Pixs

Weekend away

A weekend away. We took a four-hour express bus ride to the coast of Cambodia. One thing to keep in mind is the differences in busses here is how fast they reach their destination, same distance, same road, same number of stops. Yes this means the express bus drives faster and takes a lot more chances passing. Passing on curves, hills, curvy hills, with oncoming traffic, with oncoming traffic on hills on corners, ect. I think you get the idea here. The reassuring part is the bus is larger than most other vehicles; most that is. The road to the coast also is the road to the only port. So yes lots of very large slow moving trucks, lots of trucks to pass and play chicken with. All and all it only appeared we would die in a fiery head-on collision about one million times. Not bad for eight hours of travel. This is real good entertainment of someone that is into thrill seeking, so cancel your next base jumping adventure and buy a five dollar bus ticket.

The weekend was great; my only misgiving was Rebecca was not there to enjoy it with us. We all were happy to get some fresh air. The smog in Phnom Phen is awful infact. When you fly into Asia there is this gross layer of smog you descend through, often from the aircraft at altitude you cannot even see the ground due to the pollution. Looking at it makes me think all that we do at home hardly make a dent in the entire planet’s health, but I guess it’s a start. We stayed at a really nice hotel with a pool and private beach. Several of us ventured to the beaches the locals go to, I will say I enjoyed that beach much more. It we really great to see so many Cambodian people having so much fun. At night there, it reminded me of “Burningman” with the wall-to-wall thrown together bars lit with Christmas tree lights. The beaches were beautiful with warm clean water. The air temps were in the mid 90sF, all most the same as home plus 70F.

Five of the wells we paid for are already in and pumping fresh water. I saw the pictures of them this morning. It is amazing with a few dollars how quickly lives can be changes. We will be getting some help to people in the village I spoke of in the “really poor” area. I saw pictures of their homes also this morning, here are a few pictures. I’m looking forward to getting back to that area and see what has been accomplished. I’m planning on paying for at least one more well and either a house or repairs on several houses. I need a Costco to but a bunch of blue tarps.

The classes are back up and going again today. We managed to get the two EMS classes combined at HOPE Hospital today. The students from the Police are really happy to be back in town and not having to travel an hour each way, plus we have all the equipment we need for teaching here. Things seem to go so much smoother here. Walking back into HOPE this morning was like going to a friend’s house, welcoming and warm, with a feeling of comfort that really surprised me. It’s really good to be back here. We caught the classes up so they are near the level. Northwest Medical Teams have been doing he teaching here at HOPE last week but they moved on north and to Vietnam this week. We will use the two groups to teach each other in some areas. Hopefully this will promote the idea of them doing further teaching to their coworkers. Out on the drill ground today 103F. HOT!

That all for now.

Andy

A great day

This morning Sos had a visit from a relative of his from out in the village area were we went last weekend. She told Sos of the village that is “really poor” she said they have no wells and don’t even have houses. I gave Sos money to put in a well and some money that they will use to buy some clothes. Together we gave Sos enough money to drill four wells in the area. He thinks they will be put in as soon as next week. He also says a house in that area costs about $150. Looks like I may buy a house in Cambodia and change a families life.

We had a great day of training! To day we stopped on the way to class and bought several “sticks” about 5’ long. We also rounded up several long backboards and some rope. When we arrived at class again bad news: no ladder truck or fire engine hat could draft water. On the EMS side it was full on practical hands on training utilizing materials and equipment available on site. All those wilderness medicine classes are coming in real handy. Even though we are not in a wilderness area, improvising with supplies on hand.
We built stretchers using the sticks we bought and rope. Moved patients in and out of windows, over obstacles and under vehicles. The Australians have been teaching search and rescue techniques to the fire group utilizing many of the same skills. So you can guess what had to happen: fire -vs- EMS in moving patients through an obstacle course. I have never seen such fierce competition with so much laughter and so many smiles. It was a great way to practice the skills learned and build teamwork. The Australians are always doing some teambuilding exercise, we’ll hear laughing look out and see their class down to their underwear putting all their clothing end to end to see which team can form the longest line. Despite all the equipment and facility issues the students are learning a lot and gaining valuable skills.

