Activity of the day: feeding the children in the slums. Feeling of the day: happy. Food of the week: rice.

Please no more rice! It's good but i think we're getting a bit rice-d out. I've managed to avoid it today, but no doubt I'll find some on my plate tomorrow.

Anyway on with the update. This week the dentaid team having been working alongside one-2-one, a charity based in Phnom Penh, offering medical and dental treatment to local Cambodians. This week we have volunteered in their mobile dental clinic, which was temporarily set up in a local church. They had an efficient triage system where the Cambodian dentists examined the patients on arrival, before sending them to us for their treatment. Last time I was in Cambodia, I enjoyed learning the local language. This time, I have learned many more phrases, and have been practising on everyone I see, at the expense of being laughed at - although I am reassured they are laughing because my "accent is so good". We treated about 50-60 patients each day. Fillings, fissure sealants, extractions and applying SDF* was carried out. There are four dentists, one dental therapist and one dental nurse in team dentaid.

Today we had the opportunity to assist one-2-one with their daily food distribution at one of the slums. I dished out a large container of rice to dozens of hungry children, who took it to their picnic area along with their meat and vegetables. It was like the feeding of the five thousand!

This afternoon we experienced some Cambodian culture and visited the local markets, getting our bartering skills up to scratch.

The Cambodian traffic is something to be reckoned with - every time we go out, it's like playing crazy taxi. There doesn't seem to be any rules, people drive on whatever side of the road they fancy, and there are no right of ways. However, it seems that everyone has a mutual respect for fellow drivers, and amazingly the traffic merges and blends in harmony, like a large scale ants nest.

Tomorrow we are visiting two universities to deliver lectures and help in clinics. My lecture is on the basic techniques of oral surgery.

My feeling of the day is happy. This appears a boring and unimaginative emotion to choose. On the whole, 2015 has been a very happy year for me. But happiness is not always readily available, so I might as well embrace it whilst I can, hence it being the feeling of the day. Spending time with an extraordinary team of people who are passionate about the same thing, really makes me happy. Ordinarily that applies to being with my friends at church.  But this week it applies to the dentaid team in Cambodia.  Thanks team dentaid-cambodia-nov2015 :-)

Happy Friday :-) xx

*SDF - silver diamine fluoride. Applied to unrestorable carious teeth to arrest caries, when extractions are contraindicated.