THE SPIDER DIET

Am I the only one who goes on the spider diet and gains weight?

Fried Spider does NOT taste like chicken.

I only tried Tarantula cause I didn’t want to be called a chicken. And I only ate a leg. Couldn’t stomach the hairy stomach. Especially when I heard it had an egg sac. Who eats arachnid embryos? Everyone in Cambodia. It’s a delicacy. And a bargain. Two tarantulas for a dollar. Eight legs for 50 cents. Only bought it because the woman selling spiders wouldn’t let me take a photo for free. She suggested coconut juice too. She said “its happy hour.”

My happy hour usually involves grape, not coconut juice.

But my happiest hours are on missions.

I’m on a medical mission with Mending Kids International in Cambodia. 27 lives have been saved. 27 little lives. Most of the patients are a few months old.

I have little to do with saving the babies. Unless you count keeping the Doctors in junk food. Funny to see heart surgeons eat KFC.

I like to play with kids and pray with the parents.

Mostly I like being near their miracle.

Our first patient was an old guy for us, a teenager. Not your typical teen. He’s 17, he had about 2 years to live. And he’s a Monk. Yon Dara knew he would die without surgery. He knew his family couldn’t afford surgery. He did some research, knew we were coming, and showed up at the hospital when the Doctors did.

Our Doctor dream team came from the Philippines. With all that’s happened there they still came. 20 volunteers, including 3 surgeons and 3 (kick ass chick) cardiologists. Plus a bunch of nurses that seemd to love our kids back to life.

As the Doctors discussed Yon Dara’s heart, the volunteers tried to comfort him. The more they tried, the more upset he got. He didn’t speak English so he couldn’t say— for the love of God don’t hug me! Finally one of the volunteers (the beautiful, brilliant GOOD NEWS GIRL) Ana Garcia yelled “Oh my God…he’s a Monk. Don’t touch the Monk!”

You’re not allowed to touch a Monk (unless you happen to be his heart surgeon). But he had taken off his orange Monk robe and put on a hospital robe. So who knew this cute kid was a Monk? Our investigative reporter Ana figured it out. She made everyone step away from the Monk.

After his surgery Ana spent hours reading to the Monk.

After his recovery saying goodbye was tough. Especially since we obviously couldn’t hug him.

I spent my time hugging my adorable “Dora” and teaching her the ABCs. She has much better handwriting than me. Her name is Reeksmei but with her cute bowl haircut even the Doctors call her Dora. She’s funny and smart and had so many things wrong with her heart. They found 5 problems with the 5-year-old’s heart before surgery. Once they opened her up they found more.

Why do I fall in love with the complicated cases?

It was a 6 hour surgery. And a slow recovery.

Dora’s family broke my heart. They slept on the floor of the hospital every night. I searched my suitcase for clean clothes to give her sister. Only hookers wear short skirts in Cambodia. So I gave Manarie the only long (ish) thing I had. She looked like a supermodel in my black Zara dress.

The kids come from far away for the free surgery. And the entire family comes with them. To give support and blood. There’s no blood bank at the hospital.

All the volunteers volunteered to give blood for an emergency surgery for a 7 month old. I was with Dr Bernie (one of the kick ass cardiologists) when the parents came. They had just come from another hospital and had been told their baby would die. I was in tears as Bobby (our amazing translator from Hearts Without Boundaries) explained that our surgeons would try to save the baby. Dr. B drew a picture of the heart for the parents. It’s way too complicated for me to try and explain. The little girl’s veins were all on one side of her heart. To straighten out the mess in her chest was incredibly complicated.

Yet my Dora’s surgery was even more complex. I know this is a rhetorical (& repetitious) but why do I fall in love with the complicated cases? The kids that might not live.

The Doctors did save the baby, and they saved my Dora. Every surgery was a success. Every child lived. This is not always the case.

Mission Cambodia is a huge success in many ways.

In Ethiopia we’re lucky to get a hot shower. In Cambodia we got a Thai message…for 10 dollars.

We’d come back from the hospital. Drink a little dinner. Because how many times can you eat spider, snake, goat or fire ants?

One morning one of the volunteers said “my tummy hurts?” Really? You think it’s because you had fire ants and rice for dinner? In Cambodia they eat everything that moves. Rats, bats, snakes and other things I don’t want to contemplate. I ate one tarantula and went back to cheese.

I ate a lot of cheese. Guess that’s why when everyone had diarrhea I had the opposite issue. Never needed all that Imodium I brought across several time zones.

We spent a lot of time….bitching about the wi-fi. I know I was in Cambodia…but I wanted my twitter.

My roommate Ana Garcia posted a photo of me sleeping (drooling and/or snoring) as the hotel IT guy tried to fix the wi-fi. I have not yet completely forgiven her for that.

We were the often the only woman in the Muslim coffee shop. They had good iced coffee that you had to down quickly (don’t drink the ice!) and the best wi-fi in Phnom Penh. Such good wi-fi Ana FaceTimed her dog. Everyone on the block stopped to see the crazy American talk to her yappy (sorry Ana…payback for the photo) chihuahua.

And we were girls on a mission, in more ways than one, at the markets. They sold everything from Buddhas to (knockoff) bags to bugs. The food section is…colorful. Much of the food was alive and moving. They had pink eggs, no green ham. But you could get green from the rows and rows of pig heads and feet. They had lobsters with blue legs and all sorts of spiders to eat.

Ana that wuss ( is that enough payback?) did not try the tarantula.

If you’re ever in Cambodia at least try a fried spider. It does NOT taste like chicken. Some say it tastes like crab. I only tried one fried leg. It tasted a bit like a taro chip.

I don’t like spiders and snakes. Especially not for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But still, somehow…. I gained a few pounds. So much for the Cambodian spider and cheese diet…