EWB meet MSF

A Jack of All Trades, has in me, been reborn
I was once an engineer
And now I am here, in medical form
And both of those hats I hold dear

KEP, CAMBODIA

June 22, 2008

Sunday was supposed to be a day full of data entry and initial analysis, since I had two days worth of data to look back on. Only, it didn't really pan out that way, and that was alright.

I had a talk with Peon 2 in the morning, giving him some feedback about his performance in the field back on Thursday. Yes, a couple of days late on that, but well, he'd finally returned from Kampot. He was pretty receptive about the whole thing, and we also had a talk about responsibility and accountability, so with the task of going out into the field by himself on Monday, hopefully it'll all turn out fine. He's a good kid, regardless of how much he doesn't think.

For lunch Peon 2 and I decided to go to the local Khmer spot, and the food was great. You kind of don't expect gourmet for 75 cents, but it was actually quite good: grilled fish and green vegetables (choy) with pork. It was super hot walking there and back, but also super worth it. I'll be going again today for lunch, so I'll try and take some pictures. It's a little sketchy (read: unhygienic) looking, but my GI tract has held out in the last three weeks with no problems, so I'm hoping I've crossed that river.

So in the afternoon I sat down in the dining hall to get some hard core data entry done, but H came by looking for me because G was at Kep Hospital (he's a Concordia engineering master's student working on a water sanitation project with CIH) and needed a lot of help. "Wear boots and old clothes" was the command.

So I went.

It was a little like what I expect Engineers Without Borders is like; I was tramping through mud and doing physical labour. So, the job was to clean out the concrete water storage tank at the hospital. They're installing new water filters and new storage tanks on a tall truss-structure to act as a water tower for the hospital. The idea is that well water runs through a filter into the concrete holding tank underground, and then is pumped up to the tower and stored for use. The concrete holding tank needed cleaning.

So while others were inside, scrubbing it clean, I had the job of polishing the outside, scraping fungus off with a metal brush.

It was actually really fun.

I remember back in engsci wanting to take a year off to go somewhere, maybe teach English, maybe get involved with EWB, and now I'm at the point in my life where I don't think that taking a year to do something is really all that feasible, and I wish I'd done it back then.

It's also funny how getting involved in global development is so interesting -- and so addictive. Doing it from behind a desk last year at OW was great, but doing it in the field, whether through research or getting my hands dirty on-site, is awesome.