Floating school@Boeung Rial in need of repairs

How quickly time has passed. Once we had fretted about whether we could actually get the idea of the floating school (literally) off the ground. Now it's been almost two years since we floated the school at Boeung Rial. During the last big floods last year, the school had morphed temporarily into an ark for some of the struggling frightened families.

We visited Boeung Rial just to get a feel of how things had progressed and whether or not the school had been rightfully been returned to the community as a school.

Our worries were unfounded. Juhan, the man entrusted  with the task of looking after the school had done a marvelous job. The school was back to its original function.There are a fairly constant 25 students who come regularly. Juhan had assured us not to worry, saying that he would die to protect the school. Somehow, I believe him. But he shared that vandals (probably drunks) sometimes try to cause trouble for the school by cutting the anchoring ropes. Also sometimes, the storms are too strong for the scrub branches where the school is tethered to. Each time the school loses its mooring, he has had to re-tow the school back. Sometimes there is not enough help, and the gasoline cost of towing the school has begun to be a financial burden for him.

Now, on top of replacing the frequently vandalized anchoring ropes, it is also apparent that the bamboo and oil drum floats of the school need repairs. This is clearly going to cost.

The task for us now is to raise the money to repair the bamboo and the oil drum floats and to provide Juhan with some financial support to pay for the gasoline needed by the boats to tow the school around.

Ark @ Boeung Rial

Floating in about 4ms of water. The vegetation at back is actually the tops of  a copse of gum trees.

When we built the floating school at Boeung Rial, we never realized how God will eventually use the school.

The recent floods have pretty much driven the villages from there homes.The flood waters have risen the water levels so that there few areas left for the villagers to deploy their homes. We visited the small cluster of homes that had managed to find a shallow strip of land. Even so, the villagers shared that they were scared to remain in their homes at nights when the winds were strong. A few families had sought refuge in the floating school, which for them represented the only stable, safe and secure refuge from the rains and floods. School had essentially ceased during this time because the teachers have been unable  make the trip in to the school.

Swee Oon will be pleased to learn that the floating school is finally really floating in about 4 metres of water.

Images of Boeung Rial

Ee Sin and Chi Seng

Piang Ngok doing his thing

Jimmy

Penny and Chee Khiang

Me and Ps Kia

Ps Boon Leong, Jhon and Chi Seng

Ping and Swee Oon - How deep??

District Officer, Ps Kia, Esther, Ps Boon Leong and me at back

Veron, Wai Ling and Chew

Jhon

Ping

Light of Life School@Boeung Rial

You can see the floating school at back

We prayed for rain...and boy, did it rain!! We thought we'd have to slosh through muddy fields all the way to Boeung Rial, but God spared us that ordeal and gave us rain in abundance. So much rain that we had to brave in hour long journey in open boats. These ponchos came in handy.....but only to a limited extent because we still ended up drenched.But it was indeed a joyous meeting at the floating classroom.

The villagers gamely braved the elements just to be at the commissioning. Even the District Officer made it.

Me with Ps Samreth.... Poster says Light of Life School with a verse from John 8:12.

Ps Boon Leong preaching openly with Ps Samreth translating. The District officer is at the back.

What can I say....? It was just such a wonderful moment to see the school in stark physical reality. Despite the rain, the villagers were in high spirits. The government was to have appointed teachers, but because the school was so inaccessible, they could not get anyone to take up the job. As a result, we continue to use the part time teachers from Somrong Church to take the classes. Currently 2 teachers ran classes 3 days a week, but thanks the the generous support from a well wisher, we can now pay the teachers to run classes 5 days a week.

So excited about the floating classroom.....

The rains have filled up the Tonle Sap flood plains. The above photo is of Boeung Rial at the moment and you can see the poverty and the poor state of their dwellings.

The floating classroom is however almost complete. This is a picture of the structure as they are putting in the finishing touches. Not quite ready to float yet....and we are praying that it will indeed float. But there's no reason why it should not float. The classroom looks fantastic and I am actually quite pleased to see it brought to this stage of completion. What a joyous occasion for the villagers! Praise God!! I can't wait to go and see it for myself.

I will be there in end of September with Ps Peter. This will primarily be to review the Andaut situation. We will take the opportunity to see the floating classroom before we go and commission it in October.

Floating school construction at Beoung Rial beached by timber shortage

The construction for the floating school was unable to proceed for sometime because of the difficulties contractors faced in obtaining timber. This constraint was largely because of the recent government crackdowns on illegal logging.

