Dak thmegn

At 7.15am we sit in the tuk-tuk, accompanied by Lennart and Moritz, our co-fellow students from the University of Münster, and two bags full of toothpaste, gloves, face masks, filling materials, etc., which we brought with us from Germany as material donations. During the 30-minute drive to the Angk Portinhean Pagoda (Buddhist temple), which houses Mini Molars, we notice with alarm that the poverty becomes more pronounced the further we get away from the city center.

Upon our arrival, we are greeted by children playing on the clinic's forecourt, or rather the treatment room :-) The children are playing "tag" with a kitten, which unfortunately has no chance of escape. We are greeted by two monks and a young man. He smiles very friendly and is responsible for patient admission (as we later find out), but unfortunately he cannot help us because we don't speak Khmer and he only knows a few words of English. So we wait as if we were waiting for a bus that never comes, in front of the clinic, until Sina and Rii (short for a very complicated Cambodian name) finally arrive. The two speak good English and manage the clinic. While we look around, they prepare the treatment units and before we know it, patients are sitting in the chairs. Slighty overwhelmed, we dedicate ourselves to the delicate girl. After a glance into her small mouth, it is immediately clear what will happen next: "I would say extraction" (quote from Sina). Okay Lilly, here we go. Needle, desmotome, forceps, out it goes. The brave girl doesn't flinch and it's done quickly. Next patient: a five-year-old boy with severely decayed teeth and toothache. Now it's Cathy's turn. Where do we start? After a brief consultation with Rii, it is clear that no teeth should be extracted despite everything. We only provide fillings for the least damaged teeth. The carious root remnants are to be removed at a later date when he is older and can better understand what is happening. The third and final patient for today is a young man with numerous cavities in the front tooth area.

Handling the dental unit takes some getting used to: the small suction device (@Steffi: the duck) comes from an external spare part and only works to a limited extent. The water cooling is also only partially possible and leads to unpredictable, fountain-like water leaks. Rii and Sina just laugh at the question of whether and how changes to the rotation speed of the drills can be made - "I don't think it's possible."

With that, our first day of work was unfortunately already over at 11 am. Sina and Rii suspect that many children stay at home with their families due to the Chinese New Year celebrations. Nevertheless, there is a small reward: a fresh coconut drink. Dinner will be at "Mama" again, we will probably visit there more often, because nowhere tastes as good as at mom's ;-)