Our Cambodian field trip; another thought-provoking experience

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Today was a remarkable day for us, and I think also for 22 children from the Koh Ker school about 150 kilometers from Siem Reap. Today was our field trip to the temples with these children, who had never visited the temples or the town of Siem Reap before.

Our day began as usual, enjoying a wonderful breakfast at our ridiculously luxurious hotel. (I woke having recovered from my stomach upset of the previous day, but still a bit wary of eating much.) We were waiting in the reception area when Ponheary, our guide for the day and the namesake of the foundation that organizes this and lots of other good works for Cambodian schoolchildren, arrived to pick us up at 9:00 am. (For more information, visit www.theplf.org.)

The children’s day began hours earlier, when they had gotten up and scrubbed themselves clean (as directed by their “doctor”) and put on their best clothes for their big adventure. By 6:00 am, all 22 of them (plus one little sister who cried so hard they let her come), their teacher, their doctor, the driver, the driver’s wife and young son were all loaded into a bright yellow van designed to hold perhaps 15 people. They drove three hours, with no air conditioning, to get to Siem Reap. Ponheary had settled them into a nearby restaurant for breakfast before she came in another van to pick us up at the hotel.

We joined them at the restaurant, where they were concentrating on pouring tea and cleaning their plates. Most of them wore their school uniforms - white shirt and dark blue pants or skirts - though some wore a slight variation on this theme. At a glance, they appeared to be between 8 and 12 years old, but as is so often the case, they were older than they looked. Some of the older kids were 14, and aside from the tag-along little sister (who may have been 4 years old) the youngest students were 10 or 11. They were chosen out of the 117 kids at their school as the healthiest and most appropriate to take part in this trip.

Their village of about 600 people had recently suffered a terrible outbreak of malaria and dengue fever. In fact, when Ponheary’s foundation went there a few months ago with the first big delivery of school uniforms and supplies, they discovered that the kids were quite sick, and they quickly developed a new plan to get them some medical help. A local “doctor” from a nearby village was employed to come to the school every day and administer treatment. His actual qualifications aren’t clear to me - Ponheary explained that he’s not a real doctor, but has worked in a hospital for a long time, knows a lot, and now runs a health clinic in a nearby village. What matters is that he has been able to help most of the children recover, and continues to see them regularly and attempt to do some education that will improve their overall health. Unfortunately, two of these children’s classmates died of dengue. Despite money being raised to send them to the hospital hours away, the treatment came too late for them. More money had to be raised to bring the bodies back home, and Ponheary was clearly distressed by the fact that the families had no money for funerals, and so they just buried the children in the dirt, “like dogs.”

Their village has no electricity, no running water, no health clinic, and no market. Their parents are farmers, eking out a living growing rice and gathering whatever is edible in the fields and forest, including lizards and spiders. The children work in the rice fields along with their parents, and the longest school break is timed so that the children are available for one of the harvest seasons, when their labor is absolutely necessary to their family’s survival. There is no regular healthcare, and one of the boys in the group had lost an eye to chicken pox a few years ago. Both Ponheary and the doctor lamented that the families know little about hygiene and some of the health problems could be prevented, but habits are hard to change.

So here they were, 22 of them, having taken probably their first bus ride, sitting in a restaurant for the first time, seeing a town with 2- and 3-story buildings for the first time, about to visit their country’s national treasures. And here we were, a group of four Americans, joining them for the day and being smacked in the face with the contrast between our lives and theirs and with the awareness of our incredible privilege. There were some timid smiles exchanged, and then Steve broke the ice by pulling out the video camera to take some quick shots and then replaying them so the kids could see themselves on the screen. This brought more smiles, and the kids became more comfortable with us as the day went on, happily posing for photographs and sometimes requesting that Jasmine or even Dylan join them in the photos.

