Pol Pot dam

Because we often travel down highway 71 on our way to the villages (which are north-east of 71, bottom right of map), we often visit the dam and the lake behind it. This time because we had occasion to visit Sreynich, we spent a bit more time there.

Very peaceful and rustic. The waters were high because of the rains. Fishermen patiently took theirs turns to cast their nets.

The serenity of the place of course hides the horrors that had gone into the construction of the dam. During the Khmer Rouge era, Pol Pot constructed this dam diverting parts of the Stung Chinit and Stung Tang Krasang tributaries of the Tonle Sap, using an estimated 40,000-100,000 slaves. Many thousands died during the construction of the dam.

The lake behind the dam. On a previous trip 2008.

Today, the dam (sometimes called the January 1 Dam), supposedly provides water to 20,000 hectares of land in Baray and Santuk districts during the rainy season, and to 2,000 hectares during the dry.

Meas San, 58, was one of the thousands who labored under excruciating conditions to build the January 1 Dam. She said six of the 10 people in her work group disappeared within three months. "They were sick. Their bodies were swollen. All of a sudden they disappeared," she recalled. Lon Keam, 60, also worked on the dam, while pregnant. She had so little food, she could not feed her baby, and watching him suffer was unbearable. "My breast milk was not enough," she said. "I wished that my baby would die." Trucks came by night to take people away. "We were just like pigs," she said. "They could kill us at any time." Today, the dam enables Meas San to eke two rice harvests a year out of less than 1 hectare of land. Lon Keam uses the water for her rice, too.
But it is a bitter harvest. "Sometimes I look into the water and I feel hatred of the Khmer Rouge," Meas San said. "They killed my husband, they separated my daughter from me. I was so hungry." Cambodia Daily

Trouble in Santuk #2

Excerpted from The Mirror (19/11/2009):

“According to a news source, at least three disabled veterans, poor citizens, were arrested between 14 to 16 November 2009, when they resisted armed forces and police of the Kompong Thom authorities, coming to enforce a notification to confiscate land, where the authorities claimed that those citizens live there illegally, in Banteay Rou Ngieng village, Kraya commune, Santuk district, Kompong Thom.

“The source of this information claimed that there is an association with more than 1,700 families of disabled veterans, living there since 2004, and that the association lives on more than 10,000 hectares of land, where each family was provided with 3 hectares by the head of that community, for housing and for growing different crops, since 2005. But on 14 and 16 November 2009, about 50 armed forces and other authorities came with machinery to remove their houses, and they arrested three people.

“The disabled veterans said that the authorities burnt their houses, shot at them, and even arrested some people and hit them with riffle handles, in order to evict them to seize the land for the Tan Bieng company [a Vietnamese company].

For full report, see here.

Trouble in Santuk

Taken from The Phonm Penh Post (19/11/2009):

KAMPONG Thom provincial court has prepared 20 arrest warrants for villagers involved in a clash with soldiers and military police officers that led to nine injuries and two hospitalisations on Monday, officials said.

Provincial Governor Chhun Chhorn said he and two other officials had filed a complaint to hold the villagers accountable for burning four vehicles owned by a Vietnamese rubber company that was awarded an 8,000-hectare economic land concession in Santuk district in 2007. Hundreds of families have condemned the move as unfair, saying they have lived on the disputed property since 2004.

“Now these people are under investigation according to the court warrant because it’s a penal case,” Chhun Chhorn said, adding that the villagers had also burned a Military Police car and destroyed 11 motorbikes.

For full report, see here.

Sreynich

Eight year old Sreynich is lucky to be alive.

She was the victim of a hit and run accident that we had witnessed on the PhnomPenh -Siem Reap highway whicle on the way back from the villages to Baray. We had just turned off at Kampong Thmor when a black SUV in front of us hit little Sreynich. It wasn't really the driver's fault because she had suddenly run across the road and onto the path of the SUV. The poor driver, afraid of being beaten up by the villagers, paused for a while then quickly sped off. Even our driver quickly stepped on his pedal, afraid that he would be mistakened for the guilty vehicle. After he had calmed down, we were able to persuade him to return to the scene, where we eventually helped the little girl get to the district hospital, and then put her on a taxi to Siem Reap.

We were afraid for her life. Eeven though there were no obvious broken bones, she was drifting in and out of coma.

After we left Camobodia, the pastors continued to follow up with her family. We were delighted to receive the news that she survived. Thank God.

On this last trip, we made a stop at her home by the Pol Pot dam, just to say hello and leave her a small gift.

Tropeang Russei

Just north of Baray District is the district of Santuk. We have been told of a community there called Tropeang Russei (Bamboo Pond) consisting of about 700+ families. It is very poor and suffers from governmental neglect. Geographically the region is forested, and families are often displaced because of timber concessions.

Pastor Kea has been entering the region on his own initiative and resources, often in response to requests for help. He has specifically asked for our assistance in this very neglected and remote rural community.

