Nuk Battambang

When I left Battambang it was sweltering, the unbroken cycle of sweltering days and muggy hot nights, a times, took the last of our patience and left us irritable , bored and unsatisfied.

Towards the end of the hot season I headed back to Australian winter for a month, for the most part savouring hot showers, great food, company of family and friends, and beanies, scarves boots and jumpers.

I returned to the comparative cool of the start of rainy season, the wonderful time when the roads turn into treacherous collections of cavernous potholes, all hidden by muddy water, when you can’t walk anywhere without acquiring a stylish spray of mud up the back of your legs or pants, and of course, where the river swells up, tumultuous and fast flowing, claiming, rubbish, tree’s, electrical wires, anything else that comes close to the muddy edge.

The relative cool is a relief, the breezes and cooler morning are more than welcomed by my usually sweat sticky skin, but each big storm I fear for a repeat of last years’ tragedies, our hospital emergency department overfull as tree’s come down on families, the usually dangerous roads, exacerbated by the rain, killing and maiming people, and the malevolent shifting of mines still hidden in the land, moved with each season.

It is nice to be back, and it feels weird to be preparing to leave to go and make a life in Australia, in a new town, a new community, for an unknown period of time. It’s hard to say goodbye, to tell people I’m leaving, compounded by the fact that this is an option I have, that a lot of others don’t.

I don’t want to think about leaving forever, not cycling into the hospital grounds and being handed a paper towel (and occasionally a hilareous anecdote, or request for a kangaroo) by the guards at the gate, not joking and working with staff at the hospital, not wandering into the ward, not speaking our workplace mix of khmenglish, gestures and so many jokes, not getting coffee and spending lazy hot Saturdays at kinyei, not hanging by the river in the afternoons, not learning more khmer, not seeing the hospital evolve and change, not working with the team we have for the goals we’ve made, not having moto adventures on the weekend, returning home at dusk, dirty sunburnt and exhausted.

So instead I think of when I could return and placate myself with those possibilities, and start to pack

Boundless plains to share?

Why Australia should resettle Asylum seekers in Australia, not Cambodia.

I’v been living in Cambodia for almost a year now. In this time I have learnt a lot of the kind of cliché things that you typically learn as a middle class person from a developed country living in a less developed country.

I’v realised some of just how much I take for granted about my safety, money, education and opportunities, and how much infrastructure and stability, provides and protects the way we live in Australia.

From this, here are some reasons why it is such an irresponsible proposal by the Australian government to send Asylum seekers to resettle in Cambodia.

Cambodia is still recovering from the damage done by the Khmer rouge when much of Cambodia’s infrastructure was destroyed and most of the educated population killed. Cambodians are working hard just to get by, many live in poverty and the country has no safety net for those who can’t find a way to make a living for themselves. Cambodia does not have the resources to take in more vulnerable people. Australia does.

Asylum seekers arriving in Cambodia will need health care, jobs, and homes. Julia Bishop has touted Cambodia as being a “safe haven” for Asylum seekers and yet if you look at the conditions here you will see it is vastly different.

Jobs are hard to come by with many Cambodians crossing illegally to Thailand to look for work each day, Risking being shot. Many children cannot attend school as they need to work to help their family survive. Protests by garment workers earlier this year ending in four Cambodians being shot dead by police and 21 injured. The protesters were asking for an increase of their minimum wage to $160/month or about $5.30/day.

Health care in Cambodia is poor at best and many do not have the money to access it, chronic disease goes mostly untreated, and victims of accidents have to pay fee’s for care that is not guaranteed to be of good quality. I have seen horrific examples of this such as a woman with two fractured femurs who had paid all she had to have her femur fixed at another hospital. She came to us, a few hour car journey, with external fixation that had not realigned the fracture at all, and the second fracture not even stabilised. I have also attended road side accidents where young people have obvious fractures and head trauma, but strongly resist my suggestion that they go to hospital as they don’t have the money to pay. Currently there isn’t regulation of the standard of care in Cambodia and unfortunately malpractice is common. Additionally there is little in the way of mental health services in Cambodia, and these services suffer similarly from lack of regulation.

