Village Life

One of our first projects upon arriving in Cambodia was to travel to villages in the southern part of the country where a ministry was working with the villagers to improve their lives.  Cambodia is a poor country, and the poorest generally live in remote villages.  Homes are often simple huts constructed on top of stilts.  Some are more elaborate than others, but all are unsecured by doors. They lead such simply lives that there is nothing to steal.  Chickens and pigs roam beneath the structures.  Hygeine is an important issue.  Animal waste is often uncollected and a danger to their health. Bathroom facilities in remote villages often don't exist. Water usually comes from wells or cisterns that collect rain water from the roof during the rainy season.  The cisterns usually do not supply enought water year around during the dry season.  Wells can be contaminated.  In the village we visited, the few wells were insufficient to supply the water needs and the one at the village school was contaminated with arsenic.  A number of years ago, before the assistance of the ministry we visited, a number of the villagers died of diarrhea from the contaminated well water causing others to flee the village.  Thanks to the help of the ministry we were with, new wells were dug and the villagers were trained to collect animal waste and restrict the large animals from freely wandering in areas where the people lived.  The wells were hand dug by the villagers and encased in concrete to keep them clean and protect the villagers from accidentally falling in.  Each well could be dug for $100 and shared by several families.  It was called the Living Well program.  More wells still need to be dug when money is available, but it stopped the spread of disease so the villagers no longer needed to flee their homes. Despite the poverty, village life is quite pleasant.  The people and children are happy and content as they live their simple life and work their fields. When darkness falls, the activity stops in the village we visited, for they have no electricity. Thankfully, the government has run electricity to a nearby village which suggests it may be coming to them as well in time.  The children, and there are lots of them, are educated in the village school.  There are about 270 children in this school that serves just this village.  Thankfully, the government built them a new schoolhouse to replace the old one room school. Now they are able to have smaller classes divided by grades. There are 4 teachers for the 270 students and, we are told, each is paid a salary equivolent to $15.00 per month.  Even by Cambodian standards, this salary is especially low. Still, there are few expenses in the villages and my sense was tha the villagers assisted by providing food and shelter.  The typical village family has 10-12 children. In the cities, families average 4-5 children.  City dwellers remember fondly their childhoods in the villages.  Children in the cities must play in the streets where traffic is a constant danger. We very much enjoyed visiting the village school where the children were very happy and greated us with collective words of welcome and huge smiling faces.  Our kids, although shy, were able to tell a little about their school experiences in the US.  We were able to leave small gifts for the chilren and teachers that our group brought along from Korea. We also visited a small house church that meets beneath one of the village homes. Not many villagers attended the service, but it is there for those who want to learn more about the God this ministry serves. We were delighted by the beauty of praise songs sung in Khmer and were able to join in with our English.  The village pastor shared a message while we sat on mats laid out on the ground (my old bones used a wooden bench instead.) After the service the people mingled and then returned to their simple village lives. The ministry that is working with the village we visited is also helping to improve the farming techniques to make the farms more productive.  Villagers are usually resistent to change until they see their benefits. Slowly change is coming as farmers try using gas driven generators to pump water to their fields during the dry season. Crops are improving and more land is put into production. We visited with the village chief who was kind enough to help show us around the village.  He is a very nice middle aged man who lived in a home similar to the othe villagers.  His primary responsibility was to resolve disputes that might arise between the villagers.  From all appearances he did his job well. One final village story for now. We met a young man in this village who was seriously injured when he was stepped on by a water buffalo while working a field as a child (water buffalos are a beast of burden in Cambodia and are everywhere). A series of surgeries failed to save his foot and his leg is now deformed as well. He has a beautiful voice and sang us a song he wrote in Khmer.  It was a story about his life, a lost love after his injury, and his hopes for the future. He is now setting up a computer lab in one of the village huts with the hope of teaching computer skills to the village children.  It is an ambitious plan, especially without electricity.  He is now using battery power, but the ministry hopes that some form of solar energy might help as well.  Even solar energy is problematical during the monsoon season when there can be little sun light during the day.  It is good to see the hopes and dreams of the village people as they seek to preserve their culture in a modernized world.  We are very thankful for our time with them and inspired by their simple lives. I'll resist the urge to compare them to wealthy, spoiled and often unhappy Americans in the US (of course I didn't resist the urge at all as you can clearly see). More later on this wonderful country. We are off today to visit Angkor Wat and an ancient civilization.