My last blog - for now

I left Cambodia a week ago, and have been travelling in Thailand and now moved on to Laos. I have neglected my blog as it has taken me some time to 'process' and reflect on the experience of Cambodia. It was a culture shock to arrive in Thailand and see good roads and traffic actually stopping at red lights  and a great relief to be somewhere comparatively cooler, only around 30 deg!

Leaving my students was a great wrench, so many of them at a crossroads in their life, no certain continued supports and not even having a clear idea of what might work or help to sustain their future. I have been given a link to the  development partnership in the village and plan to maintain contact through them as only some of the students have mobile phones and just two have email addresses.

On the other hand, the culture and philosophy of the life of the village as recounted to me by the students and drivers, and witnessed by me on my daily trips are remarkable. They centre on mutual cooperation, whether in planting and harvesting rice, building houses or local roads, celebrating together the great Cambodian holidays and huge three-day weddings and funerals. In class too, this spirit of cooperation is evident whether in the the support and encouragement they extend to one another or the genuine pleasure they take in the achievements of a fellow student.

This culture is reflected too in the very strong solidarity of the family unit where Multi-generations live together either sharing in a business in town, as in my guesthouse, 36 members of the Ly family live and work together from the great grandmother who survived the genocide to three year old Duitt playing in the lobby. In the country when a daughter marries the family builds together a house for the young couple so all along the road you see these family compounds with houses built together but clearly of different eras and styles.

We celebrated our last class together with pizza and word bingo and some mutual speeches and gifts
and finally a little singing and dancing, as you can see the Cambodian capacity for joy in spite of hardship

I will leave you with my appreciation to everyone who has taken the time to look through these musings and jottings and just ask you to think of Cambodia, its past sufferings and present challenges, and how we in the west can help.

Seeing more of Cambodia - day 2

Travelling solo is a fantastic challenge, causing anxiety, self doubt ( e.g. what on earth am I doing here?) and near despair at times, but ultimately so fulfilling, you always find something to do, someone truly interesting to talk to or just something absorbing or so interesting that you can become truly self-sufficient, for a time.

Anyway next day, we four musketeers set off to 'visit the countryside' with Mr TinTin and what a day of contrasts and history it was. We started with a visit to a traditional Khmer house, a hardwood house, built on stilts in 1927 by the grandfather of the gracious present owner who spoke beautiful French and retained the house and lived in it as it was when built. You can see the untouched traditional kitchen.

This house is a rare survivor of French colonial times, it has endured bombings, invasion, civil war and the depredations of Pol Pot and still stands strong. It is a reminder too of the precious hardwood forests that were once a source of real wealth for Cambodia but have been ravaged and plundered by successive foreign powers and now hardly survive.

We continued our tour and saw some encouraging signs of renewal and development visiting the only vineyard in South East Asia. Battambang has an ideal climate for grapes and there are plans to expand 

the cultivation of grapes. We saw too the wonderful remains of the ancient past, the temples here pre-date Angkor Wat and continue to be very active places of worship with crowds of local devotees as well as the tourists. I was particularly taken by this family scene, reminding me of our Gospel account of the Presentation in the Temple.

Sadly, another area of this temple disclosed a tragic and ghastly dimension of Cambodian history. The Killing Caves were deep below, where the skeletal remains of  some of PolPot's victims were honoured in a glass case alongside a massive golden sleeping Buddha as a reminder of the savagery and inhumanity of the times where people and children were randomly clubbed and thrown to their deaths below, it was a chilling sight.

We completed this day of contrasts by witnessing the most remarkable and unimaginable wildlife scene. Each night the bats of Battambang leave their cave high up on a cliff at sunset to feed in their millions and streak in a ribbon across the sky for miles and miles, we watched them for over half an hour and still they came. Unfortunately capturing this miracle of nature was beyond my powered but there is a terrific YouTube video for you to see.

Seeing more of Cambodia - day 1

As my time in Siem Reap was drawing to a close, I felt it was important to see more of this extraordinary country before I left and chose to visit the city of Battambang, mostly as it was accessible for a short weekend trip and sounded interesting from the guidebooks, it was truly a Multi-faceted and an unforgettable experience.

As I left my guesthouse in a minibus pick up at 6.30 a.m., a couple, Carl and Sue, from Hawaii were waiting for same bus and travelling to B too, so we started chatting and who would believe it, weren't they going to stay in same place! Tripadvisor is a great 'uniter'of people!

