T-Minus 15 Days

This extra month is flying by too fast. I've been pretty busy. I went to Angkor Wat, finally!! It was so beautiful and a really fun trip. I went with 4 of my Khmer friends and they knew all the best spots.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I talked with CVF, the organization I live with, and have been "staff" now for a few weeks. It's a lot of fun. I really enjoy helping out and I am the first foreigner to do it. They seem to really appreciate my input. Helping make things more professional. Now for airport pick ups and city tours we have CVF t-shirts that the staff wears. Also, every 2 weeks when new volunteers come in certain staff members are assigned to visit certain placements to make sure volunteers are going okay.

I entered that video from the last post into a video competition and we won the month of November, meaning $100! I am using it on something here, I just haven't decided on what yet. Winning November means we are up for the year contest, and could win $500. If you would like to vote for the video, it would be greatly appreciated! You can vote once a week with as many e-mails as you have. Here's the link:
 http://www.volunteerhq.org/volunteer-video-competition/61325


I've got 15 days left and have so much to do!! 28 new volunteers arrive starting today so from now till next Wednesday I will be so busy! Airport pick ups, orientation, city tour, welcome dinner, taking volunteers to Pursat...a lot goes into this stuff!
 After that some CVF staff and I are taking a trip up north to Mundulkiri to do an eco tour. Elephants, waterfalls, nature! Woohoo!
And thennnnn after that I need to make a day trip back to the village to give them some left over kids stuff I have that I brought from US (thanks Granny). 
And somewhere in there my friends want to go to Sihanoukville (the beach town) for my birthday. Not sure how I can make it happen. 
Oh! And for Christmas we are doing Secret Santa!

That's all I can think of for now...Thanks to all who have kept up with me on this awesome journey. It is insane how life throws curve balls and teaches you so much. 10 months ago I had no idea I would be here. Just in the car on the way home from Atlanta the idea came to me and then 2 months later I was boarding a plane. So much has changed in my my mind since then. The person I want to be here on out and the things I want to do! It's been an experience that I will keep forever.

I already have plans to make it back here for my summer break and continue interning with CVF. The guys here have become as good as brothers to me. How could I come home and not come back. The next 6 months will be the true test to see if I can discipline myself to focus on school, save money, and not go back to my old habits. I think my desire to be back here again will be strong enough. 

Anyway, like I said, thanks so much to all of you for keeping up and helping me to get here.

Much love!!!!
-Daniel
 

WOW!

Okay I am the worst blogger ever. It's been like 3 weeks. So, our care packages project is finished! Check out the video. It'll make you smile! =))

My placement at my NGO has only about 2 weeks left. But I have managed to get my flight changed free of charge and will be in Cambodia working till the end of the year. I'm ecstatic! I have begun working at the hospital some mornings with an Australian organization ICC. The same org I built my second house with. We wash the patients hair, cook and feed them lunch, help the nurses. It's good stuff. I'm also talking to CVF (the organization I live with) about interning with them my last month! Helping place volunteers at their placements and airport pick up. Volunteer coordination sounds like a really awesome career to me, so it would be cool to get behind the scenes.

Oh! And one of the boys I live with Chheng, goes to English class every night and I just started tagging along with him and now the teacher wants me to keep coming back and help assist teaching. Sooo now my evenings are filled 5-6/7pm!

Anyway, I'm really trying to make the most of my time here and I think I'm succeeding! Thanks for reading friends! =)

Daniel

This Bus Ride...

It's 10PM and I'm on the bus from the Thailand border back to Phnom Penh. ETA--3AM. I'm so tall and the woman in front of me is inconsiderate so I'm sitting sideways with my feet in the walkway hahaha.
I've been in Thailand for the past 13 days. It originally a 4 day trip. But I met someone and kind of fell into a fairy tale. I saw so much of Bangkok and then spent 4 days on Koh Samed island. It was a dream. I fell fast and I'm sad to leave but I know I'll be back and until then I have all the memories!!
Anyway, back to the amazing, lovely, dusty, dirty Phnom Penh. It's funny how all 4 of those words actually describe the city at the same time.
I have to go to an all day conference on corruption for work tomorrow starting at 8AM...so I need to sleep on this bus. Ill get some pictures up soon from Thailand.