I intend to go in with Kea sometime about the second week of January to evaluate the needs and to see what can be done. It is only about 40 kms from Baray but it takes about 4 hours to get there, so you can imagine the state of the roads.


Please pray for us.... and for the needs of Tropeang Russei.

A floating school? Is it possible? I need help!

There is no doubt the 'Fishing Village' needs a school. The question is how can we construct the school? As the land does not belong to the villages, it is not possible to construct a permanent stilted structure.

Located at the edge of shifting waters of the Ton Le Sap flood plains, the 'Fishing Village' moves with the availability of dry land. Any school will need to be able to move with them. The idea is to have it as floating classrooms so that it can be towed to the nearest location that is close to the community. The problem is that the depth of the waters in the flood plain is unpredictable. My guesstimate is that the deepest channel may not be more than 1-2 meters deep. Hence any floating structure cannot require too much of a depth clearance.

This concept of a floating school is quite different from others, in Siem Reap for example, where the waters are much deeper.

One model I have in mind is perhaps a floating pontoon of empty oil drums. This can be the base upon which a wooden 2 classroom structure can be built upon. Properly constructed, I think the oil drum pontoon should be able to bear the combined weight of the wooden classrooms, furniture, plus about 100 children.

Here is a diagram of such a platform. There are only 4 oil drums here, but theoretically we can construct a base of 500 oil drums beneath a 10 x 30 m platform. Since each empty oil drum has been estimated to be able to support a weight of about 175 kgs, theoretically the platform built upon 500 oil drums should be able to support 87.5 metric tons.

Is this enough? I really don't know. A hundred children each weighing an average of 30 kgs will contribute 3000 kgs, or only 3 metric tons. I don't know the weight estimate for 2 wooden classrooms.

Help!!! Is there an engineer who can help me figure this out?

Looking back

We first entered Cambodia in April 1999. This was the year after the Khmer Rouge surrendered, and after the coup, so some semblance of peace had settled in.

Eight of us - William Chooi, Teo Chee Khiang, Chua Boon Chye, Chua Sock Hoon, Alice Khoong, Lim Kim Thia (from Galilee BP Church), Chua Phek Hoon and myself)- led by William Chooi wandered into Phnom Penh, blur like sotongs, looking for some way to make a difference to the war ravaged land. Our first contacts there were Baptist missionaries Jim and Shirlie Moore. I must confess we understood little about Cambodia at that time, other than it was devastatingly poor. I remember feeling like my guts had been wrenched out as we walked through the Tuol Sleng holocaust museum, and then fighting through the masses of child beggars and destitute children.

Hearts broken, we resolved to do something for those kids. Calling ourselves the Overseas Outreach for Street Kids (OOSK), we talked about setting up an orphanage. About 6 months later, we made a follow-up recce mission to study the existing orphanage. Harvest International Services (Worldwide Evangelization for Christ) had one running, and so had Malaysian missionaries Col Tan Hock Chye and his wife Mabel of Full Gospel Assembly who were just starting off in Kampong Speu. Incidentally, this was also when we first met Esther Ding who eventually became our main collaborator in Cambodia.

Esther Ding in her earlier village handicraft project, SongKhem

But it turned out too big a task for us at that time. We looked for a missionary couple who could be stationed there and who could provide full time oversight of the orphanage, but none was available. Plus it was also clear that Carmel wasn't really ready for such a heavy commitment.

Meanwhile we started doing medical-dental missions just to remain engaged in Cambodia. We worked with Sharon Lim (now at WEC) at HIS, Lau Pak Soon and Cambodia Methodist Services (CMS) up in Baray.

These were important formative years. We got to know the people there, got to understand the culture, and most importantly I believe, got to develop an insight into the myriad problems besetting the country.

Gradually I grew increasingly skeptical of the medical dental missions and eventually gave them up. Too expensive to run and too logistically heavy to put up each year. Plus because they tend to operate near urban centres they didn't readily get to the people who really needed the help. I began to see the building of schools as a far more important mission with more substantive longer term outcomes. During the medical missions we had already adopted a strategy of moving away from large urban centres, and pushing deeper and deeper into unsupported rural Cambodia, especially in the Baray district, where the local pastors under CMS were also game to go. These were the regions where few church short term mission groups were ready to enter. Here we had a ready partner in Esther Ding and her band of local pastors. OOSK had been disbanded as it gradually defaulted to the organized activities of the Church Missions Committee, but our engagement in Cambodia could not stop. The burden was just far too compelling.

These latter missions have been surprising successful, and to date we have completed 5 schools with a total of 14 classrooms in remote villages in the Baray district (actually one village is in Kampong Chham). God has been faithful. Very faithful.

As this year draws to a close, I am so conscious of how God has led me over the last 10 years (yes, a full decade since we entered Cambodia). I just counted 16 Cambodian stamps in my passport over the last 10 years. At least one trip every year. It has been a truly amazing journey, and each time I feel the work is drawing to a close, He challenges with new possibilities.

What next? More about this later......