Jerry after three or four years is also making progress, meeting with officials concerning communications and emergency phone systems. For an example if you dial “119” (the emergency EMS number) the call goes to Calamed Hospital. There is only one line, without call waiting, answered by one person between 10:00 and 20:00. In the off hours the line does not get answered. And we complain at home about our dispatch.

Gary also has some good meetings and made so valuable contacts with the hospitals and some NGOs.

We still have some of our equipment sent over, that has not cleared customs, and hopefully it will clear today.

My thoughts are at hope as the memorial services occur at home. I’m sorry that I am not there to say good-bye.

Tonight we had a great dinner, “Italian” go figure, and it’s probably the most authentic Sicilian restaurant I have ever eaten in. They fly in the meats and cheeses daily from Italy and the cost for my meal was under $8.00. To be honest I would still rather have Cambodian food.

Tomorrow the national TV news network will be at class to film for the evening news. Unfortunately we won’t see it we will be on a bus to the beach for the weekend.

I also bought a cheep cell phone so we can problem solve between classes and ect. So if you feel so inclined to call me my Cambodian number is 011-548-206 I’m not sure what the country code is to access Cambodia, you’ll need to look it up. Look forward to hearing from you I have 400 minutes to use in the next two weeks. Phone and calling card all for $20.00

Andy

pics

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Getting things done?

Day something? Once again it’s been nonstop with things changing at every turn and I have all ready lost track of what day it is. As I say “no worries we’ll just roll with the punches” but then we get kicked it the ---well you know “whats”, and we start from scratch with new lesson plans. The big issue is that we at a new training facility a little over an hour from Phnom Penh out on the edge of nowhere. We learned the night before class the NGOs and the police EMS classes would be separate. The biggest issue is at the training grounds there are no medical training supplies, on the fire side, day one we arrived and “no” did I say “NO” fire equipment, so ok we’ll get trucks out here (an hour and a half drive each way). So next where’s the water supply for fire training? After some exploring we found a “pond” that could be drafted out of (complete with snakes and who knows what else). When we did finely get trucks the first one could not draft, so three hours later fire was in business and day two was complete. The Australian guys had much more success teaching Urban Search and Rescue, putting students into culverts and moving debris. Oh did I mention the issue with electricity? We have none in the mornings until they can find someone to get a generator running. This slows down the PowerPoint projector from our computer. Ok so now I have vented! The good news is we are adapting and the students are great! They are happy to be here and are very motivated. Oh did I mention the Ladder truck died on the side of the road on the way back to Phnom Penh last night? The good news is that it was gone this morning and we hear it will be back tomorrow. Also we arrived at Hope Hospital and the had forgot we were coming. After a few phone calls we had a class of 20+

Personally: sad news from home with the death of Rebecca’s grandfather. It is incredibly difficult to be here and not at home to help support her and the family. Harlan is someone I will really miss, he was someone I really looked up to and enjoyed spending time with listening to his stories of flying the B-24 during WWII. I’m so sorry I will not be able to attend his services and be with family. He will be missed by all of us.

The weather here has been around 100F HOT!!!! And they say it’s the cool season. I feel sorry for the fire students out in the sun, although we still see people wearing winter coats in the morning when it’s a fidget 85F.

I have been trying to get pictures up, but the Internet has been giving me difficulty. I will keep working on it as time permits. We are making plans for some R and R this weekend.

Thank for reading and drop me an email at kayakmedic@hotmail.com

Andy

The OESP team all met and decided to spend Sunday visiting the villages where Sos has been having fresh water wells drilled with donations made by members of OESP. This also gave all of us the chance to become acquainted with our newest team members from the Australian Firefighters International. Before calling it a day there was the quick trip to the Russian Market to scope out the latest buys and to pick up some needed items.