But I understand timber is now available again and we should be able to begin construction. We will remit the necessary funds for the work this week.

Floating school@Boeung Rial - design sketch#2

Any contributions to the school building fund would be very much appreciated.

Any cheques should be made out to :

"Mt Carmel BP Church Ltd" and tagged on back to "Cambodia School Building Fund"

The cheques can be mailed directly to :

Attn:Fiona
Mount Carmel BP Church
Clementi Bible Centre
152 West Coast Road
SINGAPORE 127370

Floating school@Boeung Rial - design sketch

This is my sketch of the design for the floating classroom. The classroom dimensions are 7m x 10m. I have added a skirting of about 1-1.5m along the front 3 sides of the classroom, plus a small toilet round the back.

The bundles of bamboos upon which the classroom floats are about 1m x 0.6m with a length of about 3-4m. I am not sure how many bamboo bundles are needed and have represented these as about 5 longitudinal bundles x 3 lengths to extend the full 11-12m of the platform.

The estimated cost was about US$13000, but I expect with the added skirting it might be closer to US$15000.

A floating school in Boeung Rial? Yes, it can be done!!

We are excited because as we learn more and more about the geography of Boeung Rial and the surrounding environs, as well as the various options for a floating classroom, we are increasingly convinced we can put up a floating school.

It is quite clear that the lake cannot take a deep hulled structure, such as what we saw in Prek Pra. We were however, told there was a floating house up river from Boeung Rial that Juhan was looking after that was built upon a deck floating on bamboo. We were not aboe to view this floating house, but a day later we were able to view from a distance, a similar floating building.

North of Kampong Thmor, two tributaries of the Tonle Sap cut across Highway 6 - Steung Chinit and Steung Tang Krasang. Just off the bridge at Tang Krasang, there was a floating office of the Fisheries Police. It was the perfect model of what we think a floating classroom might look like. The deck floats upon what seems to be large bundles of bamboo running lengthwise. The building itself is the size of a classroom, and there is a skirting platfrom around. The bamboo floats appear to be supported at strategic locations by oil drums.

We were not able to get close enough to view the actual structure, but what we saw gave us cause to be hopeful. For one thing, there seems to be local expertise to build a shallow hulled floating structure that could serve as a classroom. Other considerations are that the materials used are relatively cheap locally available material, that can be easily maintained and replaced should they deteriorate.

Ps Samreth and Kea will now go and do their homework to identify the contractor and to cost the building of one floating classroom.We think we should do just one classroom first, and then add on in modular form, the other classrooms as the need arises.

Fishing Village @ Boeung Rial #4 - the community

In the dry season, Boeung Rial is perched in the cove of a small lake south of the main TonleSap. It is linked to a number of family clusters along the shores of a river than runs in a Southerly towards another lake, e.g. SonnTann (hope I got the spelling right) and Kampong Chham (apparently named because some Chham fisherfolk used to live there. (BTW 'kampong' actually means a port by by the river).

We hopped into small narrow fishing boats which brought our team to Kampong Chham where we had a meeting with the heads of Boeung Rial and Kampong Chham.

SonnTann (?spelling)

Disembarking at Kampong Chham

Village Chiefs of Kampong Chham and Boeung Rial

Veron, just before she got 'baptized'

The sun was already fast setting as we returned to Boeung Rial. All in all, a good productive outing. We had a meeting of minds and have been convinced of the villages' commitment to the idea of a floating school. Importantly, Juhan (Ceruk), the Boeung Rial Chief seemed like someone we can trust to take charge of the school.

Floating School@Prek Pra

Prek Pra is a village about half hour south of Phnom Penh, on the Bassac River (distributary of the Mekong/TonleSap). We drove there to visit with Judy Johns of the Christian & Missionary Alliance because the Alliance looks after 2 floating schools catering to the riverine Vietnamese community there.

There were two floating classrooms. The classrooms were actually built upon large boats. In the photo you can see the hull of the boats beneath the classroom. On either side, were short booms held up by oil drums. These apparently were to provide some stability to the classrooms.

It wasn't very clear how deep the hulls were, but we estimated perhaps about 1.5 -2 ms.

It wasn't a model we could use, as we think we might need a shallower clearance on the flood plains. Judy wasn't sure, but she estimated the yearly cost of maintenance might be in the region of about US$600.

Judy, Veron, Esther, Jhon, Me, Jimmy. Piang Ngok taking the photo.