The monsoon season as been going strong after last week festivities it has been down pouring everyday pretty much leaving me with a lot of time to think and read in on honor of October Halloween I have been sticking to some Steven king which ill mentally have to note here so good have to also note sad to miss Halloween this year around also his description of fall made me remember it is fall lol. O yes what else is October breast cancer awareness month so I took it upon my self to research for hours breast cancer in Cambodia coming up with a presentation that I had to translate in Khmer lucky the second nurse where I work was able to help and do most of the talking. I would like to note though that I wish that fake breast boob thing that they use for education of cancer was not 5 grand because this forced my hand at making my own educational tool… a stuffed sock I made my cancerous tumor out of a small balloon that I put sand in I guess it will have to do until I find away to get someone to donate me a 5 grand breast instead lol sigh when pig fly! Well my research turned up little positive results but as the saying goes you have to start somewhere statistics in Cambodia are dismal to say the least and there is only one hospital in all of the country that will treat breast cancer and they take patients on a lottery bases. While this all was frustrating to find out I still deiced that knowledge is power (school of rock) I was able to locate some self breast exam stuff in the national la which was pretty sweet however I felt sort of bad up playing the importance of self breast exams when all the research talks about how little that plays in detecting cancer you know more on get mammograms which barely exist in Cambodia. I look at my presentation as more of a way to open the door to Cambodian women to at least think about breast health because from what I have seen not many people in Cambodia seem to receive sci edu at least not the way that other countries do so to even explain the concept of cancer is hard. Anyways I opened the door showed so pictures of untreated breast cancer etc and used my handy sock boob and my audience of 15 woman were actually highly interested which I didn’t know how it was going to be perceived so that made me happy and they had tons of questions which I was soo grateful to have the nurse there because no way in hell I would have been able to understand what they were asking in khmer. Its crazy to think that just because I am American educated they think I have all the answer though and even when I tell them I am not a dr they had no trouble coming to me to have them selves check asking me every possible thing that could be wrong with there breast. I would have to say it was really cool to be able to educate people on health and it was 100 times better then when I did my nutrition thing in the class room thanks to teaching it in khmer its really hard to leave out vital information just because you don’t know how to say it and I myself cant deal with teaching that way so this really has give me a drive to go forward. Today at work I was told that because it went so well that they want me to do a presentation for all health issues so far the list I have received is diabetes, cervical cancer, lung cancer, liver illness related to alcohol, nutrition, hearth disease, sexual health (which ill have to split up into various categories), vitamin a vaccines and about parasites because that’s what nov is in Cambodia every kid gets vitamin a and medicine to rid them of any possible parasites, then I get to also edu on domestic violence and sexual assault so I have a lot of research a head of me and they want me to rotate a new subject every week. I figured once im done going though them all then maybe I can take it into the community however they are kinda of not to happy with me doing community out reach because I must a ride a bike and claim I will be to slow so ill have to see about that idea something to aim for I guess. Lets see what eles happened to me today o yes I was asked to take over a private eng class which I had to refuse so my brothers eng teacher came by to let me know that he is leaving for good and his class all voted for me to take over would I be willing. Humm how does one deal with this question well I never taught eng so I don’t know if I would be much help to your class also I am a volunteer so I would not be able to take money so I think the 2nd choice of the person who needs to make money should become the new teacher. Luckily after about 10 mins he understood and was okay with my no and I was happy I was able to find a nice way to say no because after when I had more time to think about it all I could think what a huge disaster that would have been. This is all because for one the hours would be a large part of the afternoon when I would like to work on 2nd projects eventually and also I would have to give up a large amount of my irbing time which doest seem like that big of a deal but I think it would effect my effectiveness as a volunteer. Then I thought about the fact I cant accept money which made me realize how much I dodged a bullet so right now these peoples parent I pay I think something like 50 dollar a month for their kids to learn eng which I could not accept however knowing the way Cambodia is I don’t think it would take long before other people realized the American is giving free eng lessons and who would I be to pick and choose who could be in the class god knows I wouldn’t be able to say no to some small kid and I could just see how much that whole thing would have blown up in my face. i am getting excited for the weekend until next time peace out
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