15th December
I awake for my last full day in Cambodia in Siem Reap. I vault into a tuk tuk at 6am and buzz towards the airport edging ever closer to Phnom Pehn for my final day of meetings. Yet again, the sky cracks into schizophrenic rainfall. I clutch my luggage to my chest beneath the flimsy canopy of the tuktuk.
I land in Phnom Pehn at 9:30 and zoom to the guesthouse to drop my luggage before bouncing back into a tuktuk and speeding off to the North West of Phnom Pehn to meet with Krousar Yoeung. Sandra spent the day visiting their project work on 2nd December, but we have arranged another short meeting with their Executive Director, Ky Samphy.
She is a charming lady. Tiny. Elegant. Graceful. She has an air of fragility and determination about her, conflicting qualities that somehow compliment each other in her. She weaves between Khmer, French and English as she explains the work of Krousar Yoeung, highlighting both the successes and the challenges they face. We already have a full report on them and Sandra has visited their work in action so this meeting can be relaxed.
Ky captivates me when I ask her what drew her to teaching. She is passionate about education; preschool education in particular. Her husband was a teacher. He was captured by the Khmer Rouge and taken to a rural work camp during Pol Pot’s reign. He never returned.
Separated from him by war, she was placed in another camp under the Khmer Rouge’s land reform programme. Like so many others, she was starved here and forced to work the land. She gave birth to a daughter here. The baby died in the camp. So too did Ky’s sister.
She tells me she watched the birds; was inspired by their eating banana tree roots. She imitated them to survive: And survive she did. She had no alternative: By then she was responsible for her own children as well as her orphaned nephews and nieces: 15 children in total.
Hearing her story, I understand the interplay between her fragility and her determination. I also understand her commitment to children and teaching. To reversing the brutal legacy of the Khmer Rouge and their destruction of the educational system she and her husband had nurtured before Pol Pot’s grim reign. Her work at Krousar Yoeung is honouring a commitment that cost so many their lives.
The educational system has still not recovered, though it is on its way. The tiny, gentle, courageous and determined lady standing before me is very much a part of the recovery process. I leave moved, continuing south into Central Phnom Pehn for my next meeting.
I arrive an hour later at the studios of Cambodian Living Arts where I am met by Phloen, CLA’s charismatic Director: He is also the Entrepreunerial founder of Artisans D’Angkor, one of Cambodia’s most successful art companies. He leads me up to a mezannine music studio to discuss the work of CLA.
The organisation was founded in 1998 by Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian American refugee who was forced to become a child soldier of the Khmer Rouge at 14. He survived his experiences by playing the flute.
Following his participation in the “Children of War” in the early 80’s, Arn travelled the world speaking about his experiences under the Khmer Rouge, meeting many eminent people as he travelled.
The Khmer Rouge not only destroyed Cambodia’s rich educational legacy; they also eradicated a its cultural and artistic identity. Arn returned to Cambodia in 1995, vowing to restore Cambodia’s artistic heritage by seeking out surviving masters of music and dance to breathe life back into Cambodia’s fragile heritage.
The product was Cambodian Living Arts. Their four core programs—teaching, performing, recording, and new commissions—support 16 master musicians and nearly 300 students and assistant teachers to generate income, inspire leadership and enable the preservation and celebration of Cambodia’s heritage.
It is a simple, fascinating and noble mission enforced by a dedicated, talented team. I leave the centre to visit the “Building” where a workshop is being held in preparation for a performance tomorrow night. “Building” is also the subject of Alnoor’s film and blog.
I hop onto a motorbike outside the studio and we speed off, whizzing the wrong way around a large roundabout, taking on the oncoming traffic, before reaching an emergency stop outside the “Building”. We climb 4 flights of stairs and wind down a dark passageway before reaching a scruffy, cramped room teeming with teenagers and performers. I feel like I am in a Cambodian version of “Fame”. I am led to a corner where I sit down before the rehearsal starts.
For the next hour, I am privileged to witness traditional dancing and song by children and young people who are engaged with CLA. I hear from them how CLA has contributed to them and their lives. Without exception, everyone I speak to has become a professional performer, something they are clear would not have happened had it not been for CLA. It is massively inspiring and I leave two hour later with a spring in my step to return to the hotel to pack.
What an extraordinary day it has been. Today more than any other here has been marked for me by what was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. But beyond that, it has highlighted an unflinching spirit of revival and the courage of people in the face of great adversity to recreate what has been lost. It has highlighted a tremendous pride and determination to regenerate what could have been lost forever, were it not for others having the conviction and vision to stand up for what they believe to be important.
