Great Trip, Terrible Ending..

I got the Blogger mobile app. Maybe I can try to post more frequently and shorter. We went back to the village for a couple days. Vishnu leaves Friday so she said her goodbyes and our friend Sopheavy from International Children's Care came with us and brought a LOT of supplies. It was great. We delivered rice and medicine and cooking supplies and dried fruit (many have a serious low blood sugar problem). It was a great trip.

The day we got there, our close friends in the village told us about a man who was coming home from work on the plantation the night before and collapsed while on his motobike and laid there the whole night till he was found the next day (the day we arrived). We coordinated to get him to the hospital in Kompong Thmor where we have been taking other not so serious patients. He spent one night there and this morning we went to go check on him on our way back to Phnom Penh. He was worse. I now know to never take anybody there that needs more than just a prescription for a minor problem. They did nothing. So we are in the van now, with the man and his two children on the way to the hospital in Phnom Penh.

We called Sokun (who is the head of the ICC clinic near the shitty hospital) to let him know we were taking the man to Phnom Penh where ICC has a lot of medical staff at the hospital. He said okay thanks for letting him know and asked to talk to put Sopheavy on the phone.
They talked forever...in Khmer...so I had no idea what about. She got off the phone and said he was not happy with her and that he told her not to tell me about it. But she did anyway. Local authorities went to his clinic in Kompong Thmor when they found out ICC was now working with the village and told him they needed to stop.

Every small NGO we have contacted to help us said no. "They are too politically involved. We can't be associated with it." It goes back to the villagers being politically divided as a community. The government won't allow NGO's to help the anti party and the NGOs will not go in and just help one party. Make sense?

So it's a mess. And a shitty day. There's a man dying in front of me and the closest chance I had of getting real help from an organization is gone...blahhhh.

But, my visa expires Friday and I just remembered yesterday. Oops. So, I'm taking Vishnu to the airport Friday evening and catching the sleeper bus to Siem Reap and then directly to Bangkok from there. It's called a visa run. Haha. I'll probably just spend a couple nights and then come back, but I can't be this close to Thailand and never go.

I unlocked my iPhone and put my Cambodian SIM card in it. So I don't have my US number anymore. But, I do have Internet everywhere now. Woohoo!

I'll try to keep updating regularly.

And sorry for such a negative post, but this is what's going on. It's easy to take pictures with beautiful smiling kids and play games and be happy. And I'm sure for the reader it's much more enjoyable to read about that. I wish these situations I find myself in weren't happening. Like REALLY. I'd much rather be at the orphanage in Phnom Penh, but this is the real...