Sunday
Everyone was up early today and we headed southeast out of Phnom Penh. About two hours later, we were in the area of the villages Prey Vang and Svay Rieng, right on the Vietnam boarder. Sos visits this area often, helping out the villagers. Today we brought along about 500 loafs of bread, some soccer balls for the kids as well as school supplies brought by our Australian members and also gave out pencils from Oly Fed.

It was quite a day, spent visiting areas that wells have been drilled to provide fresh water, seeing and interacting with those in the villages. Getting to these areas was not easy and we spent about three hours going place to place on the back of motor scooters over paths and across rice paddies. We gave out five hundred loafs of bread mostly to children. As we would stop at a group of homes we would only see a few people and with in just a couple of minutes there would be upwards of fifty people, all-staring at the novelty of white people. I asked Sos how often would a Caucasian venture into this area and he would say “never, white people never come here”. As we traveled around it was difficult to see such poverty. The kids were so thrilled to have their very own loaf of bread and a pencil, we would find the director of the school in the area and donate a soccer ball and some school supplies. It was amazing how many schools there were tucked away out in road less areas of the rice patties, with several hundred to over a thousand students. I would think how can such a sparse area have so many kids, but then when we would stop they would come from everywhere. I kept thinking putting a loaf of bread in there hands is a very short term solution to a very long term problem. Our main objective for the day was to see the wells and we did. Most importantly we saw first hand how a simple well can make village life so much better. Without a well they may need to walk several mile to get safe water. The wells a simple drilled by hand 150 foot deep with a hand pump. I’m planning on having a couple drilled with the money given to me. Overall we all got plenty of fresh air, sun (even some sunburn) and obviously were much warmer than our families in the Pacific Northwest.

We briefly met with Lt Col Chanda and found out that we will be doing all of the training at the Police training academy located about 45 minutes southeast of Phnom Penh. Everyone put our heads together and began reorganizing the training schedules that had been developed. As always, the team is prepared to adapt to unexpected changes.


Monday
Let the training begin. Our trip to the training facility took a little over an hour this morning. Talk about rush hour traffic!! The roads are narrow and everyone is heading into the city for work while we are on our way out of the city. Upon our arrival, we met with the facilities commander before going in to the opening ceremony. After opening remarks by a multitude of individuals, the group broke into Fire and EMS groups. Since we were at a new training facility, we asked for a tour so that everyone could scope out where they might be able to do each of their classes. That made it break time for the students, which lasted about an hour and a half.

Once the tour was complete, the EMS guys spent time doing a review of materials previously learned while the Fire group revamped their schedule for the next two weeks. Oh, did I happen to mention that the non-police personnel scheduled for the EMS class can’t attend the class at the training center? They will be holding their classes at HOPE Hospital being taught this first week by our other partners from Northwest Medical Teams which are here with us as well.

When lunch time rolled around, we broke for the day and will begin classes tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. The Fire group went to visit the Fire Station to show the Australian team what equipment they will be using, while the EMS group went to visit HOPE Hospital. In keeping with the day, upon arriving at HOPE Hospital, we found out that no students had shown up for class this morning. However, it was confirmed that there will be around 20 there tomorrow to begin their training.

So ends Day One …. It has been interesting and hopefully isn’t setting the tone for the rest of our stay. Watch this space for more to come on this exciting trip.

Day one 07

Day one on the ground

It’s been a busy day; it has been a year since us changed. We walked in to our usual breakfast digs, the staff spotted us and came running up to us smiling saying “your back your back” and was on the phone calling other staff letting them know we were there. It doesn’t seem the city has changed at all despite construction everywhere. We then met with Sos who has been really busy getting things organized for us. We also connected up with the guys from Australia. They are a really squared away group that will be a big asset. They brought some really good training ideas and lesson plans that we will be using. We then moved to the hotel that we will be staying in for the next two weeks. Then it was a quick trip to the market to get a few supplies. The Australians took a trip to Tuslang killing prison museum S21. Then it was more planning and socializing with the Australians and the day was gone.

