Pictures Come to Life

I have seen pictures of Cambodia, but now it's 3 dimensional. It's REAL, I can't turn it off… I don't want to turn it off. These people are real- I can see them dusty on their mopeds, or through the wholes in the walls of their homes. Their smiles are warm, their eyes are big, shy, and very penetrating. They are curious but soft in their curiosity - I feel I am invading their space. I am quickly taking on their body language-bowing every time you say thank you, voice becomes a little softer. I feel that every time I step out I sink a little deeper into my new surroundings…

I went to ROSE (the NGO hospital where I will be working) with the Physical Therapist, Mr. Ath, for about 15 minutes when I arrived here to get a sense of it (Mr.Ath is away for 4 weeks on a mission with the army and I am being handed the keys to the physical therapy room). As he is away there is not physio for that time. I hope I can be of help (idea seems to be liked)...Driving across the Japanese bridge, surrounded by mo-peds that have 2 or 3 people on them, riding in streets that have congested traffic, we turn right onto the dirt road that leads to ROSE. Again, I recognized it from pictures, but it breaths, it has it’s own presence, a lightness of sorts created by the whispers and breathing of its patients. It has a sense of peace too I think I have always felt and appreciated this about hospitals – as it is a place where people are safe because they are being looked after. There were not very many patients there because it is the weekend and there is no surgery on the weekends. In one main room there are 3 patients with their families sitting about their beds. In the next room, slightly smaller, there are 2 burn victims. A man and a woman. One was an extensive burn – face, torso, limbs. There was a little girl sitting by her, waving a make shift fan over her face from time to time. I was nervous at first because her injuries were so extensive and her face was completely altered from the burn, but when she spoke to tell us that the third patient was out for a walk, my nervous melted and suddenly I just wanted to help. She is a human being. That’s all I saw. The other patient, a man was lying on his side, sleeping I think. It was hot. It was very hot in the room. I cannot imagine how they were tolerating their injuries and the pain, in this heat with minimal pain killers…and so quite...suffering in silence. I imagine after a while you just do not have the energy to express the suffering one feels.

A quick introduction to where I will be spending the next couple of months. Leaving and weaving back into the traffic, we head towards Dr. Jim's and Kanya's home. The traffic as many had warned and cautioned me about is truly crazy - there are some lights, some lanes when the roads are paved, but otherwise, there is not rhyme or reason and I quickly realized that the less I thought about it, the safer you become because you stop jerking about to every sudden passing car, bike, mo-ped or pedestrian. It is bizarre - the kind of bizarre where you compelled to laugh, because taking it seriously seems ridiculous. But I'm too tired right now to recount it in a "funny" way.

The jet lag comes and goes. I'm still in a bit of a time warp...I don't have a sense of time or days. I feel like every moment counts though and I don't want to waste a single one.

I feel like I have taken the final steps from being an idealistic "student" who is constantly up in arms with the world and the order of things to becoming someone who accepts the fact that that's the way it is and human nature is complex in it's simplicity; that smaller changes over a period of time are more meaningful than grand dreams with no action to follow...I am becoming a realist. My romanticism is reserved for the more private moments...