Update from Siem Reap

Hey everyone,

Just gonna update you on how my trip is going. Lots of exciting things to share. My last post was about getting to Hong Kong safely. After our last flight, we arrived in Phenom Penh and then drove about five hours to the Ship of Life. I love living on the ship, it is a lot of fun. The Cambodian men, the crew, are each so precious. We settled in Monday night and began working Tuesday morning. My job is taking blood pressure and temperature before sending them into one of the three doctor's offices or to the dentist. We have seen about 140 patients each day so far, made up of medical patients as well as dental. The people are so kind, they just sit patiently and smile at you.

I have gotten to see many different things like a scar from a snake bit on a woman's foot, the PA work on a blister on the bottom of a woman's foot, wisdom teeth removed, etc.

This weekend the people I travled with and I have spent a few days in Siem Reap visiting the Angkor Toam and Angkor Wat temples. They are amazing! We will go to church in the morning and then head back to the ship for our last week of work before spending our last weekend in Vietnam. The ship moves to a new location every weekend. It has currently been in a village about three hours from Phenom Penh, but friday while we have been gone, it has moved about five hours north of its location. So, we will have to figure out how to get there once we leave Siem Reap after church. Fun! I am looking forward to helping new people and seeing a new place.

Some cool things to share:
1) if you want to try a new food, why not a bbq tarantula?
2)there are beautiful buildings called pegotas, which are little temple-like buildings that people will make to "get points" so to speak if they have done bad things. They think that if you do a lot of bad things and make a pegota, you are then ok. There are pegotas everywhere you go not far apart from each other.
3)Many houses have boxes that look like bird houses. They are spirit boxes. They put their relatives' ashes in the box and believe the relative's spirit lives in the box.
4)Many houses have scare crows in the front to keep out evil spirits.
5)want to learn a khmer word? acun means "thank you"
6) a took-took is a moto with a buggy on the back

Debbe's and my way of finding out what time it is: taking a picture of the bathroom with her camera and adding 12 hours!!

From seeing tarantuals to pegotas to scare crows to water buffaloes to buddahs; to riding ferrys and took-tooks, it has been a great experience so far and I am so blessed and thankful that I have this opportunity to see a different part of God's beautiful creation and to bless many people with my hands.

I will update again next weekend in Vietnam. Blessings to you and please keep praying for all of the people we will be seeing this week!

Megan