The Hospital

Monday morning we went to visit the Sihanouk Hospital. It's was founded in 1997, offering free medical care to anyone who needs it. I have heard about the place for years, as my church has contributed to the founding and staffing of the hospital, so it was pretty cool to see it live.

There's a complex of buildings, offering all kinds of services: pharmacy, in-patient care, surgery, emergency care, x-rays, etc. It was a bit uncomfortable going through the place. I don't like hospitals in general, and this had all the scary bits and then some: crowds of very sick-looking people all over, a bit dark and run down in places (compared to the slick shiny hospitals we're used to). But overall very inspiring to consider all the help that has been given and all the hard work and sacrifice of the doctors, nurses, and admins.

Across the street there's a new medical center, slightly more modern and polished, where they charge for services on a sliding scale based on the patient's ability to pay. They found, over the years, that many of their patients could afford to pay a little, and really wanted to. This should help their operating expenses a lot.

Finally we went on some "home visits", taking a van around town to visit some families with one or more HIV positive people, just checking to see how they're doing, are they taking their meds, etc. This was really, really rough. The first house was down a twisty alley, so narrow at parts you had to walk sideways. Up a ricketly ladder (I am much bigger than most people here and I thought I might break it) into a few tiny rooms in a suspended wooden shack where ~6 people live. The youngest was a girl who couldn't have been more than 2, no clothes at all, not even old enough to talk much. At one point she starts sliding down the ladder, totally freaked me and Greg out (we think she's gonna fall).

Next was a guy who's pretty sick with AIDS, body all wasted, and also depressed/mentally ill. This one was up like 5 flights of stairs, through someone's apartment out to the roof, and into a little shack on the roof. The guy was just sitting in a chair staring into space, barely moving. The room is filthy, there's some kittens in there and what looks like cat feces all over, just really bad. Long conversation between our hosts and this guy and his relatives. They are trying to persuade him to leave and enter a hospice, he keeps changing his mind.

I think at that point I just shut down, compassion fatigue or whatever. Greg was able to stay a lot more engaged, I was just shuffling around for the last two. The third was a family of 9 living in a one-room apartment, 2 members of the family HIV positive. Says something that this was the most encouraging visit. The last was a family that just lived under a tree, no home at all. I am thinking about them now because there was a major thunderstorm last night.

Greg, Gerlinda (right spelling) and I went to lunch at Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) which is evidently something of a landmark for expats, like all kinds of cool people (Hemingway) went there. Really nice classy place, 360 degree view of the river, dark wood, ceiling fans. Like Elephant Bar, but for real.

Home, rested a bit. A fellow named Brad at the hospital had invited us to go play basketball. I was thinking no, way too hot, but Greg wanted to go so we did. We got a ride out to the outskirts of town, there's a very nice Christian International School with a basketball court where expats regularly meet for bball. When we arrive, 4 PM, the kids are in the middle of some kind of gym class, running laps, which seemed horribly mean to me, it is so ridiculously hot.

So we play basketball. I am 1) not used to the heat 2) slow and 3) terrible at basketball. Greg and I both last half a game before we have to sit out. This wounded my male pride so I made myself play 2 more full games but I was dragging.

We hadn't really made plans on how to get home. One of the guys gave us a ride back into town to a busy corner and helped us get a tuk-tuk, a kind of open air cab/bike thing. Our basketball friend speaks Khmer and we think we communicated where to go. But as he's driving me and Greg are more and more convinced he's going totally the wrong way. We try to talk to him but we don't speak Khmer and he doesn't speak English so he just keeps driving. Finally Greg had the bright idea to call the hotel (we'd gotten a cell phone earlier) and have the driver talk to hotel guy. And indeed once they talk the tuk tuk guy turns the cab around. I think we drove in a giant letter P, starting from the base, up, take a right, all the way around and back.

Dinner at a highly recommended Khmer place right near the hotel. Honestly didn't do much for either of us.

Last night a thunderstorm came up and it was no joke. They don't really have thunderstorms in the Bay Area, I'd forgotten how intense they can be. It'll be interesting to see what that does to the city, I hear the drainage is not so good.