3 months 3 weeks and 5 days

3 months 3 weeks and 5 days is how long I lasted in Cambodia without getting sick. Luckily I just had a solid case of food poisoning, which has a pretty short time line.

So this is how it went…. Last week I went to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia and where Peace Corps office is) for a meeting. There were a lot of other volunteers there. It was great to see people that I had not seen for a month. We were able to relax, trade stories, and eat western food! Well it turns out that even in the big city you can still eat bad food. On Sunday I got on a van that was heading the direction of my village. The van ended up making me wait a long time for various reasons, but what was in reality a 2-hour ride took us 5 hours. By the time I got to my house my stomach was hurting bad.

I dropped off my stuff at the house, and went to my host family’s house for dinner. But my stomach was hurting so bad I was pacing around the house. The neighbor came over and asked how I was, and I said “oohh chhooe-poa” (ooohh stomachache). They responded with the amount of concern that I was hoping for. Then dinner was ready (at this point I thought maybe I was just really hungry and that’s why my stomach was hurting). I took one bite of rice and the situation went from bad to worse. I immediately had to run over to the mud, as my body said no to the rice.

After that, my host sister laid me down on a cot in their house and this was went the crowd started to grow. First of all, in Cambodia when someone is sick or having any kind of “episode” they do this pinching type thing to the sick persons body. It is kind of like a massage but a little more violent and all over your body. So while I was wishing for death, I had 3 women massaging me, 1 woman on each arm, and 1 rubbing my legs. The crowd of on lookers included (but not limited to…) both host siblings, their child, my host sisters parents, the neighbor and her husband, the other neighbor and her husband and parents, another neighbor, and a few other small children.

My host siblings are both in the medical field, and my host sister’s dad is a doctor. They immediately called him to come to the house because the American is dying. So in between my exorcist-like vomiting episodes, I had people checking my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. And when I was actively getting sick I had (again) one woman holding each arm, another holding the bucket, and another woman handing me water to rinse with. It was a family event.

When I was able to get myself off of the cot and back to my house all the adults came with me. After the worst of the food poisoning storm was over, it was decided that I should be “coined’. This is when a person has Tiger Balm (similar to Vicks Vapor Rub) rubbed on them and then a hard object (in my case the lid to the tiger balm) is rubbed over the skin in lines. In Cambodia it is thought that this can cure many different ailments. When in my opinion it just is just rubbing Vicks all over and busting capillaries. It leaves you looking pretty tigery. But by this point in the evening, they could have told me they were going to shave my head, and I wouldn’t have had the energy to put up a fight… so I was coined for the first time.




That night my host siblings and their daughter slept outside my bedroom, and Jack slept on the rug outside my door. And with their help I survived the night.

The next day I felt much better, but I spent the rest of the week sleeping and trying to regain an appetite. My sickness was talk of the town for the week, and many people came up to me and told me what symptoms I had. And if you were wondering, it is not fun to have people come up and remind you of the hours you spent in the fetal position. But now things are getting back to normal and I am back to eating full meals!