When you are poor in a poor country there are many things which will kill you prematurely. Stress is likely the prevailing, but not the only culprit. Right now the Coronavirus Pandemic response is becoming a major issue for millions around the world, increasing food insecurity and hunger as well as having a negative impact … More Grab Some Happiness
Sadly I’m returning to Australia after four very fast months in Cambodia. The last few days have been busy tidying up loose ends. Yesterday I had a final child health meeting in a Phnom Penh neighbourhood of busy alleyways encircling a very large pagoda. Tuk tuk rooftop scraped past truck walls, moto handlebars knocked my … More Pre-Departure Refurbishments
She lives in a tin hut in a back alley filled with makeshift shacks stacked beside and atop of each other. Roosters crow, ducks, chooks and skinny kittens peck around for morsels in the same muddy piles of trash, dogs laze in shaded patches, and pigeons coo from a cage. A neighbour is crouched over … More Trash To Treasure
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
When I first heard about Sokum’s condition, her husband called it “corollary heart disease”. Obviously he meant “coronary artery”, but why would a 20 year old already have coronary artery disease? It had to be Rheumatic Heart Disease. When I visited last week I wrote “Rheumatic Heart Disease” on a scrap of paper for her … More Heart Strings 01
Anyone else with a tendency for writing would have blogged ceaselessly had they lived the month I just lived. Midway through my one year assignment in Cambodia, I traveled home to Australia and New Zealand to visit family and friends, visiting two major Australian cities, the Australian outback and various locations around the south island … More Culture Clash
Fundraising for the 20yo woman with (probable?) Rheumatic Heart Disease needing urgent heart surgery continues. A friend asked me to prepare a Powerpoint presentation for a fundraiser she is organising and I thought I would share it here as it summarises some of the stories I’ve spoken about disjointedly. Story One: An Inconceivable Connection In … More Unconnected Connections
Study after study by psychologists has shown that there is no correlation between wealth and happiness. The only exception is in cases of real poverty, when extra income does relieve suffering and brings security. But once our basic material needs are satisfied, our level of income makes little difference to our level of happiness. Research … More This Thing We Could Do
My heart sinks in Australia whenever I get a cold call at home, or accosted in the streets by charities looking for donations. Ditto when friends write saying they have a cause and would I donate? It is not possible to help everyone and the phenomenon of donor fatigue is something I experience on a … More The Excruciating Fundraiser
Many hours of many days during my first 2 years in Cambodia were spent adventuring with my good friend, a tuk tuk driver who I blog-named Chom. He is currently living in Japan to earn $60 per day as a farm worker (10 hours per day, 7 days per week). This is big money to … More Pimp My Tuk Tuk
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