Cambodia: Day 44

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Pursat

10:19 PM

We walked the fifteen minutes it took to get to the RACHA office this morning in the mud. Once we arrived, we met with the head officer of the province. A small Cambodian woman with dark wavy hair, she stood at least five inches shorter than me, her floral blouse buttoned all the way up to her neck. Jeni, Tuni, and I piled into her office and took a seat in front of a large desk.

A man came in and sat down behind the desk. He began talking to Jeni about the DOTS program that the infectious disease unit administers to people with TB. He invited us to listen, as well. Bless his heart, he was obviously very nervous as he stumbled through his minimal English. I mostly just stared at the desk, half-aware of what was going on, looking up every so often and smiling to encourage him to go on.

He finally finished. Jeni left to take a tour of the hospital nearby while Tuni and I sat in the office, reading our books. Around nine o' clock, Sophal walked in and asked if we were ready to go.

I walked outside to the car that was going to take us to the villages. The RACHA sticker on the side was framed by mud. I hopped inside, remembering that it had been weeks since I had last been inside a car.

We made our way to the outskirts of town until we were surrounded by rice paddies. We drove for about 20 kilometers and ended up in a small village. Stilted homes lined the dirt road, Khmer family clans gathering in large groups underneath their huts. We parked the car and made our way to a small roadside stand where a woman sat with her small child. Sophal asked if we could ask her some questions and our survey marathon began.

Finished with questioning one woman, we'd set out to find another somewhere down the road. People would stare at us as we walked past; it's not everyday that they see a white girl voluntarily visiting their community. We hadn't made any appointments, so we just looked for women who were of reproductive age. We'd find them hanging around their homes, doing everyday chores and taking care of their children. All of them agreed to participate in the survey. By the time we were halfway done with a survey, I would look up to see a crowd gathered around us, pairs of eyes staring at me.

Welcome to being a minority, Andee.

We were in a village called Tram when we got caught in a heavy rainstorm. We finished an interview with a woman when Sophal suggested we do one more with another woman that was at the same home. I ducked out from underneath the house to check the sky that was quickly turning grey and black.

"Uhh … ok?"

Just as we concluded the interview, the rain began to fall. Large ceramic pots on the side of the house quickly filled with water and the whole yard was flooded, making a small waterfall down the path to the fields. I stared across the land, barely able to make out the figures of palm trees and grazing oxen. Lightning and thunder fired overhead and I knew I was experiencing something I'd never forget. Sophal said that the people were very happy about this because it meant they could start planting their rice crops.

We were stuck for a good twenty minutes before we decided to just go for it. Our car and driver were almost a mile away, so I strapped on my backpack cover and we ran. Eventually we found our driver and made our way back to the city center.

Some quick statistics from today:

2 - The number of babies that publicly urinated all over the place during our interviews.

3 - The number of dogs I almost had to kick.

1 - The number of times I saw a two-year-old playing with a hatchet.