I went through some of Tony's pictures and found this one of us at lunch. This is before all the food's been laid out...we do not starve here :)
This gives you a better idea of just how much rain we received a week ago!

The girl in white had been at the hospital since we arrived, to have her fingers separated (notice she only has two on each hand). The pigtails say it all...this kid had character! She would give these huge waves with a big smile, then hide behind her mother. She was discharged the day this photo was taken.
Speaking of character....meet Dr. Ngiep! This was right before we started to release a burn contracture that was ten years old.
Adding the finishing touches. This was our first ridiculously cool surgery of the week. We decided to use pins to keep the fingers straight, which involved driving them into the girls fingertips. You could literally hear the bone creak as the pins were pushed through them. I sewed up this girls inguinal area after we removed skin for the skin graft. Dr. Ngiep thinks I need practice since the last time I did it in front of him, my hands shook. I did 22 for this girl, probably a bit excessive, but good practice! The pins were left uncut because then they can be used again for another patient. But they're going to be in her hand for 3 weeks, so the corks were put on to keep her from hurting herself, or anyone else! Kind of horror-movie-like, hunh?
K, wicked surgery number two! This is the beginning of a below-the-knee amputation that I assisted with. I now know for sure that blood and I are aok. The patient was given an epidural, so he was actually awake while we sawed off his leg, which was a bit weird. Also weird to have him hold up his thigh for us, while we were cutting out nerves and tying off arteries. When it was off, another doctor walked by and told me I should disect the lower limb, when the patient left, which would have been excellent practice, but unfortunately the surgery ran late, and we had a party to throw...so no disection for this girl! The only time I felt slightly nauseous was when I was chatting with Dr. Ngiep while we removed some of the patient's lymph nodes and he made some comment about bbqing them for our party...then got really concerned that I would pass out...only because one of the other students here DID pass out, about a week ago. But fortunately I was able to catch her before she fell (this involved me running around the operating table, not tripping on any wires and getting her down to the floor.) Good times in the OR!
Beer fridge before the party...
Party at our place!
Some of the hospital staff enjoying some good food, good company and a nice view!
My last beer of the evening.
There was one thing missing from the apartment...well two, but there isn't much I can do about the bbq. But a hammock I could locate and bargain for! 3$ later and a little humming and hahhing, and look! Life is amazing! How can I set this up for Toronto as well....

Danica digging into a pineapple full of fried rice with an egg to top it off. This was our first day in Sihanoukville, in Southern Cambodia. We had a long weekend because it was the Queen's birthday on the Sunday. Yeah!
This was the view as we approached the beach. It wasn't Thailand, but it was nice to get out of the city and this picture captures one of the moments when it was trying to be sunny!
At night on the beach. The second night we were there there was a major thunder storm and it was incredible to walk along the beach with it periodically being lit up bright white by the lightning, with the sound of the waves on your side.
The boys decided to try out a day of snorkeling while Danica and I decided to wait out the rain by going to Psar Leu, a Khmer market. Then we checked out a backpacker beach that I put my toe in then begged Danica to bring me back to the other beach near our guesthouse which was so much nicer. By that point the sun was out and I was in heaven swimming in the ocean.

Occheuteal Beach, Sihanoukville. a) notice the sky. It rained most of the time we were there. b) I would estimate that 95% of the people you see in the water in this picture are Khmer. It's definetely down-season in Cambodia right now, which is kind of nice. The water was gorgeous (at this beach).
The point of this picture is that I had a craving for fish and chips. Two days before this photo, I realized that everything (literally) that I have been eating since I got here has come in contact with some kind of meat, and since the fish is supposed to be so good in Cambodia, why am I even trying? So I dug into a full fish at lunch, much to the surprise and amusement of my Khmer hosts and Canadian friends.
We came home from Sihanoukville to some serious rain. So serious in fact that we were told to turn around when we got to a street near our apartment, and we were in a landcruiser! So this is a picture (that does no justice to the circumstances) of the water that I was wading through to get home that was up to my thighs. Nasty water. I have videos as well that I may or may not try to load up onto this page. Suffice to say, it was an experience :) We're having a party on Friday night and everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that the weather will hold up.
Dr. Ly at lunch. He was chatting with us and then he wasn't. 15 minutes later he opened his eyes, muttered operation! and got up, groggily and stumbled to his car. When I got back to the hospital he was scrubbed in and cutting away :)
K, this was my contribution to the Edmonton Oilers game the other day. I had the folks in the hospital in stitches as I tried to explain what hockey was (how do you say blade in French?), why I had a sticker on my face (Canada!) and why I was so nervous, running upstairs every 5 minutes to check the score. Then I was told by the doctor I was doing surgery with that losing 3-1 was bad. Thanks.
Dr. Ngiep, an American named Brian and myself doing surgery on a partial cleft lip. I think I might use these sessions to start improving my Khmer.
Tony and Dr. Bonvath repairing a leaky MEC patient. Poor kid has been absolutely traumatized by his whole hospital experience. Every time he sees someone dressed in blue he starts to cry. :(
Edmonton lost and we went to the lake to try and find dressy clothes for a wedding we have been invited to for the end of next week. Why oh why did I not bring a skirt and nice top? No skirts to be found, but I ordered a glass of beer, was served a pitcher (for 2$) and proceeded to get pissed. Getting ready to drink the doctors under the table Friday night (good luck to me...)