The bus was to leave at 7.30 and supposed to take 3 to 4 hours but actually took 5 and then something happened and the agreed tuktuk did not arrive to collect us, so was I lucky to have this couple with me, eventually after waiting for about an hour in the heat outside this crazy bus station, I rang our guesthouse in Siem Reap, I had to ask a local man to use his phone. Kalyan, the receptionist in SR, rang the guesthouse and then rang me back to say the tuktuk was on the way! A bad start but everything looked up once our driver 'Tin Tin' arrived.

Lovely day here, we joined forces and decided to go on a trip with TinTin, google 'bamboo railway in Battambang'. We had a had mad trip through the countryside, forget all you know about health and safety! We hurtled along on this open bamboo platform at a scary speed, then a shout went up, another  'train' coming against us, all stop, hop off, lift train off track to allow 'down train' to pass then all aboard again! It was crazy but exhilarating tand the countryside, sunset and flicks of birds, I spotted egrets and herons made the whole experience magical.

Bus that morning, was packed with extra stools in the aisle, a lovely  little lady landed in the seat beside me, Francoise from Quebec, 70 years old, solo traveller with hardly any English, so we chatted happily in French all the way. By chance when we were heading out for our trip later, who should we meet when we stopped for coffee but Francoise! Invited her to join us, she was great fun, even though the dual languages was a bit hard. 

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Cambodia

You might have thought it's all work and no play here, not so, but it is quite hard to convey the significance of St. Patrick's Day around the world when you're in the depths of South East Asia! Nothing daunted I ordered thes cupcakes for the Foundation staff and my friends the tuktuk drivers. They come from the most beautiful cake shop I ever saw here in downtown Siem Reap. It's called Blossom and is run as a training enterprise and sells the most exquisite French patisserie, I couldn't resist including also a couple of photos of the shop itself.

I'm not really sure if those receiving the cupcakes quite caught the meaning of the Shamrock, but they loved the cakes!

Later on I gave a class on the Story of St. Patrick to my students, with a handout on green paper, I
also showed them photos on the iPad of Parades and celebrations around the world. They reciprocated by telling me about their customs and traditions at the Camdodian New Year which falls each year in April. We may not have fully understood each other but at least we shared our sense of pride in our separate nationalities.

Community Tour of Baray Reach Dak

Last week, I decided it was time to take the Eco Tour of Baray Reach Dak which was organised by the community from which my students are drawn. This enterprise is a partnership between the National Cultural Authority of Cambodia, the Australian Government and the local villages. The Baray, an artificial lake, was built by the king in the 12th century to provide access for him by water to his temple of Neak Poan. The Baray had been dry for more than five hundred years and the people of Pluong and Leang Dai had grown rice here, however in 2007, the Baray was reflooded to create a beautiful lake, teeming with wildlife and vegetation. The tours were then set up to provide for some
local employment and also for the preservation of a unique natural and cultural heritage.

We were conducted on the tour by one of the students, Prom, who spoke about what he had learned of the forest from his grandfather. He showed us this tree with the burrs or cankers, was not quite sure,
and he said that traditionally in times of was, the men would cut off chunks and carve small Buddhas
which they would have blessed by a monk and would wear as a protection against danger. Just as I carry my St. Benedict's medal here, thanks to a kind friend!

Prom went on to show us another tree whose leaves provide relief from toothache and for some 

reason are also loved by the cattle that roam everywhere!

The greatest natural marvel for me, however was this bees' nest, you can see the perfect small 

cylindrical hole / pipe entrance through which these small black bees, which don't sting, thankfully, bring in their honey. Local people simply dig int the ground, carry off a chunk of the hive and the 

bees build a new entry point and work away!

You have to look really closely to see the tiny white pipe sticking up out of the ground.

We then visited a typical forest house, this is inhabited by a local family and the grandfather works in the nursery developed nearby to preserve and renew the unique local trees and shrubs. You can see 

the kitchen fire, and I was fascinated to see a cooking pot shaped like an old Irish 'Corcan' up on the 

kitchen table alongside the vegetables. You can also see the central place in every Cambodian household, rather like our hearth, the people all sit together on a platform, eat, chat, entertain visitors, always leaving their shoes behind. In some cases they are made of rough planks and in others form 

the mist beautiful and valuable hardwoods. My students thought that my description of people sitting around a fireside on sofas and armchairs hilarious!

Part of the tour is a boat trip on the beautiful calm Baray, where we saw these lovely water lilies, which Prom told us made delicious soup, we saw kites and enormous heron like birds stretching their wings full span at the tops of trees, unfortunately my skills  as a photographer were not adequate to 

capture them. We passed fishermen with small nets wading up to their chests in the water, fish are one of the main sources of protein here, and floated peacefully along far from the noisy crowds of tourists at some of the other temple sites.