We leave our Apocalypse Now Guest house bright and early and speed further into the remote countryside to Sre Sdow village and a meeting with Yous Thy, the Director of the Kampuchea Women’s Welfare Action and her team. A chicken runs round the table again and again and again throughout the meeting as though dosed with amphetamines.
We are collected at 8:30 by Sarang Out from Souvann Phoum to spend the day with them visiting schools, community groups and their offices. We are extremely impressed by what we see. Staff are knowledgeable, frank and honest about the challenges they face as well as the successes they have had. The programmes themselves are extremely well run and address the needs of the beneficiaries they serve whether their needs are education, community development or more general support.
visit. The floor is packed with women and children of all ages. Shaven headed old ladies pepper the proceedings. Next to them teenagers and middle aged women gabble excitedly. Babies play with balloons, breast feed and potter about throughout the proceedings. First of all, the convenor is speaking to them about respiratory health; the warnings, the dangers of infection and what to do about it if they believe someone is sick. This then turns into an excited game with girls leaping up and down to the front of the room to paste posters on the wall. It is quite an event! The volume and excitement in the air is high.
Today we travelled (by a circuitous but charming route) to see an organisation called Phuti Kamar and met Chhim Raymong the programme director. He told us about work that the organisation is involved in: the building of a pilot model school, a community based education project near the border with Thailand, a mobile library service, natural resource management near the Vietnamese border, youth centres around Battambang and a new contract to train and enhance public schools.
The next morning we wake up at 7 and gather our things quickly before speeding off again to spend the morning with the Cambodian Children’s Advocacy Foundation in the Bantey Meas District. They are a small Khmer organisation working in 30 rural communities providing preschool education and medical check ups to children. Their ambitions are high and they deliver a portfolio of projects including community development, pre-school education in villages and early education. Their efforts are admirable but I am concerned that focus on one or two areas would serve their efforts better.
We arrive at the SSF compound, consisting of one semi-traditional built house and a large surrounding garden, just outside Kampong Speu town, in Peanica Kam village mid-morning. The heat is already beating down and we eagerly accept to conduct our interview in the fan-cooled office inside the house. Vichetr is a raconteur and, we fill a whole 1 hour tape in what seems like no time.
I’ve only been here a week and do not speak the language, so naturally there are great limitations to any deeper insights being passed yet. So, I feel somewhat lost for words and clear thought, to describe and put my finger on what I have seen and heard so far. There is some form of understanding of how this country operates and even what seems to be needed to improve some very disturbing figures, but the big questions seems to be how to make any kind of intervention work.
Cambodia seems a country half-way stuck between both its glorious and horrendous past and the wish to connect successfully to the 21st century. Its people are humblingly nice and ever helpful. They seem, in spite of most horrific circumstances, to be able to accept their lot and carry on.
we met with the other day used the example of a traffic circle to illustrate this with insight. Imagine the confluence of vehicles from all directions – there is the never-ending stream of mopeds, colourful tuk tuks (local taxis), cars of all kind and then those number-plate-less SUVs and 4×4s. These are not being driven home, newly purchased from the car-dealership, but rather their owners do not have to fear any sort of law-enforcement – one of the many faces of endemic corruption. Immediately an unspoken hierarchy and not official traffic rules direct the flow, in the reverse order of this listing and its members unquestioningly adhere to it. For the freshly off the plane and not yet attuned eye and mind, an absolute mystery and actually, astonishing mastery, – I have not checked on accidents numbers yet, though…
This is Cambodia and I was being smiled upon this morning at the Bayon temple of Angkor Wat by some of the 216 impenetrable stone faces depicting the Buddha. I also do find these smiles all around the country and I keep asking myself the same question – what goes on behind those ever-present smiles.
Ayala works to address poverty in the Philippines in all its forms and the staff at the Foundation have already been really helpful to us in setting up meetings with their partners for our fieldtrip. We will be seeing 5 of their projects in the next two weeks and today we simply want to get an overview of their work and the social issues that are significant in this country.
We are going to be seeing their pilot school programme which helps slum children obtain a first-class education, and their internet literacy programme, helping secondary public schools connect to the internet and give children access. We also hear about their partnership with Nokia’s text2teach remote teaching aide which allows teachers to connect phones to TVs and download clips to help teach a range of subjects.