Mosquito Larvae Eating Guppy Fish

The picture is a little blurry, but what you see at the bottom of this water bottle is my new pet. It is a guppy that I have placed in my water tank. The purpose of a having a guppy live in the tank is that it eats the mosquito larvae that grow there. Mosquitoes need a blood meal and a pool of standing water in order to reproduce. Once the eggs and larvae grow, hundreds can be born from a single brood. Having a guppy eat the larvae thus effectively eliminates a significant amount of mosquitoes from ever maturing and biting target numero uno: me.

Concerns:

1. Wait, this fish lives in the water which you use to bathe and clean yourself? How disgusting!

How little you know of fish! Guppies are actually very hygienic. Their waste falls to the bottom of the tank, so there is no way one would ever come into contact with it. Many families in Cambodia are even encouraged to have guppies in the containers used for drinking water because it keeps mosquitoes from breeding in them. A popular ad campaign goes, "Would you rather have fish live in your drinking water, or be drinking mosquito larvae?"

2. Won't this fish need something else to eat?

Not really. I've talked to a lot of people about this. Some feed their fish a few times a week if they have a lot, but others do not. I have fish food, but I have not tried it out yet. Last Saturday night, I took a look inside my tank one night with a flashlight and found it swimming with larvae. I think there is enough food for the fish for now.

3. Surely this fish must have a name?

It does! After explaining the heath benefits and and practicalities of having the guppy to my students, thus doing a good public service, I had them tell me what the name of the fish should be. All of them thought me extremely odd for wanting to give a name to a fish, but we finally settled on one: Krissana. It sort of sounds like Krishna, a hindu god. Given the impact of Hinduism in Southeast Asia, I would not be surprised to see if there was some relation.

Bangkok

Bomb Crater

This is a crater left by an American B-52 bombing run in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia sometime during the Vietnam War. Today, it is surrounded by farmland and cows. The area around the crater has some fairly young trees, so it could have been the site of an old army base. That's my theory at least.

Free Man in Bangkok

Last Monday, I emerged from the confining space of my hospital room ready to greet the city of Bangkok. After checking out and confirming my appointments with the doctors, I walked across the street from the hospital to the Sara Inn. After checking in, I ventured out in search of the Peace Corps Thailand office. I walked outside into the pouring rain, and made my way through a narrow side street to a broad avenue that ran parallel to the Sky Train, the Bangkok mass transit system. I passed through crowds of Thais and foreigners from what seemed like every corner of the world. A man in a turban invited me to eat at his restaurant, dozens of middle-eastern looking me called out to have a suit made at their shop, and clothing stalls hawked their products. A number of restaurants advertised halal menus, and I passed by a 7-11, McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, and KFC in the space of a few blocks. When I got to the station, it felt a little strange getting on a mass-transportation system again. After living for Cambodia for so long, I forgot that things like that exist at all. The ticket system, the station layout, and the train cars were all very familiar, but I was a little disappointed to learn that one cannot take the sky-train everywhere in the city.

One thing that I immediately noticed was how well dressed everyone was. No one was wearing sandals, and even the students were required to wear a kind of black buckled shoe. I also noticed how dirty and disgusting my clothes looked compared with them. I hoped that no one would notice my dirty, hand-washed clothes, but I resolved to find a laundry service as soon as I could find one.

From the Nana station, I traveled to Victory Monument for about forty baht. From there, I took a taxi to the Peace Corps Thailand office near the river. A policeman stopped us during the drive. “Police in Thailand, no good!” he said to me after he paid the man a bribe. The same thing happened to me a few times in Morocco.

We pulled up to the office, and I explained to the guards at the gate that I was a volunteer from Cambodia. Neither one of us spoke a common language, but he seemed impressed enough by my ID card that he let me through the gate. After checking in with the medical staff and the PCMO, I was introduced to some of the volunteers in their lounge area. I regaled them with stories of drunken counterparts, dengue fever, problems with Cambodian schools, insane host families, and hand-to-hand combat with rats. Their collective response was, “Wow, man, you’re really in the Peace Corps!” I hung out with them that night and during the next couple of days, and I had the distinct feeling that Peace Corps Thailand is much different program than ours.

First of all, Thailand has had volunteers for the almost last fifty years (By comparison, the current volunteers serving in Thailand are group 121 whereas ours in group 2). The country never suffered a brutal civil war, and it is largely developed country. I heard accounts of volunteers living in houses with cable TV, air conditioners, and washing machines (ridiculous!). In all fairness, they do have their own shares of language trouble and cultural difficulties. It never seemed like it was on the same scale though. Regardless of this, we were still able to swap stories about our shared experiences in the East. I am slowly starting to discover that the Peace Corps is such a unique experience to have that it creates a kind of bond between former or current volunteers. It does not matter what your assignment is, because just trying to survive out here can be a powerful experience to share.