A Day in ROSE Hospital:This is the OR at ROSE. I am the (only) girl in the pink hat. I'm helping Dr. Ly in a heel reconstruction. I apologize in advance for the quality of some of these pictures. We can't have the flash going off during surgeries, so some of these are a bit blurry. Also a warning, a couple of these pictures are relatively graphic. So glance over them quickly, but the last three are quite nice!
This is near the beginning of the three hour surgery. The heel had to be reconstructed due to a moto accident. This happens quite often in Cambodia and a fascia-subcutaneous flap is constructed to form a new heel for the patient. Skin and fat and fascia are taken from the calf area and twisted and placed where the heel would normally be.
Up to three surgeries can be performed in the same room, so while I was busy with the heel, Danica and the pediatric surgeon, Dr. Ngiep were busy taking care of a baby with a cleft lip.
So this is the beginning of the suturing of the new heel. To the right you can see muscle. Not quite the same as my decaying body from S&F...
Where the tissue was taken to form a new heel, a skin graft had to be used to protect the underlying muscle. This was taken from the girls thigh and then sutured into place by myself and Dr. Ly. Happily getting better at this new skill. Today it was more like sewing than anything. ;)
We're actually getting a second skin graft here because the first one wasn't quite big enough. Two of us are pulling at the skin to make it as flat as possible while Dr. Ly cuts away. Skin is so resiliant, it's really quite impressive.
Ok, no more blood, for now. After spending the day in the OR it's always nice to try out new foods. This is something called (and please forgive me if I'm wrong) nome a gow. It's wrapped in banana leaf and is sweet and kinda slimey. Today I came out of the OR around lunchtime absolutely famished and there was a bag full of something called neem. I thought this was all we were going to be eating so I smiled, broke off what looked like a miniature present (honestly, it ended up being a piece of food wrapped in three banana leaves, tied up with a piece of string) and popped in the food, knowing it almost certainly was not vegetarian. Well, to add to the surprise, there was a chilli pepper in the middle too! It was very chewy (whatever it was) and I ate quite a few (taking out the chilli peppers from then on) and it was probably fish. Then we went across the road for lunch. Meh! Part of the experience. :)

Can you say cutie pie?! This kid is the bomb. He's always got this grin and his grandma obviously adores him. He is one of the patients that the French team operated on for the meningoencephalocele (MEC). Google image a MEC and you'll see what he looked like before the operation.

Here I am removing the staples of another MEC patient. 12 days after the surgery the staples can be removed and she's feeling fine.

On our way to the hospital one morning I took this picture over the Japanese Bridge. You'll notice that there is a raised sidewalk on the side and then an even smaller one by the railing. The one closest to the railing is for pedestrians and the next one is for the motos. Motos pass each other on this bridge, as do trucks and cars. We went to Kampot for the weekend and Armin (in light blue) kindly offered to drive us down. He is Kanya's nephew and has been living in Phnom Penh for about 5 months now. Super super helpful and an excellent Khmer driver. The car was white when we left but because of traffic being the way it was we were forced to go to the side of the road on the opposite side of the road where the dirt was wet and there happened to be a bump and the truck got filthy.
Bicycle outside a village.
Danica, Tony, Meg and Armin. After a long (and sometimes scary) 35 km drive up a ridiculously bumpy road, this is the view we came to in Bokor National Park, just outside Kampot.
This is the real reason we came up the mountain, to see the ghost town, or all of the abandonned buildings that had been built by the French at the beginning of the century. Scattered about, there are about a dozen structures to be seen. This area was the scene of much fighting over the last thirty years, with the Khmer Rouge being the last to hold it and having given it up only 13 years ago. There are doctors in my hospital who refuse to travel south of Phnom Penh even now because the South has traditionally been a Khmer Rouge stronghold. Remember that all but 8 doctors were killed by the Khmer Rouge during their period of power from 1975-1979.

