Day 6

Day 6 was a great day but the most emotional day for me. We had two business visits that day in Phnom Penh. The first was to a manufacturing facility that made prosethics because there are so many active landmines in Cambodia there is a major need for prosthetics. We toured the facility and saw them making the legs and arms and also making wheelchairs.

The thing that I most admired about this facility was the fact that they employed so many people who were disabled. There was even a man who was blind who was drilling holes in the wheelchair wheels. It may seem comical but it was really sad to see. But you have to admire the fact that he was there working hard and doing his job.

Here is our whole group with the director of the facility. (I look like a geek!) I got to present to him a donation that our group put together for the facility. I was in charge of all humanitarian activities for the trip, I will tell more about this shortly.

Then there was a children's surgical center next door to this prosthetics lab. We all wanted to go visit it so our professor walked over and asked if there was someone who could come talk to us. So one of the coordinators came out to talk to us. Since we were a large group in a small area I could not hear her so I just hung back and were playing with the kids and laughing with the mom's. This surgical center mostly focuses on cleft paletes and other cosmetic things. They said if they were to open the center up for trauma then that's all that they would do and no one would focus on these other kinds of things. This center is actually run by a Western Doctor who has dedicated his life to running this facility. The coordinator told us that a common surgery they perform now is skin grafts from acid burns. The people in Cambodia are so poor that they cannot afford bullets or guns so they have resorted to throwing acid on each other. Doesn't that just make you sick!

Here is a picture of a cute little guy who was waiting for his surgery. This is a dark pic, but he was soo cute. And they don't have diapers in Cambodia..

Here are more kids that thought we were so awesome, they were all hanging out at the surgical center.... we don't know why. This is my friend Ericka whose husband is in the program with me and the two girls standing in the back were our "helpers". They are members of the church and were so awesome to show us around and to translate for us. I will also tell more about them later.

At the surgical center they let you walk up to this window and just watch what they are doing. Really cool but really gross....They also let us walk right into the recovery room. I could not believe some of the things that we saw there. I just stood there with tears in my eyes and watched these poor kids. I still can't even tell people what I saw there.

After these business visits we decided to do our humanitarian project that we wanted to do. Like I said I was in charge of it. So I just gathered money from everyone who was there. If you can believe it I got over $400.00 from the 34 people who were there. I was shocked to get that much. I think everyone really wanted to help the people we saw there and were really getting to like!

We decided to go to the maternity hospital that was just around the corner from our hotel. We thought we could get them sarongs (skirts) that the women wear. We also got shampoo/combs/toothpaste and then we brought over 500 toothbrushes with us, thanks to a wife of a student who is a dental hygenist.

So the two "helpers" took a couple of us to their local market to go shopping because we could get a better deal. We had so much fun getting all this stuff. And because we were at the local market I thought I would take advantage of the good deals and I got John a Rolex watch. One of the girls helped me get an awesome deal.

So we went back to our hotel and assembled the packages. We just took over the lobby, I am sure the Cambodians were wondering what these darn white people were doing.

After we had them all assembled we took off to the hospital. Now we don't have a single contact there, we just decided to show up so we were not sure what kind of procedure they had. So here we are in the lobby while our professor went with one of the "helpers" to see if we could leave these packages. Of course Jamon was tying balloons for the kids...

We were shocked when our professor came down and told us that they would let us go into the rooms and pass these packages out to the people, as long as we were not a political group. So we got to walk from room to room and personally hand out these packages we had put together. These people were so grateful to us for these small packages. There were about 12 beds to a room and each family got one bed, so it was very crowded and very hot, the only rooms that are air conditioned are the rooms you get when you are having your baby, but as soon as you have it you go to these other rooms.

Look at these cute babies.

Then look at these moms who are sitting up and taking care of their babies.

I just walked from room to room and cried at the thankfulness of these people. And I felt so blessed to have the hospitals that we do, and I also just missed my little baby.... Morgan, who is not so little anymore.