Between Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning, I had almost two days of freedom to do whatever I wanted in the city of Bangkok. I walked around the expansive and air conditioned shopping malls and watched the new Star Trek movie in an actual movie theater, ate at Mexican restaurants and hamburger joints, took a water taxi down to the old part of town to see the giant golden Buddha, and bought some new clothes at a department store. The latter was of particular interest because pants that fit are an extremely rare find when buying clothes in this part of the world. It was a treat just to walk around a modern city at all.

I have no complaints about my stay in Bangkok, except that I wish that the Peace Corps had put me in a different hotel. While the hospital and hotel are all good and well, the fact is that the surrounding neighborhood is one of Bangkok’s center for sex tourism. Trying to get back to my hotel at night involved walking through crowds of streetwalkers, one look at whom would make you want to vomit. One volunteer even told me, “If you want the real Bangkok experience, take a girl home tonight and find out she’s a man.” I did not ask him how he came by such information. Like all modern cities, this one certainly has its dark underbelly.

Thursday morning, they had me on a plane out of Thailand at 7:40 in the morning. I suppose they don’t waste any time getting us back to our countries once our treatment has finished. By Monday morning, I was back at site teaching classes. I told everyone how wondrous Thailand was, but they did not seem impressed. It could be because of the vitriolic hatred that mostly everyone has towards the Thais, or that Cambodians are simply supreme masters of indifference towards all things non-Cambodian.

Knowing the people here, I would opt for the latter.

I'm Still Alive!

Hey everyone,

I have returned from Bangkok in excellent health. I had some time off while I was there, which I'll try and write about next week when I have some time to do that. But I'm a lot better, and still alive.

-A

Waiting To Be Discharged

Hospital rooms have always been my least favorite of places. Something about the stench of sterilized food and air brings about certain feelings of nausea; something one would get in a kind of cold factory prison. I have not left this room for a day. Can you blame me for having just a touch of cabin fever? Every couple of hours, the nurses come in and take my blood pressure and temperature, bring me food and medicine to take, or instruct me on the various functions of the room. I am supposed to pee in a metal container, which they collect, instead of in the toilet, and I am supposed to report on how many times I’ve passed stool or how much water I’ve consumed. It was fun for a day. Now it is getting old. In a desperate plea for human contact, I started a conversation with one of them who had visited Siem Reap. But I have not seen her since.

When I left Phnom Penh on Friday, one of the volunteers said to me that she was jealous that I got to go. Oddly enough, it does sort of feel like a vacation. If I were at site right now, I would be sweating profusely and trying to focus on any little task to take my mind off of the heat. Instead, I have hot showers, a powerful air conditioning system, and three meals a day. The food is not half bad either. For lunch today, I ate salmon, mashed potatoes, green beans, and some corn. I have not seen a fish soup in the last couple of days. I’ll be happy to get better, but I will miss all this fancy stuff.

However, the view I can see out the window is absolutely fantastic! Remember that I live in a dirty country infested with cows and dust everywhere, and this is a modern city. I can see rooftop swimming pools, a canal with boats running through it, some of the tallest buildings I have seen in months, and bright lights. All I can think about is getting on the Bangkok subway, riding it for hours on end, and then finding the nearest McDonalds just to bask in the American empire of commercialization. I can almost taste those French fries.

Soon…soon…

Medical Adventures in Thailand

It all started with a fever. They are fairly common here in the tropics, for they sneak up on you like a serpent crawling up a mango tree. The sign of one is also usually the start of something bad. Two weeks ago I was on my way to a Habitat for Humanity house build from Angkor when suddenly I felt aches in my joints and neck. Passing it off as a side affect from a long bus ride down to Phnom Penh, I took some Tylenol™ and went to sleep that Saturday night thinking it was just something minor. By next morning I was vomiting in the shared bathroom of my guesthouse, and I had the suspicion that all was not well. After recovering and cleaning myself up a bit, I lay on my back for a while that morning waiting for whatever I had to pass. The ceiling fan provided some monotonous entertainment until I felt well enough to move. Walking to the Peace Corps office along Monivong boulevard, I felt a little better but not by much. I met up with the other volunteers that afternoon, and we hopped in a lan-touree (minibus) towards Oudong where we were to work on the house. The specific project we were working on was to see how long it would take us to build a house made out of cement bricks and steel roofing. Habitat for Humanity is having a house build bonanza across Asia for five days come next November, and they wanted to see if volunteers working with skilled workers could successfully build a house in that short amount of time. The projected site that we were working on was planned for a community that currently lives in a dump site near Phnom Penh. On the whole, it went pretty successfully. Here’s a short little blurb I wrote for the Habitat for Humanity newsletter:

