Good Evening,
We completed another day here in Cambodia. It is 9:30pm as I write this. I got to go to a dental clinic today. Wow! It was amazing to see similarities but basically they are about 25-30 years behind us in dental techniques. The training is there but the access to products, cost, culture all dictate what they are able to do. Soteya, our translator for the hygiene seminar, is also a newly trained dentist. From what I could gather you can go to school for dental training and get a certificate to practice dentistry. That is the level Soteya is at. Then you can go an additional year and receive a diploma in dentistry. Beyond that you can get a Masters in Dentistry for general practice. There were two official dentists who own this clinic. One I got to meet. He is Korean and received his training there. There is not such a thing as a dental hygienist here. There dental assistants are trained only in the offices by the dentists. Besides assisting, they are trained by the doctors to do the cleanings using ultrasonic scalers and polishing. No hand instrumentation is done usually. All my other usual duties I perform on a daily basis, is done only by the doctor here. Soteya was amazed at the things I do. He said I would be a "specialist" here.
The others went out to the Killing Fields this morning. When I went last time I found it to be a very somber and respectful reminder of a very horrible period in this country's history. Unfortunately they did not have the same experience and were ambivelant about the worth of seeing it. A Korean company now owns the site and I guess it has a tourist feel to it now rather than being a memorial. That's too bad.
This afternoon we planned to take a boat ride up the river, but no boats were to be found. Lois toured us around the river front area and back to large market to do some browsing. Mainly we went for munchies and boy did we find them. Crickets, water beetles, tarantulas and other assorted fried snacks. Tyla was a trooper and down a cricket. Mark ate a water beetle. He said it was actually good. He and Jillian got trantulas to go. I have great video of them eating them here at the mission house. A couple of gags from Mark but it went down and stayed down! Jillian got just the front part of the body. She was hesitant at first but said too it wasn't that bad. I don't think either one was ready to have another one though. No I did not cross that line. None of it passed my lips.
Tomorrow is going to be our last full day here. We've planned it to be pretty relaxed. We are going to the Russian Market for souvenier shopping in the morning. The afternoon will just be quiet free time for reflection as we prepare to leave. We are having dinner at Matt and Lois's and will do our trip debriefing and evaluation. It is exciting that we have already seen fruit from our seminar. One of the ladies from Battambang who attended, stood at her church Sunday and gave her testimony on how the event affected her. I guess she is not one to normally speak up in the service, so God is working on hearts about how to implement community health evangelism here. I can't wait to read Michelle Murray's future updates to hear what will be happening in Battambang. Matt too, wants to keep in touch with updates regarding how future seminars go.
I'll try to talk to you one more time before we fly out on Wed.
