(In)validity

Peace Corps gave us Health volunteers all a bunch of posters outlining proper nutrition, foods rich in vitamin A, and ways to make the best weaning porridge when we all moved to site. I had forgotten all about them, but because I cleaned my living space yesterday, today was the first day I brought these posters to the health center and showed them to the people milling around.

“Showed,” of course, is the operative word. These posters are all appropriately outlined in Khmer, and since my Khmer reading skills are probably no better than that of a 7-year-old schoolchild, I really had no idea what they said in Khmer. And so I asked the people hanging out to help me read them. As they helpfully guided me with the sounding out of each word, I figured I was also subtly getting the message out about eating from the three food groups, putting things other than just rice and water in weaning porridge, and that leafy greens are high in vitamin A (which protect against nightblindness and various other illnesses).

In short, this was by and far the most successful day of work I’ve had yet. I was actually doing the job that Peace Corps dictated we do. Today was also the day that several OD representatives came to check up on the health center, followed by several people from a German NGO doing assessment on the effectiveness of the health center, so the fact that I was making myself look useful instead of lolling in a hammock reading a book probably helped everyone look better. The reps for the German NGO were particularly interested in my role at the health center and said that they’d be in touch after they finished collecting their data to see if I could help them with some of the village-level work they needed done regarding the increase of attendance at the health center.

After they left the number of patients also started to dwindle so the staff came out and helped me read my posters too. One of them, who’s pretty proficient in English, even did some friendly translating of words that weren’t covered in Health technical language training, words like “strength,” “energy,” “measles,” and “malnutrition”.

If the day ended right there, it would have been perfect. I was doing my job, I was learning Khmer, and most of all, I was validating my existence in this community as a Community Health Education Volunteer.

And then the insurance agent shows up, in his Phnom Penh glam and his Phnom Penh attitude. The health insurance policy here in Cambodia is actually pretty fair and awesome, with a low premium based only on the number of people you have in your family. Once you buy a plan, your entire family is covered and everything you can get done at the health center is free, except for a few nominal charges for things like birth control. The agent shows up, and rudely interrupts my attempts at reading the whiteboard of outreach scheduling. He scoffs and says, in Khmer, “Oh, she doesn’t know Khmer.”

Then he proceeds to have a conversation, all of which I fully understand, with my supervisor, asking how long I’ve been here, where I’m from, and what I’m doing here. When my supervisor answers and says that I’m here for health education, he scoffs again and says, in Khmer, “How can she do health education if she doesn’t even know the language?”

At this point I’m getting really annoyed at the nerve this guy is showing just because he’s a big city boy in a small village. I say, in Khmer, “I know enough to understand you and hold small conversations, and I’m learning more every day.” He scoffs for a third time, and says, in pretty good (I’ll give him that) English, “How can you teach health if you don’t know my language? Were you a nurse or a doctor back in the States? What was your field?”

Oh, you want to go in my language now, then? Let’s go.

I don’t bother to slow down or remove the clipped tone of my speech as I inform him curtly that I’m learning Khmer, every fuckin’ day, and actually living in a village with actual villagers, way more in touch with the everyday health system than he ever will be. I point to my posters and tell him that I have materials to educate with and I’ll be here for two years so my Khmer will definitely be good enough by then to be successful at my job, and that I don’t appreciate him coming in here and telling me that I can’t do my job just because I don’t know the language. And no, I wasn’t a nurse or a doctor back in the states but I studied chemistry and I will continue to study to be a doctor when I go back. To his credit, he manages to follow most of it, but the atmosphere in the room is definitely tense as all of my colleagues can tell I’m not my usual easygoing self and that I am actually quite angry.

He says that it’s good that I’m living in the villages and getting to know real Cambodian life. He doesn’t say much more else.

I excuse myself and go home, furious that I let this one small interaction put a damper on my otherwise productive, feel-good day. The reason I did get so defensive, though, is that he was right. On all counts. Yeah, I had posters, but I didn’t even know how to read them. I know the three food groups are body-building, protective, and energy, but it really doesn’t help that I don’t know the Khmer equivalents of those words. I’m not sure if the villagers really believed the message they read on the posters, because I wasn’t able to sell it and make it seem more legitimate. And yes, I am learning Khmer, but the fact of the matter is that at this very moment I simply don’t have adequate language skills to be successful at my job. Furthermore, I don’t have any medical background. Fat a lot of good a B.S. (which is exactly what it is) in chemistry is going to do me in the health center. I can’t give shots, I didn’t even know why they administer tetanus shots after a dog bite, and if you were to ask me to list all the warning signs of when a pregnant woman should be ushered to a hospital immediately, I could probably name about 2 out of 5. To add insult to injury, the fact remains that the Health PCVs are the only ones who are unqualified (with the exception of Taylor, who’s a nurse) to do their jobs. English teachers are fully qualified to teach English, but what the hell do we know about health? Next to nothing.

Hopefully this will change with time. In the meantime all I can do is grit my teeth and continue cramming this g-d language into my brain.