During the last week of April this year, fourteen Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers and I helped test-build a house for the New Life community in Oudong Cambodia. While most of our volunteers are currently involved in English instruction assignments throughout the country, nearly half of our group was able to help with the project. Although most of us did not know anything about masonry or building houses, both the Habitat staff and Khmer skilled workers were diligent in their instructions to us. After the first couple of days, we seemed to fall into the different professions that we seemed to like the best. These included bricklayer, brick-fetcher, brick-mover, brick-soaker and washer, brick-chopper and mender, filler of the spaces between the bricks, as well as other assorted jobs around the site. We arrived at the building site on Monday to find only a bathroom and a cement base there. Our team worked fairly fast on the walls despite the heat and a few interruptions from the beginning of the rainy season, and by Thursday we had put up the doors, windows, and were almost finished with the roof. The days were hot, but most of us were able to cope with that having lived in this country for almost a year. Two coolers of iced bottle-water, a tarp that provided shade, and a couple of nice afternoon breezes just before the rains helped with that as well. At the end of the week, our group was exhausted but happy with the work we accomplished. When the New Life community came and visited the site, we were overjoyed to see that they liked the house. It was also good to see that a lively dance was held after the dedication ceremony! We hope that rest of the build in November goes well, and that the families of the community enjoy their new homes.

The only problem for me during the build was that I was suffering from fever, aches, nausea, and a lack of appetite during the whole time I was there. Thinking that it had to do with food poisoning, I started taking the antibiotics (ciproflaxocin) that are included in our medical kits for such a thing. After a few days, my condition remained the same. Out of concern I called our medical officer for help. She said to continue taking the cipro and to see if it would work in a few more days, but by Sunday the next week I was still having severe nausea. Not wanting to go back to site, I called the medical officer again and we guessed that this was actually giardia roaming around my stomach (giardia is something which I have had three times during my life, proving that the little parasite and I are truly the best of friends.)

I rested for a couple of days in Phnom Penh in a debilitated state of entropy. Having no real appetite to eat anything, I could not enjoy any of the wonderful food that the city has to offer. By Tuesday I was on my way back to Angkor, and by Wednesday I arrived there. My appetite had returned slowly, but by Thursday I had kind of a strange pain developing in my groin/abdominal region that made sitting or moving about uncomfortable. Concerned that I may have pulled something during the house build, I called the medical officer who greeted me on the phone with, “Oh Adrian, what is it this time?” I explained the situation to her, and she told me to go see an American doctor who loves in Siem Reap the next day.

The following morning, I packed a few things just in case I would have to be sent to Bangkok on medical. I hopped into a pickup truck headed out of town, and finally arrived in Siem Reap. The doctor in Siem Reap took a look at me and told me I had a hernia. Finally knowing what it was, the medical officer in Phnom Penh then arranged for me to fly from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and then from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. After traveling about in slow moving vehicles for ten months, it was amazing just get onto a plane. I felt great sitting on plane in my dusty handwashed clothes holding a glass of iced water. I could look down on Cambodia from above, and marvel just how pancake flat it is.

When I touched down in Bangkok, I could immediately see the difference between Cambodia and Thailand was like night and day. The gleaming metal airport I arrived in was so clean, efficient, and orderly. When I went to the Taxi stand, I did not have to pick one driver over tens of screaming motorcycle or tuk tuk drivers. One was assigned for me to take me to the hospital, and I could not stop staring at him. He was really overweight, and it occurred to me that it had been nearly ten months since I had seen anyone who had money to eat that much. When we drove away, my eyes were like saucers with the sight of all that I could see. Wide expansive highways with overpasses and barriers, gigantic billboards with advertisements for washing machines and cars, and bright lights were all around me. I could see signs for McDonald’s, 7-11, and other glimmering buildings of wonder.

I arrived in Bumrungrad International Hospital, which is where I’m currently writing this. It is a fairly nice hospital, with excellent staff and a good reputation. People come from all over the world for treatment here, and there are lots of different people around. The food menu even consists of a oriental, western, halal, or vegetarian option to eat. Thai, English, Chinese, and Arabic is written over almost everything I see here. I’ve got a nice room with a TV, refrigerator, safe, bathroom, and a balcony overlooking the city. The nurses are fairly friendly. A couple of them were looking at my photo on my ID card from Peace Corps, and they started laughing hysterically. I have lost a lot of weight since coming here, and they could not believe how thin I looked compared to my face in the picture. “Maybe I need to spend a year in Cambodia too!” they told me when I left.

In terms of treatment, they did an ultrasound the morning after I arrived. It turns out that I do not have a hernia. It’s something else, but it is also very treatable. Hopefully, I’ll be out of here soon. So far in the Peace Corps I’ve had several minor colds, strep throat, dengue fever, two cases of giardia, athlete’s foot, and now something called epiditimitytis. It just goes to show you how living in the tropics can really take a toll on you.