Work
Work's not bad. Did a week-long intensive block of medic training last week - for the medical nerds amongst you, I taught a full day of skin/hair/nails (by the end of which everyone in the room felt itchy) and a day of heart stuff and heart failure. It's actually really fun teaching the medics - relaxed and interactive. They did well in my exam questions too so it's nice to see that some of the information sticks!
I spent one day out with community health workers doing home visits. Along the way I happened to see a baby (strapped to its mother like all good Karenni babies) who looked like perhaps it wasn't doing all the things it was supposed to do. Probed a bit further - turns out the baby (who is 1 year old now) had a severe bout of something septic when it was one month old. Seems that the doctors in town didn't think to tell the mother of the permanent neurological sequelae and she has been dutifully (and beautifully) - and completely independently - been caring for a baby with severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy for the last 11 months. I know that a lot of the differences in medical care and communication in Asia are down to cultural differences, but this one I just cannot fathom. Surely cultural differences are not enough to obviate the need to give parents this type of news?
We (well, me and Komsak, who is now the lynchpin of the clinical health team) can feel a new disability clinic coming on.
The office is - well, it's the office. I haven't been spending much time in it, which is not a bad thing at all. Trying to let the political arrows fly around me is a difficult thing ("What?", you say? "Q finding it difficult to keep her mouth shut? Never!") but disengaging is a fine art that I need to learn. Preferably around now.
Goodbyes
After a week of dancing, eating, laughter and friends, Marlene (ace boss) left last Wednesday.
Marvellous Marlene and medics from campStir-crazy
The last week has been good but I'm still itching to get out of town - so Chiang Mai, here I come! I can't wait to see my CM mates, walk down the street without seeing people from work, go out to hilarious clubs (where I can drink something "on the rock"), go shopping, eat whatever I food I want at any time of day or night, hit the night markets, hang out for a few beers... Is two trips in the space of 2 1/2 weeks gratuitous? I think it's just about right, really!
Random musings
I live out the back of a hotel/resort place (see pics of my little bungalow on a lotus pond) and yesterday I braved the resort pool for the first time. I am not exaggerating when I say that there was me, and then there were 30 or 40 Dutch people. That was it. I imagine they must be travelling in a big tour group but I confess it was kind of intimidating. I felt distinctly...not Dutch.
Home, sweet home
It got me thinking about the Dutch tourist thing. I don't think I've ever been somewhere overseas where I haven't met Dutch tourists, generally in groups. The population of the Netherlands isn't that big...so does that mean that about half of its population is travelling at any one time? Or that there is just a core of very very hardcore Dutch travellers? If the latter is true, surely some of the people I'm meeting are people I've met before?
I actually met (as in had a conversation with) a Dutch guy last night. I was sitting in one of the little pavilions over the lake, watching Wat Jong Khum (temple - see pics) all lit up for the start of Buddhist Lent. It was an interesting conversation (only one point of conjecture, which was to do with whether Muslim men in Holland should be expected to shake hands with women in a show of assimilation - I thought not, he thought yes) but the real point of interest was the temple itself - just beautiful!
Wat Jong Khum, lit up for the beginning of Buddhist LentThere have been several times on this trip when I have wished that I were Buddhist. Sounds kind of simplistic, I know, but true. Last night was another one of those times, as I sat there and watched all the monks and townspeople walking around the perimeter of the temple with their candles and offerings. Of course, the full moon only added to the atmosphere...
6 comments:
Nice post Q, your job sounds challenging and rewarding... Nice photos!
Hi Q,
Love your blog now that you're working.
Fly-or-fall could be the name of my blog too about life on the snow slopes. Lots of falling though.
Q,
Conversely, some Asian medics take the other approach with foreigners, when my brother was in China a zealous doctor told him that he had leukemia when in fact he only had glandular fever.
Glad you're doing good works.
PS: Keep up the pics of your lunches
Where is weekly update?
Hope you haven't been eaten by giant locusts... :D
Yeah, I've encountered a similar attitude with fairly-recently-immigrated Asian families as well when I've worked in programs with people with disabilities. There are some admirable things about it. I mean, the "ignore the disability" approach is preferable to "hide the kid and don't expect any gains from him" approach, right? And there's research showing that kids develop best if they're not shielded from peer correction (letting siblings and peers treat them naturally, rather than teaching them not to expect the child to be able to do much).
But still, there are extremes of this approach, which seem neglectful in my Western view. I had one client, a little Cambodian girl, who was brought to the school where I worked (for kids with severe disabilities) when she was 5. We found out that she hadn't had any services prior to this. She'd gone to the doctor a couple times for shots when she was around one, but otherwise the parents weren't big on non-critical medical care. The other (typical) siblings also went to the doctor just for shots and were never sick. The family had taken this girl to enroll her in Kindergarten at the local school. They took her to the assessment session, the school took one look at her (nonverbal, floppy, currently being carried everywhere, visual imapairment) and called social services. The parents were referred to our school. They weren't charged with neglect, because she was healthy, and the law only states that kids have to be in school from 7-16, so it's actually their choice whether to send her to early intervention or start school at 3 which kids with special needs are eligible for. I kind of have mixed feelings, because I respect their choice to just let her be, but I also know that PT and speech/language can do so much for the kids when they start at a few months old.
A great book to read is "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." It's about a Hmong girl in California with severe epilepsy, whose family doesn't believe they need to give her medication, because this is just who she is. They view it as just one version of a person's spiritual makeup, and not as something to be necessarily changed. Great cross-cultural anthro study.
Eeka - very interesting, but I think the example of kids in camp is a little different from the one you gave, in that these families are not given the information that would allow them to make such choices as the Cambodian family you mentioned.
I know that it is a cultural "thing", that families are not given this information but I do think that this is one example where I do think change is required (as opposed to many other examples where "Western" idealists barrel in and want to turn a culture upside-down without regard for the consequences). With change and development must come empowerment to some degree, and information equals the power to make decisions, doesn't it?
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