if they or their family members got sick.

We went to a meeting of moms and small children (infants to children about six years old) where the trained village staff from the NGO had made a special kind of rice poradge (a staple here) using vitamin and nutrient rich locally grown plants to show families how to increase nutrients and variation in their diets so their kids can be healthy. The NGO had also brought in a doctor to give bi-annual vitamin A vaccines and an injection of vitamin suppliments for the children and post-pardem women. While the families were eating, they were getting education from other people in their village about basic nutrition and sanition (washing hands, how to get clean water, etc.). After the meeting was over, we followed some village health volunteers to a few families homes to watch them do health interviews/intakes with the families. They asked if the children got sick, what they got sick with, looked at where the food was prepared, looked at what water source the family was using, etc. and then educated the mother and father about basic nutrition and variation in foods throughout the year so that their children can get the proper nutrients they need to have a healthy immune system (12% of chilren here die of preventable diseases before the age of 5). This NGO also promotes home gardening of native veggies to supplement diets which is a rarety here because almost all airable land is devoted solely to rice farming. After this, we went to a HUGE party for mothers and children held at a local wat to educate families on water sanitation using the SODIS method (basically its well or covered rain water put in water bottles and left out in the sun a proper ammount of time so that it will kill the bacteria in it and make it potable).

It was absolutely amazing to see a community come together like they had with very little assistance from the NGO to improve the lives of almost everyone, especially the small children. These communities very clearly have extremely few resources, but what they do have they use in an amazing capacity to do so much good. It made me so excited to get to permanent site and figure out where the health needs lie in my community. Basically, once I get out to site I will spend four days a week at the high school teaching english, and one to two days a week at my health center which focuses primarily on expecting mothers. I am pretty sure that there is one nurse and one or two midwifes who work at the health clinic, and no one else... and is about 65k away from the closest referal hospital in the provincial town.

I have so much more, but this is a LONG entry, so ill write more later... I miss yall terribly, and send me an email or a letter! I will respond! Love to everyone.

xoxo
K