Corruption is still rampant in in Cambodia with the country ranking 160^th of 177 corrupt nations, 177 being the most corrupt and 1 the least, according to Transparency International. The opposition leader Sam Rainsy recently highlighted the fact that the undisclosed amount of money Australia is planning to give the Cambodian government is likely to be siphoned off to various members of the government and not go to the people who will need it.

A 7:30 report interview with Rainsy has more detail: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4007692.htm

Cambodia also has a history of revoking refugee rights. In 2009 Cambodia broke the UN convention on refugee rights by deporting 20 Uighur Asylum seekers back to China.

There are also the issues of dangerous roads, insufficient housing, education, and active land mines.

Australia has previously been thought of as a multicultural country where many different folks could get along. More recently however Australia has hit international headlines for all the wrong reasons appearing as a backward and racist nation, lacking in compassion and commitment to working as part of the international community to find solutions to the various issues we currently face.

Australia risks losing it’s international reputation, and we risk losing our culture and compassion to a prime minister  who wants to embrace bigotry and keep us quiet by working us harder for longer to pay more for the things we need.

Let’s resettle Asylum seekers in Australia.

Relevant links;

Transperancy International;

http://www.transparency.org/country#KHM

ABC interview with opposition leader Sam Rainsy; http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4007692.htm

Realism and Despair

When I was younger I struggled with seeing the world as it was, accepting the inequality, and remaining a functioning part of it. The shattering of the illusion of any kind of fairness in life is a concept I, in my naïve idealism, continue to struggle with. I got past my teen angst and depression, moved to the city and eventually found the activist community I had dreamed of finding at uni, I had become involved in trying to fight against climate change through various forms of activism, and through those networks been introduced to some ideas of anti-racism work, anarchism, queer activism, femme, feminist and various other idea’s. These all taught me more, gave me frameworks to question things introduced me to structure to put around those vague feeling of unease and confusion I felt, gave me a feeling of purpose and a community of beautiful friends.

As time went on I became disillusioned with the lack of results visible from this kind of activism, and the infighting between different groups that took up a lot of time and seemed to me to be at a disconnect between the way that most people outside of those circles thought about things. About this time I finished my degree and so I threw myself into the, (for me), challenging work of becoming a nurse. The next two years were spent working at becoming a competent nurse and creating a loving family with my partner and her dog, and spending time with my siblings, parents, and friends and doing dinging and circus lessons for fun.

After a year of general nursing and  year working in the ICU I made a somewhat unexpected decision to leave my job and go travelling for 5 months in Spain, Ireland and a brief few days in Paris, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. I loved Battambang, a quiet town in Cambodia with a country feel and a nice group of Ex-pats working there and it reinspired my desire to volunteer as a nurse, one of the reasons I decided to become a nurse.

This was an amazing time, and when I came home I bummed around for quite some time, and emailed a hospital in Battambang offering to volunteer. Over the next three months I found a new home, a job agency nursing, fell in love with roller derby, and, sadly separated from my partner at the time. Around this time I heard back from Battambang,  had a skype interview and decided to go to Cambodia for just a few months. I started to feel like I was getting my life back together in Sydney, finding a sport I loved, friends, and after some time a new and unexpected lover. I felt I was getting back into the groove of Sydney and then it was time to go.

Now, after about 7 months in Battambang of excitement, exploring settling in, learning and questioning I find the same uneasiness occupying my thoughts more and more.

 The rudimentary awareness of white privelidge and institutionalised racism that I have has lead me to read more and try to learn more to try and help me figure out how I feel about my place and my influence here and the way I work.

I think I have only a little awareness of the way that my skin colour, class and education (among other things), have benefited me above others and given me opportunities I wouldn’t have had if I had been born in a different set of circumstances.

I also have a poor understanding of Khmer culture, it’s origins, the way it is changing, the influence of foreigners and expats in Cambodia, and how to behave and interact with that.