We went to Angkor Wat first, entering at the exact opposite side that most tourists enter, which allowed for beautiful morning light on the walls and towers as we approached. It was less crowded than I had expected - we had actually come for a few minutes the evening before to buy our temple passes and visit briefly, and it had been really busy at that point, probably as people anticipated being there for sunset.

Altogether, we visited the same three temples that mom and I had visited a couple of weeks earlier: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm. The visits were relatively brief, as Ponheary’s agenda was for the kids to see as many temples as possible in the relatively short time available. At various points, the group would stop for the kids’ guide to explain to them something about what they were looking at, and Ponheary would tell us a bit here and there, either about the temples or about the children and their village (which I was particularly interested in.) At other points, we would stop at good photo spots so the kids could have their pictures taken. They were told when we started that if they wanted their photo taken, they should just ask any of us with a camera, and they seemed to feel comfortable doing so. They would pose one at a time, two at a time, or in a small group. (I learned later from Ponheary that a group of three people in a photo is considered bad luck and would make their parents uncomfortable, so the few photos of three kids would not be printed.) At Ponheary’s suggestion, I took most of the photos showing the each student from head to toe - as she said, “If they ever come back to Angkor Wat again, they will enjoy seeing how small they were the first time they came.” The kids tended to look very serious and formal in the photographs, but loosened up a bit as the day went on and we encouraged more smiles in the photos. They also began inviting Jaz into some of their photos, and spent much of the time walking around holding her hand delightedly. A few girls even got bold enough to beckon Dylan to join them in a photo - he looks like a giant next to them - and the kids’ teacher wanted a photo with me - I look very white and sweaty next to her! The doctor was also interested in having photos taken, one with his arm firmly around Dylan's shoulders, and I invited the driver’s wife and son to have their photo taken, as they were visiting the temples for the first time themselves.

Steve, Dylan and Jaz had a very different temple-visiting experience than mom and I did a couple of weeks ago. There was little explanation about what we were seeing, no long stories about the bas-reliefs we were admiring, no struggle to decipher terms like “Thousand Calorie Buddha.” I was far more focused on watching the kids and taking photos than looking at the temples, but I hope that the rest of the family didn’t feel cheated out of a more in-depth experience. (It occurs to me as I write this at home at 4:30 am several days later that I should ask them…)

The kids seemed interested in looking at the temples, and being kids, they were also interested in sitting in the shade and getting drinks or snacks when possible. (And the boys were interested in goofing off a little bit, as boys are known to do.) I was interested in the fact that some of them were sweating even more profusely than I was - especially some of the girls who had sweat beaded on their faces like I have rarely seen. For the most part, it has seemed to me that local people just don’t sweat, at least not as visibly as I do.

After a couple of hours of visiting temples, we came upon some fruit sellers in one of the parking lots. They were selling mangos and pineapples, which seemed like the perfect refreshing snack to keep up our strength. I watched as the kids bought bags of cut-up fruit, paying 500 or 1000 riel (12-25 cents) depending on the purchase. When I approached to buy some mango, I was charged twice as much. The price was still so ridiculously cheap that I would have been happy to pay five times as much, but I wondered whether this is a common practice to charge foreigners more than locals. Further questioning suggests that it is common, and that is perfectly fine with me.

We enjoyed our fruit - the kids dipped their green mangos in a mixture of sugar, salt, and chilies, but we passed on that - and continued on with our field trip until about 1:30, when we headed back into Siem Reap for lunch. Some of the kids rode in our van, and Steve chose to ride in the kids’ van on the way to and from the temples, trying to learn a few words in Khmer along the way. Ponheary had arranged for us to eat at the Khmer Kitchen, a popular local restaurant, and they had a long table ready for all of us. The kids looked a bit uncertain about protocol as the waitresses began serving rice and then putting plates of spring rolls, spicy chicken, fish, and bowls of soup along the table, but once they got the hang of serving themselves, they ate and ate and ate, cleaning their plates of every last morsel and never refusing an offer of another helping.

