There is a complexity about Cambodia that I’ve tried to comprehend and have only now begun to grasp once I’ve learned to understand myself and reconcile with my own personal inner struggles. Perhaps my discomfort with Cambodia is a reflection of my own unease with myself. I see reflected in Cambodia so many of my own struggles – the struggle to reconcile with a tragic and traditional past with an ever encroaching and modern future, the struggle to balance family and society with a sense of individual purpose, the struggle to carve out an illustrious future while balancing an ominous present.
I discovered these contradictions in some form or other in every one and in every place we visited in Cambodia.
RATANAKIRI
When she was young, the elders told Sav Samourn that butterflies are born white and bloom with color only once they reach the mountains. The butterflies flutter between emerald green leaves, their yellow and sapphire blue wings flickering in the light.
Sav Samourn has sharp black eyes which pierces you when she stares, but only long enough to avert her eyes again, her lips blossoming into a bashful smile. Her skin shines like burnt bronze and her hair, which flows like liquid charcoal, is spun into a bun that partially falls down her shoulders. She speaks little but reveals infinite stories with her movements.
Sav Samourn and her husband moved from the main Jarai village near the Sesan River and up to the highlands five years ago, to start their new family and plant their own orchards of cashew trees and rice fields. Although far from the village, they found the red dirt, or dey krahom, as they called it, to be much more fertile than the sandy banks bordering the river.
Sav Samourn and her husband never officially married. In the Jarai custom, they simply took up house and began living together. During their time in the highlands, Sav Samourn gave birth to four girls. The eldest daughter is a spunky five year old, who carries her youngest sister, a six month old, wrapped with a scarf or krama, on her back. She taps the baby’s bottom before placing her on her back, mimicking the gestures of her mother with detailed resemblance. She assists her mother with all manner of household chores, helping carry water from the drinking hole, chop sugar cane, and dig for wood potato. I watched in awe as she chopped wood and prepared the fire to cook potato and stewed bananas with the strength and humor of a fully-grown adult.
After giving birth to four girls, Sav Samourn and her husband also wanted a son, but she knows that a son would not help her around the house the way her daughters do. A son would be coddled and revered and would not be expected to work as hard. Sav Samourn‘s daughter trails her mother without question. Despite all this, Sav Samourn wishes there was a way for her daughter to attend school. But the school is far away, located in the main village.
For the last three or four months, the village has been suffering from an unusually dry season. It has only rained four or five times and each time, only a slight sprinkling. If the drought persists, there will be no rice crop to harvest and Sav Samourn and her husband will have to purchase rice to feed their family, something they have never had to do before. They have always been able to harvest enough rice to store in their granaries to last the entire year.
Sav Samourn says the elders think the drought is due to the clearing of the forests. Almost all the trees in the highlands have been cleared by Vietnamese companies, but also mostly by the indigenous people themselves, hoping to cash in on the lumber business and clear land for more cashew orchards and rice fields. Although Sav Samourn grieves the clearing of the forests, she also regrets that her husband never took part in the lumbering to make some extra cash.
Sav Samourn and her husband were one of the first families to move to the highlands seeking more fertile soil. After their move, other families also followed suit, contributing inevitably to the clearing of more forests for rice fields and cashew orchards. Sav Samourn’s husband, Pehleh, remembers only a few years ago, sighting elephants and wild buffalo in the jungle. The elephants and wild buffalo have since disappeared.
In the early morning, before the sun shone too hot, Sav Samourn packed her kapau or bamboo basket with pineapple tops and headed to their new field recently slashed and burnt, to plant the pineapple, creating a simple border between the burnt fields. A slight drizzle began to fall as Sav Samourn finished her planting. She and her daughter retreated to a small hut built for periodic refuge. Sav Samourn uncoiled her long, dark hair while her daughter proceeded to pluck the gray hair. Sav Samourn was also afraid of growing old. Seated on the bamboo platform of the stilted hut, Sav Samourn looked out over hilltops covered with charred remnants of once dense forest, and contemplated the future of her forestland.
STUNG TRENG
The drought in Ratanakiri was also evident in Kbal Romeas village in Stung Treng. When we arrived at the village, the village chief and his wife informed us the village elders would hold a ceremony that afternoon – a desperate call and prayer for rain during one of the driest rainy seasons the village had ever experienced. Without rain, the villagers cannot begin to sow their rice fields. The fields seemed burnt by the sun, dry clumps of earth molded into thick cakes of clay, a reminder of a land overlooked by the gods.
The villagers made their way in a single file, trampling through the dusty rice fields and down to a small lake where the ceremonies would be held. Before the ceremony, we caught the eldest in the village splitting wood to be used in the ceremony, surrounded by other village members. We asked him why they were praying for rain. It was unusual for them to hold such a ceremony, which was only held in the strictest emergency. But this year was different. Dark clouds bloomed in the sky, yet failed to burst into rain. After months of waiting, the elders decided finally to make the necessary sacrifices to the gods who would answer their prayers. Incense was lit and rice-wine poured on the altars of the Neak-Ta, or protective spirit. A small piglet was chosen, burnt to a crisp, placed on a platter, and set on a bamboo contraption made with ascending platforms. Additional prayers and offerings were made to a bamboo totem placed in the water. The ritual gongs were played and rice grains scattered to call the gods. After much rice-wine were drunk the village boys would carry screaming village girls and dump them into the water. The ceremonies seemed as much a prayer for rain as a respite from the toils and worries that plagued the village.
On this trip we met with Srey Mom and Vannak, the daughter and son of the village medic and village chief, who had chosen to continue their education outside of the village and in another village 100 km away from home. They were the only pair in the village able to study beyond the sixth grade, the highest grade level available in the small village schoolhouse that was frequented by various school teachers through the years.
