More Siem Reap: Working in the villages.

The following morning my friends left to head back to Phnom Penh, and I stayed in Siem Reap to meet Miss Vin, the RACHA Maternal and Child Health coordinator in Siem Reap. I was going to be going around to some villages with her for the next 2 days. I took a moto taxi with all my bags to try and find the office, but couldn't find it. So the driver just dropped me off in front of the hospital where she ended up picking me up from.

We headed out to a village where we would be training the village health support group volunteers in leading health education discussions and monitroing and tracking the growth of the young children. Then all the mothers in the village arrived with their children for a support group meeting where we educated them on preventing malaria and dengue fever, as well as warning signs to watch for in their children. Next we weighed the children and graphed their weight for age to monitor their malnourishment status. Apparently this village just began getting food supplements distributed monthly through the World Food Programme, so we wanted to see if the status of the children was improving. It was so cute to see these adorable little kids being set in a basket to be weighed.

Luckily, their nutritional status was improving! Now there was only one child that was still severely wasted, or malnourished. Following the meeting, we had lunch there. Every day, no matter where I am working, the employees take a rest from 12-2 to eat lunch and take a nap. We bring our own hammocks to the villages and hang them up after lunch and sleep at peoples' homes in the villages. So awesome! After our nap, we went to another village where we did the same thing again.

That night, I decided to go out exploring Siem Reap some more on my own. It is seriously the coolest city; I loved it there! I found a cute restaurant that advertised hot apple pie. Sold. So I had a steak, fries, salad, and hot apple pie and ice cream. Yum! Then, sadly, I had to go to an interent cafe to work on all this paperwork I have to do for my masters project. I can't even begin to describe the torture of being stuck in an internest cafe for THREE HOURS when you are in one of the coolest cities.

The following day I went out with Miss Vin to a village where 5 villages were all meeting to receive their monthly ration of supplemented food. Villages are selected based on income level to receive food for pregnant and lactating mothers and children 6-23 months in order to reduce malnutrition. This was a really cool and humbling experience.

Following the distribution and our lunch and nap, we demonstrated to the mothers in one of the villages how to properly cook the food for their children and then weighed the children that were in danger of severe malnutrition to track their progress. There was still one little girl that was so small that was still severely malnourished and several other children that were malnourished. BUT it was improving. Apparently several of the children had moved up from severely malnourished to malnourished over the past month. There was one boy that had to have been about 5 years old. He only weight 11 kg. So sad.

That night I went out to an authentic Indian restaurant. It was oh so good! After my dinner, I went to the Art Center night market. There were so many cool things there and I spent far too much money on rice artwork and cowhide pieces. There was a band playing on the street that consisted of disabled victims of landmines. The music was really beautiful and I admire them for what they're doing to support their families, rather than just begging on the streets. I bought their cd and it was so cute to see how grateful they were. I headed back to my guesthouse so I wouldn't spend any more money, and because I had a very early start planned for the next morning!