Is the influence of a very privileged foreigner with little understanding and awareness of the institutionalised racism and colonialism, and also little awareness of the intricacies, influences and development of the culture of the country I am in just perpetuating the issues of colonialsm, racism, classism and all the things I want to avoid?

The fact that I am given autonomy respect and a management position despite being younger and less experienced than most of the nurses here is based on the fact that I have education and management skills from a comprehensive nursing course in Australia. But I don’t know how to tell if I am more of a problem than a solution.

Does the way I work here undermine local staff? Does it continue the idea that white people are somehow superior? Perhaps it would be better to try and raise money to support Khmer people to get education and experience in hospitals in developed countries, or perhaps there are better ways for Cambodian health care to develop, more appropriate to Cambodian people, that don’t just emanate western health systems…

These are the idea’s that I want to explore, read about and make sure that I am not perpetuating. The challenge is how to engage with these idea’s without simply feeling despair. And how to take a critical look at myself in a way that doesn’t lead me to feel hopeless or depressed. The management of a resource poor health centre, the interaction of different cultures that know little about each other, and the legacy of war, the examination of my own racism and being treated with an unearned amount of respect and leeway, the unearned amount of money, respect, attention, safety, etc. that I have received in my life, and how to avoid feeling entitled and continuing to behave in the ways I have been socialised to do that might be difficult for others  are all things that I want to continue to learn about and to address and change in myself, while I continue to try and find an acceptable balance.

Home.

So recently I have found myself saying to friends that Battambang feels like my home now. It’s a slightly funny thing to say, as I know I can’t stay here forever, I know that I will run out of money and outlive any usefulness I might have at the hospital. I will have to go home and work and train more at some point if  I want to become a more capable and useful nurse, and to see all the friends and family whose lives are flowing along in a parallel vein somewhere.

But for now it is true, I try to put a date on my departure but it just dosen’t feel right. I love Battambang, I love it’s dusty streets, its slow meandering river, which seems almost to flow as lazily as I feel myself being with the dry season heat. I love the animals that wander the streets, fields and my house, and I love my hang outs, my friends, the hospital and the fond and hilarious memories that I now have attached to so many places here.

I love riding my bike by the river on the weekend, going to Kinyei and always meeting someone I know, talking shit with my friends, having each over for BYO cutlery dinners, making grand plans about our future adventures together, having weekend moto trips and inventing things to do with the hot dusty afternoons.

I like my slowly increasing level of Khmer, the slowly revealed secrets to what people are saying and what is is going on around me, my increasing ability to make jokes and be friendly and playful with my words.

I like my increased ability to talk to the nurses and patients and to be a more involved part of the ICU, to be able to follow more of what’s going on and add suggestions and systems to try to increase the standard of nursing care and of nursing management skills.

When I think of leaving Battambang it dosen’t feel like going home, it feels like the daunting process of creating a new life somewhere else, without the river, the familiar resteraunts, roads, meandering cow’s, happy looking skinny dogs and baby chickens following hens around, without these friends, and khmer culture and language, and khmer being spoken, and without the aim of working together to give patients the best care we can manage with the resources we have.

I know I will leave, and create a new life, and that I will find a new home and friends and purpose, and a love for that place too, but for now, Battambang is my home and I love it.

What's the difference between me and a missionary?

So generally the idea of missionaries makes me feel very uncomfortable. The religion and converting dosen’t appeal, and the style of coming to a poor country, being able to provide resources, skills, and knowledge to people, with a side of Jesus, has been something that I found a bit uncool. I feel like people in those situations don’t necessarily have a choice, and I feel like culture and religion are here in abundance, and replacing it with Christianity is disrespectful of the culture that already exists.

Recently though I’v realised though that perhaps I am not so different.

I have come to Cambodia with skills and resources acquired through the luck of being born somewhere with a good education system and good infrastructure. And I too have an agenda. In the last few months I’v slowly realised that I believe in challenging and changing parts of Khmer culture. It was a weird realisation for me because I find the connotations of colonialism, imperialism and general white person ignorant doo-goodering difficult to deal with, but I do think there is a link between aspects of Khmer culture and inequality, abuse and poor treatment of women and queers. And that shit is not ok. I’m not saying that in the west we don’t have these problems, but we don’t have them in the same way, and we don’t have some of the problems that exist here. And I think it’s due at least in part to long held beliefs that men are like gold and can be washed clean of 'sin' but women are like cloth, and their misdemeanours will show on them forever.

