Indelible Roots

I purchased a ticket to BKK the other day and will be arriving in Thailand Monday morning. I sent an email to Dr. Jim noting my last week of work and received a nice and terse as usual reply. As I hate goodbyes, I have been telling only a few people at work that I was leaving this week.

On Monday night, Ath invited me to his home for dinner. I expected to eat with everyone in the house, but as usual, it was just Ath and me who ate. His wife quietly sat nearby with the youngest baby while the 2 year old tried to kick a soccer ball onto our plates. The two other people there also just sat out of the way. After eating Ath drove me to the mall near my place with his 2 year old standing in between us on the motorbike. I remember saying to my self, “I’m not OK with this.” They both seemed to really enjoy it and it appeared that they did that often before bedtime.

As it were, I’m having a pretty busy week. I’ve got three hand patients who formerly went to Calmet Hospital for various hand injuries. All of them got sewn back up and sent home. Now three months later x-rays show that their hands are still fractured and they are stiff and contracted. And today another one showed up with electrical burns to both wrists, adhesions of the flexor tendons at both wrists, and contracting fingers. He also went to Calmet three months ago right after the injury and after a couple of weeks there and three surgeries of which he did not know what was done, was sent home without further instructions. I’ll remind you that my aunt is there now getting “treatment” for her Lupus.

Prior to dining with Ath I did go visit my aunt. My uncle said they were going to keep her at this hospital “until she was cured.” I think she may well die here. She had been getting better and is now, finally on a steroid. But today she is having severe abdominal pains and I found out that she had not been eating anything this whole time except runny rice soup. The hospital itself has not given her any liquid foods or any advice at all. No one seems to know what she’s being given or why and no one is asking but me. This is supposedly one of the better hospitals in Cambodia. And from what I’ve seen, I could do a better job with internet access and a willingness to learn. As mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook, coming here without medical evacuation insurance would be suicidal.

Having seen all of my patients and seeing that there were no others awaiting consultations who would need OT, I left work at about 3:30 yesterday. I was low on cash so the thought of stopping at the Canadia bank which doesn’t charge me a fee occurred to me. But I decided to just head home At my usual left turn I passed it up because the bus behind me was honking its insanely loud horn. I could have gone around the New Market at this point and cut a section of busy road out of the trip, but I decided to double back and get on the main road. At the intersection of a two large streets I made the right turn as usual with the light red just like everyone else.

As soon as I rounded the corner a cop steps out about twenty meters ahead and waves me to the curb and onto it. He then walked to the wall fifteen feet away from the street and motioned me over. He and his cronies, two of them, then go on to read me the riot act about making an illegal turn on red, blah blah blah. He threatened to take my piece of crap, though reliable, moto into impound and one of the other cops prodded me for a bribe.

I held my ground for several minutes telling them I was volunteering at CSC, which they recognized. They congratulated me for my kindness and asked how much I would be giving them. Having opened my wallet to show them my uncle’s far out of date driver’s license my measly ten bucks was showing. I took advantage of this to say I didn’t have much money and needed it for the rest of the month. One of them said “you have money, it’s in the hidden compartment.” So I unzipped the extra compartment and showed them it’s lack of contents.

We actually had a pleasant conversation. They told me the details of why the license was out of date, what the new license looks like (showing me a stack of about thirty they had confiscated,) when the turn would be legal (green light,) and how much it would cost to go apply for a real bonafide license ($25.) The funny thing is they never brought up the fact that the registration sticker on the moto is six years out of date or that the license plate is rusted and held together with baling wire.

They asked for six bucks, two for each. I tried to talk them down to five, an exorbitant some in this place so that I would have five left. But to no avail. I actually wanted to laugh when I handed over the money and we both thanked each other. If not for my absolute disgust at public corruption, corruption by those whose purpose it is to serve their people, it would have been a rather pleasant experience. Certainly it isn’t their fault that those above them keep their wages low just for the reason of being able to easily bribe them. As always, the rot comes from the top and its stench is overpowering at times.

To use a saying my friend James coined, my give-a-damn is busted. I’m not excited to go to work anymore, but rather find myself leaving the guesthouse later and later and wanting to leave earlier and earlier. I don’t even ... [Continue reading this entry]

A couple of weeks ago this little guy shows up in the therapy room with his left hand bandaged. He started pulling on the pulleys and in general making himself a nuisance. Busy at the time I told him to ... [Continue reading this entry]

2/06/2008

Happy Chinese New Year! Colorful posters are on the walls and store fronts. Fireworks are being lit here and there. Roasted pigs are on display. The city is quiet as many people are off for the holidays and have gone ... [Continue reading this entry]