In the morning we are going to leave at 06:00 and travel out to villages, were members of our group paid to have wells dug two years ago. We are anxious to see how $200 changed whole villages. The villages we will be traveling to are several hours away, on the Vietnam boarder. We will take a van as far as the road goes, then take motorcycles as far as they can go, then the final bit on foot. It will be an incredible day. Oly Fed sent a big box of pencils, (thanks Sheri)(I hope I spelled your name right) I think this may be a great place to hand some out to children.

Need to get to sleep it’s going to be a long day. Look forward to hearing from you.

Andy

We are here (finely)

We are here! Augh! What a trip, I think I was in transit over forty hours from home. Due to the weather in Seattle I arrived at SeaTac airport five hours prior to flight time. I caught an early shuttle planning on the roads being a lot worse than the turned out to be, none the less I’m glad I arrived early, because the roads did get worse after I arrived. The Plane boarded slightly behind schedule. Looking out the window of the aircraft we noticed a slight issue, there was over six inches of snow covering the plane. Fortunately the flight crew also noticed, unfortunately it appeared the good folks at SeaTac didn’t appear to have a whole lot of experience with deicing well a little over three and a half hours later we were headed down the runway. A new feature our plane had was a camera mounted on the nose gear with the images displayed on the TV screens so the passengers can see what they are about to hit. Well as we accelerated down the runway, either the person that had painted the stripe down the center of the runway was drunk and painted the line to resemble an “S” turns ahead warning sign, or we were blown allover the runway as we took off. It felt like the latter. Once in the air there was still a lot of “liquid” on the outside of the windows. I kept thinking, doesn’t that add drag? Well they must have known what they were doing, because the plane did continue to climb and we were on our way. We flew “China Airways” one thing our booking agent failed to take into account, was the fact that I’m over 6’3”. Normally I’m quite happy with my height, but China Airways spaces there seats for the average Chinese person, so that with sitting on the tarmac for nearly four hours and an a almost fourteen hour flight to Taipei (18 hours on one plane) ough! We also had a 200 mile per hour head wind most of the way that added a little time to our journey. We were scheduled to have a hour and a half between flights in Taipei. Well getting in over five hours late guess what? They didn’t hold the plane just for us in fact there were 34 people on the plane that were planning on getting on the Phnom Penh flight. China Airway’s was really very exceptional about getting us on a flight to Bangkok (another three and a half hour flight in small seats) and then another flight to Phnom Penh, and only eleven hours late to our destination. At SeaTac we did meet up with the guys from NWMT’s that had flown out of Portland. So we had a group of ten that flew out of Seattle total. The five guys from NWMT’s decided to take advantage of our stop in Bangkok and spend a day there and will fly into Cambodia tomorrow. Sos was waiting for us at the Airport with a van and even had a nice hotel lined up for us. So after forty some hours I could finely stretch out and fall asleep, and at 23:00 Cambodian time. Well with the 16 hour time change I am up at 04:00 typing out this blog. I’ll write more tonight, I think we are going to go out to visit some villages today and see some of the drinking wells our group paid to have put in two years ago. We are planning on paying for a few more this year. Oh and but the way it is going to be near 100 degrees here today.

Andy

On the way 07

The day is nearly here; tomorrow I start my adventure back to Cambodia. We will leave just after midnight and arrive in Cambodia Friday morning. It sounds our classes will be larger than last year, with 60+ from the governmental police departments, three separate NGO originations, the riverboat ambulance and at least one group from HOPE hospital. And that’s just for the EMT class; on the Fire side we could see another 75 students. In total there are five of us going from the Puget Sound area, two fire instructors will be coming from Australia and two EMS instructors from NWMT’s that will spend the first week with us. It will be a very busy two weeks! As last year I will again try to post a daily blog of our trip, adventure and teachings. I really enjoyed getting feedback last year knowing how many of you were following our progress; it made the world seem a little smaller. Up front I will apologize for the grammar and spelling errors, after 18 hour days my writing skills aren’t so sharp. Oh well hope to here from you’ll follow my blog while I’m there at www.kayakmedic.blogspot.com and post comments. And yes it’s still not too late to help sponsor the trip by going to http://oesp.net/participate.html and clicking on my name.

Andy