Good night friends!!
Daniel

BAM!

Super excited! It's been a quiet couple of weeks in Phnom Penh. In the office Monday through Friday working, brainstorming, napping during the daily afternoon thunderstorms (aka afternoon flood).

All this time with no posts was not wasted, though!! A new volunteer Keisha is here at my placement and we have been working great together. She is a former news reporter from California and has excellent video editing skills. JUST WHAT WE NEEDED!

We used all of Vishnu and I's pictures and interviews from the village and put together an amazing video. The video raises awareness about land eviction in Cambodia and also zooms in on our village and how to help. We finally got a PayPal account set up and doing everything the organized, right way! Haha.

Lots of effort and editing went into this video. Please, check it out!
Care Packages for Cambodians!

Also, check out the donation website! We have a PayPal account set up and everything =)
YouCaring Page

So, really this time, I'm planning to go to Bangkok the middle of this month over the holiday here. And this Sunday I am going to some temples outside of the city. Some even older than Angkor Wat! It's crazy I've been here over 2 months and I've only been to Kompong Thom where the village is, and 3 nights in Vietnam. I need to get out of the city more, I'm running out of time! =( It's depressing thinking about it.

Anyway, I hope you guys watch the video and somewhat understand a little better what is going on here! Thanks again for keeping up with my trip =)

ICC Trip

The start of my weekend was great. I went to dinner with some Khmer friends (I barely spend time with the other volunteers anymore now that Vishnu is gone). But Saturday started the worst pain in my throat ever. I did my research and self diagnosed myself with strep throat. Quick bike ride to the pharmacy and purchased a strip of 10 Amoxicillin pills for 75 cents (and no prescription). Crazy! By Tuesday morning I could eat something besides noodles again without pain. And now it's Wednesday and I'm feelin' good.

Sopheavy from ICC invited me (with literally 2 hours notice) to tag along with ICC's quarterly medical/build team trip. There are about 17 people here in their crew. Doctors, nurses, few handy men, and lots of helping hands. I love it. I'm super lucky to tag along with these people.

We are in the same province where my village is and 1/3 of us are building a house (house number 2 for me!) and the rest are running medical clinics in nearby villages.

I'll be here till Friday and then heading back to Phnom Penh with one of the project coordinators, Troy (in his ICC taxi, free for me!). It's all about connections in this country. Well, anywhere. And I'm definitely making them. Maybe a job like his is in my future, after school, if I play my cards right =)

PS I didn't go to Thailand. Just too rushed. And good thing because I got sick.

Okay, sitting down for dinner at ICC's orphanage and school Light of Hope. You should look them up. ICC is working wonders here.

Peace!

Oh! For those of you who have donated money for a family in my village, I promise I will start organizing a delivery trip beginning next week. Thanks again!!

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...

The Past Two Weeks...

