House Building in Cambodia - Oct 7 to 15

Our trip to Cambodia involved both sightseeing and community outreach- a special combination that made for memorable, dramatic, and unique experiences. Prior to our trip we had several meetings with colleagues and parents to discuss the itinerary and to come up with fundraising ideas for the charities we went to support such as Tabitha and Maryknoll Aids Orphanage. The high school campus (with a total of 200 students) raised $700 in one day of fundraising!
The first stop on the itinerary brought us into Siem Reap for some sightseeing. A small town (by Asian standards) of nearly 1 million people, Siem Reap is the closest city to one of SE Asia's greatest tourist attractions and UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ankor Wat, in addition to a number of other Temples built by the Khmer empire. The temples were astounding and we took a number of pictures both at sunset on the day of our arrival, and the following morning at sunrise.
The temple with the trees is Ta Prohm and was used as a set in the movie Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie. It literally is set in the jungle and is quite a remarkable site as you view the trees growing over and around the temple buildings.

One of the more surprising things about the trip was the food. It never occured to us that it would be so good! Influenced by the Colonial French, and neighbouring Thailand and Viet Nam, the Khmer take great pride in their cooking. One of their local favourites is the Amoke (seen here, being eaten by Angela) - a curry dish served in a young cocunut, with a variety of local vegetables and a choice of chicken, fish, or pork.

The following day after touring Ankor Wat and a few of the other temples, we flew to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Pehn (pronounced nom pen or panom pen) where we met with Tabitha and a variety of other NGO charities. The Khmer Rouge came into power on April 17, 1975 - following the end of the Viet Nam/American War - and were responsible for the genocide of nearly 3 million people over their period of power which lasted until they were overthrown by the Vietnamese Army in 1979. Civil war and unrest persisted from 1979 until 1998 when the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot finally passed away. His death provided little comfort for the Cambodians, however, as the international community never held him responsible for the genocide that occured under his rule.

In fact, anti-communist sentiment and refusal to recognize the Vietnamese government in Cambodia, led to Khmer Rouge members retaining official seats in the United Nations. Needless to say, the failure of the international community to bring the war criminals to "justice" has impacted the psyche of many Cambodians (if no one felt it appropriate to punish the bully, than maybe they deserved their fate?). Visit the link to learn more about the Khmer Rouge, "Year Zero" and the poitics involved in Cambodia's dark history.

One of the primary purposes of our visit, along with 17 other staff and parents was community service in the form of house building - with Tabitha. This brought us from Cambodia's past to its present. With the money raised through the three CIS campuses, along with help of many family and friends with their generous donations, we managed to raise enough money to build 10 homes for rural Cambodian families.

When we arrived to build the homes, the foundation and frames were already constructed. Here you can see the contrast between the wooden homes we built compared to the grass huts they were currently living in. In total our group built 10 houses for the village - 6 on the first day and another 4 the second day. Suffice to say swinging a hammer for 8 hours a day is a lot different than what we we're used to. Luckily Angela comes from good genes - as she quickly became adept at hammering in the boards.

The official handing over of the homes to the families, symbolized by giving each family a blanket made by Tabitha, at the end of the first day proved to be an emotional moment for all involved. A few tears were shed by both the villagers and our group. The house building experience was truly humbling. The children played and laughed with one another and with us during our breaks. They loved getting their picture taken as they primped themselves prior to the picture and then rushed to see the picture on the digital screen with the excitement of a kid opening presents on Christmas morning.

After the house building we headed back to Phnom Pehn. We were scheduled to visit the two People Improvement Organization (PIO) schools and and the Maryknoll and New Hope Aids Orphanage over the final three days. The first PIO school is a small, one room school housing about 50 children aged 4 to 16. It was situated in one of the poorer areas of Phnom Pehn and the walk there brought us through dilapidated apartment buildings but also through a busy, vibrant and friendly community who all took the opportunity to say 'Sok Sabay' or 'hello' and gently greeted us - a simple head bow with their hands raised together by their heads - as we made are way to the school. Garbage was collecting in the area adjacent to the school house and the heat along with the recent rain provided smells that we won't soon forget. The dump by Rick Hansen SS has nothing on this school. The kids were extremely excited to see us and sang us both songs in English and in Khmer. We played games and did crafts giving them a break from the tedious math problems that were on the board when we arrived. The second PIO school was much bigger with three classrooms and a total of about 150 kids. However the school was situated in the shadow of one of the large city dumps. The drive to the school was literally through a road of sludge - the runoff from the dump due to the rain and into the neighbouring community where these kids live and go to school. The kids go to school for half the day and pick garbage in the aternoon to earn money for the family. Families are encouraged to send their kids to these schools instead of having the kids working all day, by being given incentives by the PIO organization such as a kilo of rice per month. Through our fundraising efforts we were able to make monetary contributions as well as provide school resources and new uniforms for the students.

We ended our trip with visits to the two orphanages and AIDS Hospices - Maryknoll and New Hope. In many cases these children are orphans who have lost their parents because of AIDS. The majority of these kids find themselves very sick and on the brink of death when they arrive at the orphanages. The kids are provided with resources such as safe and healthy foods, uniforms and school supplies, an avenue to obtain the Anti-Retral-Viral (ARV) drugs and a caring environment that will enable independence as the children enter adulthood.

The country is in great need in so many ways and hopefully our week in Cambodia helped to ease that need for some. We learned so much on this trip and went to bed every night discussing values, priorities, human nature, humanity's capacity to love and hate, heal and destroy, etc...

We extend a sincere invitation to anyone who would like to visit us in Singapore and include Cambodian community outreach in your trip. We will likely make two trips again in the next school year (fall 2007 and spring 2008). All the arrangements will be made, you just need to come with an open heart, a warm smile, and spirited energy to share with grateful Cambodians.