Cambodian Health Professionals Association of America (CHPAA) are about to embark on their tenth mission from USA to Cambodia where they are setting up shop for a week, offering free medical, surgical and dental treatment to people who otherwise cannot access care. Earlier this year I wrote about my experience traveling to a province outside … More Humility in Service
Tuberculosis is an insidious and a complicated disease. Six years ago I met a young man of about 30 years old who hailed from India. He presented to an Australian hospital with persistent abdominal symptoms. Eventually doctors performed investigations and found multiple lesions on the lining around his abdominal organs. Whilst awaiting results from the … More Fighting Felons
One of the things I have learned about the world since coming to Cambodia, is that there must be millions of people whose lives could be transformed by something as simple as a wheelchair, but who instead are confined to a tiny space by their inability to walk. I have met a surprising number of … More Wheels
Sometimes whilst blogging I go searching for the right quote to fit my reflections. This quote seemed perfect for today’s story relating to the small Islamic community I am currently working with. I had never heard of Ali ibn Abi Talib, who according to Wikipedia “…. was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the last … More Sometimes The Battle …
Burnt to a crisp, parts of his clothes fused to his charred skin, his face black and locked in an expression of pain and horror, the patient had been doused in petrol and set alight by an angry boss. Shuttled from health center to provincial hospital and finally making it at impossible expense to the … More Treating Treasures as Trash
Yesterday I went by tuk tuk to Wat Opot Children’s Community to visit the staff and children and get another fix at one of the world’s most magical places. I will never know how, in a nation so impoverished and challenged, anyone was able to create a place with so few resources, rising from the … More Fifty at Wat Opot and One Who is Not
The Kingdom of Wonder is a very flat land. Consequently, any small hill is well known and often named as a “mountain”. One of the first places I visited in Cambodia was perhaps the most well known mountain in Kampong Cham province, where I cycled with colleagues at the end of 2013. During that visit, … More Kingdom of Wonders
Two weeks ago I made a rushed five day visit to Cambodia between study commitments. Here are a few of the most interesting snippets of my week. From the airport we went straight to Thomas House, a small NGO run by a retired Australian couple on the outskirts of the city. Running off the smell … More Of Children and Fish
This week I was invited to a Cham wedding through an American connection I made when we took Paula to her surgery. Despite learning a lot about Cham people in recent years, they still seem foreign and exotic to my western eyes and last night’s wedding did nothing to expel this notion. Our arrival at … More An Arabian Night
This week I lost my housemate and friend to Bangladesh, where she will work with the Rohingya refugees escaping indescribable violence in Rakhine State across the border in Myanmar. We spoke a lot about them and about Cambodia before she left. It always looped back to ourselves, our appreciation for our extreme luck of birth … More Eye Is For Ice
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