Day 6

I woke up early this morning not feeling well. I took some medicine right away. I think it's bound to happen to most of us because of all the changes and the heat. I am feeling much better now.

This morning we visited the Cambodia Land Mine Museum and Relief Facility. We learned about an incredible man named Aki Ra who was a solider in the Khmer Rouge from age 10 into his teenage years until he was captured by the Vietnamese and forced to join their military. He made it his life mission to clear land mines in Cambodia to make it safer for his people. He and his wife also took in many children who were victims of mine injuries. Cambodia still has about 2 million land mines. There is a man at Stanford working on his PhD that is currently working on an iPhone app to detect land mines!! Aki Ra was recognized as a hero by CNN in 2010. There is a movie about him called The Perfect Soldier that I hope is on Netflix.

Behind the museum is the Relief Facility that currently houses 37 orphans. They go to public school and are offered a scholarship to a university if they graduate high school or a trade school if they don't graduate. They are also required to do volunteer work for 5 hours a week. Some of the children have birth defects, are polio victims, HIV, etc. They don't take siblings at the facility because they tend to not assimilate.

We then visited the Banteay Srei temple which was beautifully detailed.

An interesting fact I learned today was that 95% of Cambodia's population is under 45 years old!

We spent the rest of the day at the school. The three of us nursing students performed head-to-toe assessments on the 1st graders. They are so sweet and cooperative. A lot of them have nits, scabies, abdominal pain and severe tooth decay--it's incredibly sad. We had a translator to help us complete the assessments. We gave them stickers and high fives after they were done which they really liked.

During the assessments, we were called from the dental clinic because a boy had fainted. Two of us ran over there to assess him. He was really out of it and we just elevated his legs and monitored him. He was conscious but not wanting to drink water or talk. We ended up transporting him to the clinic just to be safe.

We had dinner at a place where we got to watch a traditional dance performance which was neat!

I'll be doing a shift at the clinic tomorrow morning then back at the school for the afternoon.

Thank you all for reading my blog and your sweet comments!
Xoxo