The next couple of entries follow this one as I'm still learning the ways of this website and am dealing with an internet cafe computer. Enjoy the pictures :)

From inside the hotel on top of the mountain of Bokor National Park. They said in the guide book that you couldn't help but shiver when you entered this building. I scoffed. Then I found this corner and I had to peek inside and then I got a chill, a shiver and I ran. ;)
From on top of the French hotel. This place would of had a killer view.
It was really windy. I'm surprised the guy who took this didn't catch me grabbing at my hat. Beautiful waters behind me...scuba diving? Maybe next weekend...
The church. The red comes from a moss that can be found growing on many of these buildings. Supposedely it's even more vivid after it has rained for a month or so. Funny, the French built about a dozen buildings on top of this mountain. Two of which are the church seen above...and a casino.
Khmer boy petting a blind monkey. I pet it too! It's fur was so thick.
And what trip would be complete without a blown tire?
In true Meghan-style, we got a blown tire about 5 km down the 35 km road down the hill. Here you see us trying to get the tire down from where it was secured under the truck. That took about 45 min, and 2 phone calls to the hospital fix-it guy. But between the 6 of us (+ phone guy) we got the tire down and then attached to the truck well enough to drive us the next 4.5 hours to Phnom Penh. So now I know how to change a tire :)
One of these monks did the whole Joey "How you doin'? wink wink" thing to me. It was hilarious cause he was a monk! And this is to prove to anyone who might doubt me that a dog I was staying with ate mangoes. I went mango picking in the front yard (ok, I climbed a tree and shook a branch but the damn fruit wouldn't fall, so then I climbed down and chucked my flipflop at the tree until they fell). Then I had to fight Tippy the dog for my share. In the end she got the cores.

This is the balcony I have been raving to some of you about. Isn't it fantabulous?
This is the main view we have from the balcony. You're looking at the Royal Palace, where the King and Queen hang out, at least at times. This square is usually full of people and dogs and on Sundays the kids are out playing football (soccer). And when the lights go out it's still very pretty!
Meg, Tony and Danica. We had to get dressed up pretty for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for Kanya's NGO called the Cambodian Acid Survivor Charity. Notice that Danica and I have matching shoes. We went shopping the day before in the Russian Market (an amazing place) for heels. Who woulda thought I'd come to Cambodia for my first pair of heels in 6 years?
This girl has a congenital deformity on her left leg that needed surgery. I can send a close up for hose who want it ;) One week later she's looking great and the swelling has gone down markedly.

So we arrived in Cambodia just about a week ago and have settled in rather nicely, finely being on the right timezone and all. On our first day we were in the operating room watching a team of French doctors reconstruct the head of a young child who had something called a meningoencephalocele (MEC). They are relatively common in this part of the world but rare everywhere else.

So over the last week we've been each working on getting our respective projects set up, scrubbing in to various surgeries and touring around with the chief financial officer of the hospital (Kanya) while she wrapped up all the details before leaving for a well-deserved 1.5 month vacation (to Alaska). We've been living with her and her nephew for the last week, but have found some wicked apartments that we will be moving into within the hour :) Yeah! Please see pics.

Yesterday was quite an exciting day. We were supposed to attend a meeting with Kanya to officially have her new NGO recognized by the Cambodian government and the meeting was scheduled for 5 pm. Around 10:50 am we were told to run downstairs for the meeting time had been switched to 11:30 and we had to go back home, get dressed up and be downtown in time. Frantic. But we made it. Not quite what any of us were expecting, but we went up with Kanya and while she signed the documents with the minister of Foreign Affairs we smiled politely for all the cameras. There was champagne afterwards and much congratulation. The NGO she is forming is for survivors of Acid Burn attacks. I'm sure I'll be telling you all much more about this as the summer progresses, but basically acid is really easy to come by in developing countries and if you are ever angry with someone, throwing acid on them is a quick and easy way to get your revenge. The results are devastating, and as such, a new NGO catering solely to the needs of these survivors has been set up.

Kanya also has a private medical clinic, which she uses to generate funds to support the non-profit hospital that we are volunteering at and possibly also the Acid Burn Survivor NGO. Not sure. But it's working. Within 6 months she had broken even on the for-profit clinic (which is spectacular, by the way) and now the funds can be funneled over to the hospital for the people who cannot afford to pay.

Alright, I think that's enough for now. I'll try and put up pictures soon. I'm heading down to Kampot tomorrow to meet with my translator and then hopefully do a bit of sightseeing. Hope all is well with each of you. :)