Memories and scars that remain

With a suitcase filled to the brim and barely complying with the airline's strict rules, I made my way to the airport with a heavy heart. It was a hasty farewell to a time that I had lived so intensely.

I don't want to forget any of it: the rattling tuk-tuk rides, the sunsets captured over ancient temples, the rain showers, the friendships that formed quietly and grew stronger than expected. The first surgical knots that my hands tied hesitantly at first, then more confidently. But also the sad fates that taught me humility, and the small, tender successes that touched me deeply.

With the pictures on my camera, I want to tell all of this, the story of a country that seemed foreign to me at first, but grew closer to me with each passing day until it found a place in my heart.

My first day at the hospital was full of contrasts. Children waved at us in the streets, laughing and giving us high-fives, as if they were the living music of the city. They are playful, swarming in groups, and radiate a carefree joy that both amazed and touched me. It was astonishing to see parents traveling with three children on a bicycle or motorcycle, a feat of balance that is everyday life here. At the same time, I knew that this leads to many serious accidents. Everywhere I looked, it seemed as if there were four children for every adult.

I hardly encountered any elderly people, probably a silent echo of the Khmer Rouge that is still noticeable today. At the hospital, I learned that many families undertake long, arduous, and expensive journeys to have their sick children treated. Often, they only come when the illness is already very serious. Later, I stood on the roofs of the wards with my camera. In front of me, clothes fluttered in the warm sunlight, hung up by relatives who live here during the treatment. A makeshift everyday life that must have developed strangely and yet naturally over time.

Back at the ward, I looked at the many plastic cables, monitors, and ventilator masks attached to the little patients. As I leafed through the medical records, I thought back to the cheerful children on the street, their laughter, their colorful plastic toys, and how closely joy and sorrow coexist here. A room full of life, full of contradictions, yet strangely harmonious.

During one of these weeks, which was particularly rich in impressions, I had the opportunity to stand at the heart of the hospital. The Heart Corner, a department that is a source of particular pride, because great things happen here. Dr. Ladin took me under his wing and opened the door to cardiac surgery at his operating table. Since 2011, children with congenital heart defects have been given a new lease on life here. A life that suddenly has decades ahead of it again, like a horizon that unexpectedly widens.

During a break, Dr. Ladin told me his own life story, how he left his home as the son of a rice farmer for the capital Phnom Penh, how he lived with monks, studied, learned, and finally found his way to becoming a heart surgeon. His descriptions seemed like threads that imperceptibly connected with the moment as I later watched his confident, calm hand movements as he tied knots in the operating room. For the first time, I saw a beating heart and at the same time saw how it was being operated on. A feeling overwhelmed me, at once unreal and overwhelming.

Towards the end of the week, under close guidance and watchful supervision, I was allowed to help out more and more. I made the first incision in the sternum. It was an indescribable moment, standing at the same table with personalities like him and being part of a moment that changes a life. Afterwards, I carefully closed the wound again.

Later that day, shortly after the end of my shift, I walked back to the little patient's bed. Just to make sure that the knots on the drainage tubes were secure. I wondered if he would one day be happy with the scar we left him with and hoped that I had done my job well. This scar will probably stay with him for the rest of his life. Maybe one day he will wear it with pride.

It was dengue season, and you could feel it everywhere in the hospital between the rain showers. The wards were overcrowded, children were lying on the floor, on small rugs, between beds, sometimes on improvised stretchers. Everywhere you could hear the quiet hum of ventilators, voices, and the murmurs of nursing staff rushing back and forth between patients. Many children arrived in shock, emaciated from internal bleeding and massive volume loss. These are the consequences of a virus transmitted by a mosquito. Children had to be intubated daily, often within minutes of their admission.

I remember how we paranoidly sprayed ourselves with mosquito repellent and lit mosquito incense sticks in our apartments, as if we could keep the disease itself at bay. In the ward, I saw my first real emergency intubation on an unstable child who was barely breathing on his own. Under supervision, I was allowed to take over after watching and learning. The pulse oximeter showed normal oxygen saturation again.

Another image that stayed with me for a long time was a group of monks from a pagoda. They all suffered from the same itchy rash on their heads and hands. These were typical symptoms of scabies, caused by parasites. They sat next to each other on chairs, heads bowed, patiently waiting for medical attention. Seeing so many little monks receiving medical treatment at once was surreal. It was a strange, almost silent moment that highlighted the range of challenges faced by this hospital.

In the ward lay an infant who had been brought back from Thailand due to the border conflict, because his treatment there had been abruptly ended when the borders were closed. Now it lay on a thin mat on the floor, wrapped in a cloth. What struck me most was the open stoma, an artificial opening in the abdomen, a kind of emergency bypass for the body so that something could function at all after the intestines could no longer use their original path. In Thailand, they had begun to treat the problem, but now everything was unclear. No reports, no files, just this little chest rising restlessly and the abdomen telling a story that no one knew the whole of.

Medications that had previously been supplied from Thailand were suddenly unavailable, and shortages had to be compensated for elsewhere. Some children arrived without a reliable medical history because communication between hospitals on both sides of the guarded borders was sometimes almost impossible. It was one of those moments when the improvisation of everyday medical life mixes with the reality of the region. Borders, politics, and communication that don't work where it matters most: with a child who simply needed to continue receiving treatment.

At the end of my time in Cambodia, I paused for a moment and reflected on the past few weeks. I would like to thank everyone who accompanied, supported, and taught me, my friends who walked this path with me, the entire hospital staff who patiently introduced me to the procedures and explained every step to me, and of course the hospital itself, which has saved and changed so many lives. These two months were not only educational, but also deeply moving, marked by moments of joy, wonder, and quiet reflection.

With one last look at the dusty streets of Siem Reap, the evening smells of the food stalls, the ancient pagodas, the quiet riverbanks, and the soft laughter of the children, I say goodbye to this special place. Cambodia has touched me more than I ever expected, with its warmth, its history, its vulnerability, and its unshakable zest for life. I leave the hospital with gratitude, admiration, and memories of all the stories, big and small, that I was able to witness here.

“Sok Sabai” – safe and happy – may this little phrase accompany all the people I had the privilege of meeting here. Until we meet again.

Jan, from Siem Reap