The double standards for men and women are intense, and can easily ruin a woman or young girl life. Cambodia is also a country struggling to get back on it’s feet after a war that has left legacies everywhere, from the landmines that have left many amputee’s, and are still injuring people today, to the lack of infrastructure, the rife corruption and of course poverty.

While I want to respect Khmer culture, learn the language and about some of the customs and the things that are important to my friends and colleagues here, I also want to challenge the parts of the culture that I think can harm people, especially young women and queers.

Books I read in 2013.

January

Life of Pi – Yann Martel(read it and then watched the movie)

The Heaven Shop – Deborah Ellis (found it and read it at crowdy)

Flight Behaviour – Barbara Kingsolver (loved this one, recommended it around)

February

The forgotten garden – Kate Morten

Memoirs of an imaginary friend – Mathew Green (Tinks’s book, Love the concept)

March

The heather blazing – Colm Tobin (Christmas present from Keda)

April

Alive in the killing fields – Nawuth Keat & Martha E. Kenda

May

The graveyard book – Neil Gamon

June

Wildwood Dancing – Juliet Marillier

July

August

The long earth – Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Keda read it and left it in Cambodia for me, good read)

You Suck – Chris Moore (Keda read it and left it in Cambodia for me)

September

Just Kids – Patti Smith (Nat had it, I realised part way through I was re-reading it, pretty sure Patch recommended it the first time, love this one too)

The girl with the dragon tattoo – Steig Larsson (Bought it from Kinyei)

The girl who played with Fire – Steig Larsson (Second hand bookshop on Rd 3)

October

The girl who kicked the hornets’ nest – Steig Larsson (I liked this trilogy, read it quickly, and I like the characters)

World war Z – Max Brooks (Sent to Cambodia from Tim & Jen J , got a bit obsessed with Zombies for a while)

November

Never let me go – Kazuo Ishiguro (realised part way this one is also a re-read)

White Oleander – Janet  Fitch (Recommended by Alexa, good one.)

?First do no harm - ? (Found it on the Island Liz and I stayed on, read it in a night cause we were leaving the next morning at 06.00, partially just from stubborness)

Life isn't fair, especially not here.

Today it feels like Cambodia stuck its little claws in and said, 'So you think you've got this sorted!?'.

I went in to see a patient that Noni was worried about, young and only 10 weeks post partum, she had come in from another hospital where she had had 15 units of blood (Hb 5) and TB treatment, when she arrived she was GCS 6/15 and in shock, lungs full of fluid saturating 50% on 15L.
Her prognosis at this point was very poor, and when she stopped breathing we administered a brief amount of poorly organised and probably, had it been good quality, still futile, resuscitation. As I completed a couple of rounds of CPR I pushed into her chest and felt her small rib crack under my hand. I was so shocked I lifted my hands off and then put them straight back on and continued.

After this we went to a ribbon cutting ceremony and listened to the in-country director of our supposedly non-religious organisation talk about how blessed we were etc. which did nothing to improve my mood.

I went to Kinyei after work, whinged to Liz a bit and tried to do some work that I'v been stressed about not being able to complete and then I came home. I went out to get some beer to write this with and turned around to be face to face with one of the poor homeless kids who hangs around Battambang, I was so wrapped up in my head that his grinning face scared the shit out of me more than it would have normally, When I got back he was still hanging around and I told him to go away. I feel like its wrong to tell a hungry kid to go away, but at the same time he scares me often when he is hanging out there in the dark, and I don't want him to be there a lot. There are a lot of kids addicted to glue and I don't want them to know where I live and to hang out in the alley there.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, maybe just to vent about the fact that life's not fair, things are far from perfect,  especially if you happen to be born in a war ravaged country with poor infrastructure, health care, and social support.