The finale of the tour was to arrive at the beautiful tiny temple of Neak Poan, a place of veneration for 9 centuries where the people have come to seek cures for sickness in the holy waters and in times of drought special ceremonies are conducted by monks to pray for rain, so many echoes of our own traditions! The heritage of Cambodia is truly awesome just as the problems are of finding a way to preserve that unique heritage while feeding and educating all the people. The resilience and pride of the people, as exemplified by my delightful students in our 'little school in the fields' and their hunger for learning and knowledge as well as their unfailing courtesy and cheer make being here such an extraordinary privilege.

Lunch in Koh Ker Primary School

Koh Ker is the remote village, two hours from Siem Reap, where PlF is supporting the first high school graduates to develop an Eco trek in the forest, see earlier blog. PLF provides a daily nutritional breakfast of rice and protein, meat, fish or eggs with lots of vegetables to the one hundred children attending, but once a week the staff of PLF and any stray volunteers, like myself,  travel up to Kohker with a van load of meat, vegetables and noodles to make lunch for everyone who turns up.

Mr Hong, the bus driver is clearly in charge, he has been helping Pnheary since she started helping the street children and he's a great cook, we all row in at prepping the meat and veg, the children are far better than me at chopping carrots and garlic! It's typical of what I have found so far here, a great sense of community and cooperation, no-one issuing orders but everyone getting on with a task. It's also a training exercicise both in hygiene and cooking, as everything is carefully washed, hands first, and cleared away tidily.

The stove, might seem primitive but is highly, effective, it only takes twenty minutes to heat the massive wok with the bamboo sticks, which as you can see are long and can be pulled in and out to control the temperature

Behind the kitchen you can see the school garden and paddy fields, dry now but well planted and full of nutritious vegetables  when the rains come.                

Lunch is ready at 11 when classes finish and we each take a classroom, our instructions are to give the children as much as they like, two or three big bowlfuls on average, some clearly pre-schoolers are here too, you can see this little tot squeezed into the front seat with her brother and sister who make sure she gets her portion too!

Many of the children take home lunch too, this little boy spent ages carefully tying up his bag!

Clean water is another major provision by PLF and training the children to wash themselves and wash up after eating

The impact of lunch and the food programme is Multi-faceted,  clearly the educational advantages of good nutrition  are evident in the increased alertness and capacity to concentrate in the classroom. Additionally, the practical skills and knowledge and understanding of personal and food hygiene are very significant for the children and also their families. The children are often the teachers at home, not just for reading and writing but also in household issues. Sadly everywhere in Cambodia, I see the blight of plastic , bags, bottles etc. The schools alone are refuse free zones and the children learn about the importance of controlling malaria and dengue by eliminating dangerous  rubbish heaps.

This school may be situated in a remote part of the forest but it is making great progress, PLF has equipped a library with solar powered electricity, and provided a librarian and English teacher, both villagers who have participated in the PLF dorm programme which enabled them to board in Srayang, about half nah hour away in order to attend High School. Now as graduates, they have returned, not just as excellent local role models but bringing also their special understanding of the history and culture of their heritage.

Letter of thanks to all the Irish contributors to the Ponheary Ly Foundation in Cambodia

www.theplf.org

For the first time in Ponheary Ly Foundation’s history, you’ve made it possible to have the salaries of all 24 of our Khmer public school classroom teachers to be funded at Knar and Tchey Primary Schools for an entire year. This is a huge accomplishment for the organization as it’s proven impossible in the past to find donors for this segment of our operation. People love to see where their money is going in pictures, so they’re keen to donate for bicycles, uniforms, food, games and anything that looks good through a camera’s lens. But, when it comes to the bread and butter of education-the teachers-donors have been unwilling to fund them. And, as you know, without teachers, we’d have nothing else, everything flows from the Cambodian educators who stand in our classrooms.

Your total donation as a group funds an average $44 USD per month subsidy for each of our teachers at Knar and Tchey. This amounts to $440 per school year per teacher, and when combined with their government salary puts their income at a rural liveable wage which they wouldn’t have without the Foundation and your support. We are more likely to retain good teachers at our schools as they now have an income on which they can survive.

Thank you for your efforts, your time, your empathy and understanding of the plight of public school educators in Cambodia. Your support is truly pushing the education system and students in a positive direction, something that wouldn’t be happening if the schools didn’t have our support.

Travis Thompson
Executive Director
Ponheary Ly Foundation
Siem Reap, Cambodia