That was the week that was

Monday: As the one white guy in my village I provoke curiosity and / or hysterics; by tomorrow there will be eight barraings. It’s an unprecedented number – what will the neighbours say? I don’t care: an evening of music and beer on my balcony is a lovely way to start the week: who said they don’t like Mondays?

Tuesday: I don’t like Tuesdays. At least, not finding a viper curled behind my water filter. In true heroic style I run screaming to my landlord. He’s cool: using a broom handle he delicately teases the snake’s head into an upright position. His mate then fires his caltapult, hitting it in the face with a big rock. And then smashes its head with a hammer. All before breakfast. The day improves: we move and cement the new hospital playground, and then our lovely colleagues from the next province help with our first health education workshop for carers (usually relatives, who do much of the personal care you might expect nurses to provide). The highlight is a blunt but effective way to promote hygiene and sanitation: all together now for the Shit Song...

Wednesday: A bumpy journey down the worst road in Cambodia followed by a late night enjoying rare internet access is not the best preparation for chairing the toughest meeting of my time here: all the provincial hospital directors look at me to help them improve referrals to the big hospital. And to explain why no one from the big hospital turned up (a long story). And then I find that my nocternal emails didn’t go down well: my impassioned plea not to exclude poor people in my area from funds to pay for treatment, and for infection control equipment and training in my hospital, was well intentioned but clearly ruffled feathers. Apologetic phone calls are made over lunch, interrupted only as I’m chased for not paying the bill. At least I have a comfortable lift back up the bumpy road to Thmar Puok with colleagues from a partner organisation. I usually despise NGOs’ huge white gas-guzzlers (“we need a four-by-four... to help the poor”), but now the suspension and aircon are blissful. There’s still time for adventure: on arrival we watch a lone student midwife deliver a baby. When the placenta doesn’t appear, she disappears on a motorbike. Shortly later an older lady appears and takes over, thankfully with rather more confidence. Only later, as she removes her long gloves and leaves the delivery room do I recognise her – she’s the finance manager.

Thursday: My guests are great company, but it’s the first time I have hosted Cambodians, and I could have done better. Taking ages to cook coconut curry was useless – they needed to eat, so made their own noodles. To drink they wanted juice, but what kind of person chills it when temperatures are barely in the 30s? And to sleep, having mattresses raised onto beds - well, why would you do that? Unphased, we had several welcoming meetings in the morning. Then came an unexpected highlight: now patients have moved into the beautiful new children’s unit, we have an empty ward, which I was determined to clean before it is refilled. Good job – as soon as we move out the beds it is apparent just how filthy it is. The debris is pretty foul, and the range of fungal growths on the back of the doors quite astonishing. But the staff work so well together, scrubbing and buffing the ward and having a great laugh too. For once I’m even thankful for our intermittent power supply, as an enthusiastic trainee cleans the plug sockets – using a high-pressure hose. In fact it’s possibly the best day I’ve had here so far; an uplifting end to an eventful week.

Friday: thank god!