Day 3

<--- Phil and Chris in their new stunna shades!


Day 3 - the arrival of the graduates and Dr. Khauv


This morning was an interesting one. At 3am I was up... And when I say up I mean fully awake. Nick who is my roommate for the first week also was wide awake or at least that's what he whispered across the room. I took this time to write about the previous days so that later I could easily transfer my blog to the Internet. I was somehow able to fall back asleep for a few more hours before waking up to the honking of scooters and the humidity beginning to creep into the room...yuck. I think it makes Nick feel like he's back in Iowa. Haha
  Now ready to go, we recieved a phone call from a cambodian man saying "room 204 wants to meet with you," it was a little creepy but that was actually a call from Chris and Phil who were just too lazy to walk up the steep stairs to our room. We laughed pretty hard about that later. Today we went back to the large market by our house and we all bought sunglasses from a vendor. I got some diesel knockoffs, Nick was styling in his new oakleys, and the best part is that Phil and chris picked up some euro raybans and didn't realize that they both got the same glasses until 1 hour later. After shopping we went out to a little place to eat which was filled with locals. The food costs about 1 us dollar per plate! what a deal! I hoped that I wouldn't regret this meal later but so far I've been strong in that department. From there we took a tuk tuk which is a little cart hooked to 1/2 a motorcycle to the Russian market. He somehow guided us through town without having an accident which wasn't like our ride back where we clipped a woman pushing a wagon (she screamed but we didn't stop). Upon ariving to the Russian market we were introduced to another heat wave but this time in a closed market filled with everything and anything you could ever dream of.. In its fake or cheap form of course! They had anything from bracelets to mufflers and they tried to push it all on you. It was a lot of fun but I don't think we would ever want to make it back to that sweaty place. 
  Upon returning back to our hotel we rested and met up with the new comers at dinner: Dr. khauv, masahito, Huong, and Kim. Somehow Nick convinced me to eat a hot dried red thai chili instantly giving me the hiccups. My mouth was on fire! Nick was laughing because he had tried one earlier and knew it was an oral killer. Dr. Khauv told us about the plan for tomorrow consisting of being picked up at 7am by bus, grabbing breakfast and a sack lunch and then driving out of the city to a little village where we will serve the people. We will be visited by one orphanage with about 250 children and another with 120. Then there is a village near by which we are told is also coming and is all HIV positive families. We were given the option if we weren't comfortable with adjusting them to choose not to.  I'm sure none of us are truely ready for what we are about to partake in. Ever since Dr. Khauv graduated from chiropractic school 10 years ago this has been his dream to come back to Cambodia and serve his native people with chiropractic care. I'm  so excited to help him now make his dream a reality. After dinner, 6 of us once again piled into the back of the generals pickup truck. Huong who is originally from Cambodia told us the inspiring story of her family. Her father escaped Cambodia leaving her mother to care for her 5 children. They were living close to the boarder and after being blessed by a shawman they left at night to cross into Thailand through the mine fields to a refugee camp. There they stayed for 1 year before coming to America with their father. She explained how they left everything and that her mother sewed gold into her shirt sleeves so they wouldn't be robbed along the way. Huong came on the flight with us to Cambodia on Thursday with her parents but had been visiting with family since we got back. She seemed happy to now be back in a hotel as she was staying in a hut on stilts over water. She slept on wood with mosquito nets that didn't help one bit. They also didn't have real toilets ac or hot water... Not fun. But she did say that they had rotten coconuts which is a cheap way of making fruit alcohol.
  Dr. Khauv wants us in bed around 9 so we can serve tomorrow at 100% so i'm going to head to bed to get ready for the morning. Each day is getting better and better! 
    
I've been trying to upload my photos but the upload speed is only about 4 kb/sec. I'll figure out a way.