In Cambodia, December 16: Hello to you all. Yesterday had highs and lows – sometimes both at once.
High times come in KAVTV electric-electronic school for the disabled. I notice the students’ sometimes-shocking deformities — for about three seconds. Then the bursts of laughter, the whizz-clank of tools and crickle of soldering irons, and everywhere the famous Cambodian smile overwhelm the senses. This is a thumping good success story of lives transformed from hopeless with training and work provision that bring income, self-respect, and society status.
Upstairs in the office, Hem Phang (Pong), KAVTV creator and Executive Director, is ecstatic. Australia-New Zealand Bank (ANZ) granted US$8,000 and 16,000 over two years, but said two is the limit. Then TV Kampuchea and the Phnom Penh Post newspaper gave excellent feature stories about KAVTV. So impressed was ANZ that another $8,400 is offered, subject to matching funds being raised.
(check google search: Phnom Penh Post KAVTV – The disabled train for new life in society )
A muggy day. Phang, in shorts, removes his false leg. I’ve seen landmine-produced stumps for decades; his is nearly as high up as they go. I’ll spare you a description. It’s not something you get used to, but we can and should treat it as normal. After all, it can’t be changed. We chat about the strangeness that took off his leg but moved him to create this magnificent project that changes lives and brings so much joy. A dragged-out struggle it was, partly in lockstep with CSG as reviewed in our current newsletter (attached). At last, success is breeding success. Though the needs are still strong, a great ripple effect now spreads the good news far and wide to benefit not only KAVTV and its graduates but the disabled sector as a whole.
Nouv Vuthim (Voo-TEEM) joins us for lunch. He was the motorbike taxi driver that fate ‘told’ me we must help after about six minutes knowing him (see Destiny’s Child attached). Now he teaches Grade 6 while working on his Master’s Degree in English. Vuthim has just been recommended to move up the scale of teacher status and standing, since his work is so very good.
We all go to a favourite streetside café. I’ve been away for more than two years, so it’s enormous fun to reconnect with and joke with the staff (What, no crocodile meat? How about gecko?)
I spent a first night at the home of Khmer (Cambodian) tenor Hy Chanthavouth’s house. His adorable family met me at the airport; he is in Year Five of CSG sponsorship, studying voice in Canada. His widowed mother Kimhuon, one of my heroes, struggled through thick, thin and worse to make a good life for her six children. Chanthavouth’s success in Canada brings her great joy, much as she and the whole extended family (about fourteen people) miss him.
Now I am staying with Soun Piseth (Pee-SETT) whom we sponsored in 1997-98 to study piano and composing in Canada. After some ups and downs, Piseth feels he has found his way with big-picture awareness that he first glimpsed during his year and a half in Canada. Now 31, with wife Anna and two adorable young children, Piseth is deeply philosophical about life. As a composer, keyboard man, studio technician and actor, he is finally reaching levels of success and recognition that can fuel his desires to help others.
Driving to his home at around 8:30 pm, we happen by a garment factory at shift-change time. You see such buildings a lot here. They are very long, with barely any openings. Perhaps eight hundred people swarm by us. As with Canada’s coal miners a century ago, they might never see the sun since they work twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for $60 to $100 per month – all so our clothes can be cheaper in developed countries. Any of those people might be like Vuthim, if they only had the chance, or at least in fulfilling jobs that allowed some family time. For about five minutes we are trapped in this dispersing sea of enslaved humanity – definitely a ‘low’ for us both.
Home we arrive at last. Piseth’s boy Peterson, now 3, greets us with dimpled smile, piercing black eyes and whirlwind activity. Piseth’s unbelievably beautiful wife Anna has great Khmer food ready, and we share family-time delights around the table. The day ends on a definite high.
