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