Activity

This week J & I have been in the border hospital but instead of just being with R - our normal dynamic trio, there have also been 3 other Cambodian males from the NGO J works for. As a result it has been the usual Cambodian misogyny-fest of exclusion from meals/Karaoke & work conversations because we are 'just' women. This came to a head on Wednesday morning when R & B who we were meant to be triage training with, rocked up to work 50 minutes late all smiles, without even a phone call or text warning. J is normally pretty laid back but was very angry with them so gave them both (as their supervisor) a good talking to. They didn't seem very contrite so I waded in afterwards but was a little more personal talking about the misogyny of Cambodian men, not respecting J as their boss & how their behaviour all this week has been deeply offensive to Janice & me. Capacity building doesn't have to just be about clinical skills, I'll have a stab at work ethic, professionalism & gender inequality given half the chance.

R is actually a very good friend of J's - like her son in fact & also one of my favourite Cambodians (along with his wife & 2 lovely daughters). For the rest of the day he was pretty withdrawn & distracted, that afternoon he composed for me the piece of writing below & emailed it along with his usual English writing homework he sends me for checking with the message "Dear Dr could you please see these files and correct my stupid writing. thanks!"

The following morning R looked exhausted - he'd had a sleepless night. He told J & I  in detail about the nightmare/anxiety dream he'd had that night about being late for work because his trailer's wheel was broken, he couldn't get a moto dob, it was raining & he couldn't think of what to say when he rang to tell J the reason for his being late for work - J was horrified her telling off had induced nightmares & a bad nights sleep. He also has been practicing using his new words, 'misogynist', 'hurt feelings' & 'offensive' in sentences all day.

He is really is a very hard person to remain angry with for long....

"Activity

Last night after working time, I hung out with my colleagues and hospital director to the three shadow restaurant. First of all, we all had a lovely dinner with many foods specifically, fried chicken, chicken soup and fried a long fish. I had much food and soft drink because the foods were very delicious and the price is reasonable, we only paid 5$ in each. Then the rain came very hard came down quickly so we asked the seller for the bill and we walked to get on the car for coming back to the guest house. When I arrived the guest house I had a shower and got on the bed fell as sleep till the morning. At 6:30 I got up and had a bath and put on cloth. After that I received a message from my boss that wrote about the breakfast location and I also replied her quickly, I would go to have breakfast at Thailand. After eating I went round the market with a few people were joining a trip the I looked at the time it is nearly 8:30 then I talked to Mr. B that we’d get blame from our boss because we were too late. When I came in to the meeting room, she asked me: when is the working time and would I do like this if J or P were here? My answer was not, but in my feeling I must be honest and responsibility not just respect to someone in front. Then Dr. Es also asked me a very good question, why did not I send or call her for telling that I would be came late? Why? That I could not give the answer to her, because I made a mistake yet and I don’t want to rule out my messing up."