After spending exactly 2 weeks in the countryside, getting back to bustling city was quite nice. It was really a successful trip. The house is complete and we managed to get 6 people to the hospital in the closest city for their various problems. And on top of all that, I developed relationships with people that I will cherish forever and experienced a part of Cambodia that most people will never see. We stayed the whole 2 weeks on a farm about 15 minutes from the village. Our boss at CIACC owns the farm and her sister and husband live there and look after it. Bucket showers with well water...no electricity...wood platform for a bed (mine was outside, yay for being the boy. Vishnu got to sleep inside)...rooster for an alarm clock at damn 5AM every morning...and rice at every meal of the day. At about day 4 I was ready to die. But, then I got over it. Haha. This country is full of the kindest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and the countryside is no exception.
It took a couple days to purchase all the supplies we needed for the house before we could start building. Slow and frustrating start, to say the least. We hired men from the village to build the house. We did this because it meant a source of income for them and it also builds a sense of community. Mr. Yan and his wife came home knowing that their neighbors built the house for them. This is so important. Cambodian politics are a BIG issue and the village is divided with villagers supporting different parties. If they can't look past that and come together to help each other, their village will never develop.
Every morning started with coffee and rice and then we hopped on our borrowed motobike and headed to the village (with a quick stop for fried bananas..for the workers, of course ;). The whole house was built by the hands of 3 workers and some help from me as well. It's amazing. They have no machinery. Just hand saws, axes, and hammers. The fact that I'm almost 6'2" did come in handy several times, though. :)
Okay switching subjects. Almost all of the villagers have health problems. Malnourishment and dirty living conditions cause this. And more so the water. So, we decided that we would offer to take a few villagers at a time to the closest hospital (an hour and a half away). Our first visit with 3 women went well. They all had blood tests done and got the medications they needed and advice from the doctors. The following day we decided to just go on a drive through the village and take some pictures and video. It is quite large and spread out. We made a stop at a house with a well and were greeted by the woman who lived there. When the villagers that don't know us, see us, they immediately think money...food..help. She insisted we follow her to another house (no translator with us anymore). We went and walked into a home maybe half the size of my bedroom, which is the home to a husband and wife and their 7 kids. 2 of the 7 kids were 8 day old twins. One twin had 11 fingers and a liquid-filled ball attached to one hand. The mother is extremely malnourished with no breast milk and the condition of their home is no place for a new born. We immediately arranged for her to come to the hospital with us the following morning. It was quite nerve racking and intense. The mother could take a bus to the city but we then had to put her on a motobike with 2 babies to get to the hospital. I couldn't even watch as we drove to the hospital. The hospital told us that the babies were too small to be operated on and she had to go to the children's hospital in Siem Reap (3 hours away). So, we had to separate. I took one twin back with me to the village and Vishnu took the mother and the twin with the problems to Siem Reap.
So, fast forward because this too long....the baby had his operation and is now back home a week later. I purchased $25 worth of formula at the market for them. Between other mothers giving their breast milk to the mom and the formula, the babies should be set for a while.

I'm going to try to put into words this feeling I get like almost every day here. It happens at random times, in random situations, but my eyes kind of go outside my head and I look at what's happening and it's like..woah..I'm here, in Cambodia, in this moment. I don't know. This experience isn't an organized, planned volunteer experience. The work we (and when I say we I mean Vishnu and I...) do here and the size of the difference we make is up to us. There's no organization sending us somewhere or planning for us. We ride in local vans to save money and get looks like "uhhh did you miss the big air conditioned bus?" Haha. We call NGO's and set up meetings to share what we know. We spent 2 weeks in the middle of no where with no translator. We personally take responsibility for these people we are helping and will keep doing everything we can. I don't know...it's just a weird, cool, awesome feeling that I get.

Anyway, we are going back to the village tomorrow and are taking donated clothes from volunteers and some medicines and stuff. It's Vishnu's last week here and she wants to say good bye. There is no other volunteer working on Human Rights with us here, so I'm going to be alone. And yep, I'm nervous about it.

I have this "Sponsor A Family" idea where someone can choose to sponsor a family from the village and will get pictures of them and names, etc. and can send me the amount of money they choose each month for the last 3 months I'm here and I will use it to purchase things the family needs. Non-perishable food, clothes, hygiene products, etc. I'll give the family a picture of the person sponsoring them and will take pics every time I make a delivery to them for the sponsor to see.

If anyone is interested in sponsoring a family, let me know.

This post could go on for days, but I'm going to stop here.

Thanks to everyone for keeping up with my journey and keeping me in your thoughts. Much, much appreciated!!

Here are some pics. The first few pics are with my new adopted little brothers. I can pretend anyway. Or maybe they adopted me. Even in the depressing moments when things weren't going right or we found sick people, they were able to cheer me up real quick.