The plan was to let them walk around the town for a little bit before starting back on the three-hour drive home. The restaurant was right next to the Old Market in downtown Siem Reap, and Ponheary thought they might enjoy walking through the market, which would be somewhat of a novel experience for them. I asked if we could give each of the children a little money so they might buy a little something and Ponheary thought that would be fine, so we gave her a pile of $1 bills to distribute to the children. In my ignorance, I had expected they would buy some sort of trinket or treat - and a few of them did buy cheap plastic sunglasses with bits of money they had in their pockets already - but almost without exception, they used those dollars to buy as much food as they could get to bring home to their families. They entered the market and never went beyond the food stalls, accumulating bags of fruit and other food. It felt good to know they could bring something home because of our tiny contribution, but that tiny contribution is inconsequential in contrast to the need. I will be thinking about this for a long time, and about what part I can play in making a more significant difference.

Eventually, it was time for them to start back to their village. A few final photos were taken, and then all 28 people squeezed back into the yellow van, sitting half on top of each other, laps piled with bags of fruit, windows open to catch a breeze along the way. The driver distributed warm cans of soya milk as refreshment for the ride home, the van door slid shut, and many hands waved as the van pulled away. I didn’t envy the kids their long, hot ride, but I imagine that they will remember many things about this day, as I will.

When Jaz had originally arranged this field trip with Ponheary, the plan had been to bring a group of children from a school near Siem Reap to the temples, and the plan had included our visiting the school itself. Because the Koh Ker school was too far away for us to visit, Ponheary offered to bring us to visit a school nearby so that we could still get a glimpse into the world of Cambodian education. We headed off to Tchey school, not far from the airport in Siem Reap.

This school is much larger and better equipped than the Koh Ker school - it has about 700 students, 17 teachers, gardens and rice fields, a soccer field, a breakfast program, and a library. This school benefits greatly from Ponheary’s foundation, which subsidizes the teacher’s meager salary of $30 a month so they are less likely to be exhausted from working other jobs to make ends meet. (The assistant principal at this school teaches in the morning, works in the office in the afternoon, and sells fish in the market at night to make a living.) The foundation also provides uniforms and school supplies for children who cannot afford the $12 a year it takes to purchase these. (Education is free, but uniforms and supplies are not. Education is also not compulsory, and children’s labor is often needed to help support their families, but most parents seem willing to have their children attend school if they can afford it.) The children and teachers plant and harvest two crops of rice per year in the small field behind the school, as well as growing other vegetables to supplement the food program. While we were there, some of the kids were carrying 5-gallon buckets of water from the pump to the garden. Others were sweeping the courtyard, playing soccer, or busy at their desks in their classroom.

Kids attend school either for the morning or afternoon session, and a typical classroom has 40 or more kids. There is one temporary classroom in a thatched-roof building to contain an overflow of students. This little classroom backs up to the principal’s office and unfortunately prevents him from opening his window to get any cross-ventilation because the children would hit their head on his shutters. The poor man was working on paperwork in his office, looking hot and uncomfortable but most welcoming - he ran out to get coconuts and slice off the tops so we could drink coconut milk through straws. I looked around his office, noticing that there were fluorescent lights on the ceiling and a light switch at the doorway, and commented to Ponheary that someone should get the poor man a fan. “No electricity,” she explained. But what about the light fixtures…? Apparently, an NGO had come in and wired the school for lights and outlets, but there was no electricity to the buildings, so it was all pointless. Pretty helpful, huh?


By 5:00 or so, we were back at our hotel, hot and tired and ready to cool off, with promises made to Ponheary to get all the field trip photos on a CD for her before leaving town. We spent our evening in our typical fashion: cold drinks, tasty food, wandering the night Market, playing cards, counting our blessings, and trying not to think about how close we are to end of this adventure.

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Comments

[Mary and Greg Campbell]

WOW.
WOW. Wow. What excellent ambassadors you all are.