Mission to Cambodia 2014
from Karen Smith, Nursing student

Today was an interesting day. We were split up into three groups again. One group went to the hospital, another went to HIV/Aids home visits and my group went to the service project. At the hospital Libby got a jump start on learning health assessment skills, listening to lung sounds. On the home visits while emotionally impacting they also were in for an unexpected surprise. On their way home their tuk-tuk tire popped leaving them stranded for an hour until another tuk-tuk came. It was quite the experience.

Click on photos to enlarge

With the service project team the manual labor was about done when we arrived. The tin roof was nearly all replaced. The family showed us their house and with big smiles pointed out the new tin roof. You could see the excitement in their faces. So since the labor was about done we decided to put on a skit for the family. The family consist of about 20 people, between daughters, sons, husbands, wives, and grandchildren. Our translator was a 15 year old boy uncle to his 12 year old nephew.

Our skit was a broadway performance. We performed a skit about germs and the importance of hand washing. Five of us wore Cambodian masks and represented germs. We all attached to Ms. Emily Morse our instructor who did not wash her hands! She then became sick. Her friend Chas Taplin (Dr. Susan Taplin’s husband) came to see her. She coughed on him and he got some germs too! But Chas knows how to wash his hands. And when he washed his hands with soap the germs ran away and died. Then he taught Emily how to wash her hands and all her germs died too! The End.

The family had such a great time watching and too much fun laughing with us or at us. One, asked after the skit, what was the proper way to wash your hands. So Ms. Emily Morse demonstrated using a clean bowl of water and a bar of soap how to rub your hands together and scrub your fingernails. Then many of the family members came up and practiced, eager to learn. They all did excellent! We were so happy how eager they were to practice and learn. Earlier they had been more closed to the idea of washing their hands, it just isn’t a concept they are accustomed to, washing their hands as often as we do, but we felt through the skit and the demonstration they were more eager to do so and more open to the idea.

In addition to our skit we also donated food to the family and lollipops to the kids. Earlier this week Chas invited two of the women to church with us this Sunday. The mother of the family and her daughter. That morning we bought them long, beautiful and colorful skits and shirts to wear for church. We gave these to the women who seemed very happy to get them.

Our day at this service project differed from the others earlier this week but a great opportunity. It was a fun time interacting with the family and kids. We had so much fun acting and laughing.

Later that afternoon we enjoyed the downpour of rain. We got to visit the office of a partner of Freedom’s Promise. Freedom’s promise is an organization we will work with next weeK. Their partner Kome Kmeng told us about their program of giving education to kids. It was a great cause.

Finally some of us spent the night getting massages, ice cream or playing cards. A few of us even stayed up late playing and teaching card games to some Cambodian friends. These guys are good friends of Patrick and Erin from previous years. They are loads of fun.

It was a full day but a good day with many more to come!