I just want to say to the world that it was my first and unforgettable life experience travelling abroad and it was fantastic.
I feel really proud to have opportunity to go to study One
Health program in University of Florida. I do show my grateful to my family, my
colleagues, my institute and my especially my boss who had assist me processing
my application for this program and gave me a lot of good advice since the
start. I do thanks for everyone encourage me to fight for this opportunity and to
my dream which is never fade of keen to study abroad and travel around the world.
It is the start of my new page in my life and I will never forget it.
The first time I arrived America and the first step for me
was in Atlanta airport, Georgia. My first impression in America was about the
worker at the airport. There were mostly black American workers. The last
flight from Atlanta made me feel totally jet lag. I think it was because the
plan was small, there were a lot of bumpy times and my seat was near the tail. Arriving
in Gainesville I found that it is a small city with a large preserved forest area
and small population. I compared it to the province in the North-West area of
Cambodia for the density of the forest. The city was rather calm and I noticed
that most of the people own a car for the reason that there were many huge
parking areas. The whole city was quiet for the whole day. There were only few people
hanging out at the evening. There were no people walking along the road. There
were only car running along. They showed respect to pedestrians. This reminded me the situation in Cambodia. It
is completely difference. The traffic always full of vehicles and there must have
a long queue on the road after work. Pedestrians find it hard to cross the busy
road.
For the class of One Health, it was the collective class
with multi nations from difference capacity and varieties of interest topics. Each
day time is tight with busy schedule of variety of instructions and tours.
Students were too busy to have launch with their own pace. I had to rule out my
country ethic of not to eat during class. There were interesting tours to veterinary
medicine ward, insect collection building, cattle slaughter, cow producing milk
farm, and the modern poultry production. It gave me the concept of automation, insect
classification, sewage waste management and disease control. For instance, infectious
disease is separated from other wards and people worked in that area will not
allow to enter, contact or feeding animals in the healthy area to prevent spreading
the disease. What had attracted me the most was the visit to a school of veterinary
medicine. It was fully equipped with modern facilities and resources. Every
students think it was even more advance than human hospital in each own country
even some hospital in America.
What I missed the most while I was living in Gainesville
was foods. I found it hard to try most of the foods. Every morning there were
the same cuisine served with free drinks. Foods was mostly exceeded ingredient
especially salt or barely mixed with ingredient. I found that I only like to
eat all those foods with tomatoes sources and fruits. The taste was mainly not
my favorite. Fortunately, I was advised to take some dry foods and I enjoyed eating
them for my dinner.
The course gave me concept of One Health concept. There are
correlation between human health to animals and environmental health. It is
also give me concept of how to control and prevent disease outbreak and the important
team work of each worker in the institute from top to bottom position. The course
revealed me how important the studies NAMRU conducted to Cambodia people’s
health and the world. It was also provided me some knowledge about clinical practices
in the labs to enhance my work quality. After coming back to Cambodia, I plan
to pursue my master degree to develop my capacity and understand more about
what is the main health problem in Cambodia and work to deal with these issues.