Srey Mom, who smiled shyly and wore real gold earrings dangling from her ears, a gold necklace, and gold bangles studded with gems on her wrists, an uncommon sight in an indigenous village, struck me immediately. Her father, the village medic, recounted how he had at first refused for her to continue her schooling. He didn’t feel it was right for her, a girl, to study so far away from home. He was afraid she would be influenced by the outside world.
I sat with Srey Mom near the village well, where she was drawing water for her family. The sun was a golden gleam as the darkness descended around us. Despite her father’s admonitions, it was especially the outside world that fascinated Srey Mom. She loved learning Khmer and English because both subjects revealed a different world that she had long been sheltered from. Somehow the words from these languages recounted stories that were unique from her native Banong tongue and challenged her.
After visiting the school and the school headmaster, Srey Mom’s father finally gave in. Perhaps he discovered in education for girls, opportunities he could not before grasp. He now wants Srey Mom to finish school and become a schoolteacher in her village. Srey Mom also envisions the same for herself. Although she longs to travel and explore the world around her, she also wants to return to her village and help her people.
Vannak, Srey Mom’s first cousin, did not meet with similar opposition from his parents. In fact, they encouraged him to continue his education. Vannak’s accompaniment perhaps also lessened the fears of Srey Mom’s parents. The pair now lives with the school headmaster and his family, who treats them as one of his own children.
However, if the village is relocated to a new place due to the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam, it is uncertain whether Srey Mom and Vannak will be able to afford to continue their education outside the village. Their families and the entire village will have to start anew, plant new seedlings and new trees that have taken years to bear fruit, and sow new rice fields in virgin jungle. Srey Mom and Vannak will also be needed at home to help rebuild their community.
We spent our last afternoon in the village with Lok Tha, the village elder. It was always hard to track him down. He never stayed in one place, always busying himself in the rice fields or on his farm, cutting wood or repairing a handle on the ox cart. He sat cross-legged on the bamboo floor and recounted his memories of the old days, when animals were plentiful in the forest and fish species now unknown to this generation, were in magnificent abundance. One had only to shoot an arrow or cast a fish net to ensure the day’s meal. But things are also much better these days. Those who work hard are rewarded, while those who are lazy, are justifiably disadvantaged.
As we spoke with Lok Tha, the rain began to pour in profusion, whipping the branches and palm trees.Lok Tha grinned and laughed. Now, do you believe in the gods? Do you believe in the spirits? Lok Tha lit a cigarette and watched self-satisfied as the heavens descended on his village with the rain they had prayed for.
KAMPONG CHHNANG
The rain that had fallen in Stung Treng had not yet made its way to Kaoh Manou, a picturesque floating village in Kampong Chhnang. By this time of year Sa Li and his family would have already moved their home from the main waterway to the top of the island, which would be completely flooded with water. His home and the other homes in the village as well as the village mosque, bright aquamarine, would float effortlessly on an island sea remote from the main waterway. Instead, Sa Li waited for the rain and floodwaters to come.
Although the grass was blooming this year, Sa Li explained how local farmers typically cut down the wild grass to make way for rice planting. This also disturbs the local fish spawning grounds and hence the fish population.
When we arrived at Sa Li’s house, the house was abuzz with unexpected activity. Sa Li’s children had come to pay their parents a visit, bringing with them the fish nets that they usually weave in Ta Khmau, not far from Phnom Penh. Most of Sa Li’s six children had already married and left the house, save for the youngest who was going to the local school and the second youngest, who was studying at a Cham boarding school. Sa Li’s children also came to Kampong Chhnang to test the waters and see if they could make a good catch in the middle of the Tonle Sap.
Sa Li’s children spent two days weaving and preparing their fishing nets. The women sat the on the floor, legs extended at ninety degree angles, weaving the nets with their fingers and toes like agile spiders. The women wove from morning to night, while the men attached floating styrofoam to the nets and busied with other preparations. It takes an entire day and night to weave 180 meters of fishing net, which costs around 20 USD.
A bright yellow moon shone through dark clouds when Sa Li’s children decided to take their fishing boats out to the middle of the Tonle Sap. They woke before dawn and were on the waterway long before the sun rose, heading straight for the lake bordering Kampong Thom Province. The lake soon became a vast sea with no land in sight save for the shadows of distant mountains, floating clusters of water hyacinths, and Sa Li’s children casting their fishing nets into the water.
The nets were cast one by one, until they ran out, then the water, thick and swelling, were pounded with a large wooden paddle to scare the fish into submission and racing into the intricate web of fishing nets. According to Sa Li, this tactic, among others like the use of dynamite and electric shock, was introduced by the Vietnamese and was uncommon in Cambodia until recently.
Once their strength wore out from the pounding, the fishing nets were reigned in one by one and the live catch thrown into a well of water at the bottom of the boat. The catch that day was meager. The lake was unusually turbulent, promising less fish than usual.
Late that afternoon, Sa Ri, Sa Li’s nephew, also returned home after a long day of fishing with his father and siblings, bringing home only a paltry catch. Sa Ri, whom I had met in the village for the first time almost two years ago, was now 16 years old. He had grown thin and much taller, his face less boyish and more solemn and subdued. I did not even recognize Sa Ri’s voice when he recited the call for prayers over the microphone from the heights of the village mosque. His voice had developed a depth and huskiness resonant of someone more mature than this age.
Sa Ri had on a white Muslim cap, a long white shirt, and a light plaid silk sarong which he folded as he sat on the floor next to us outside the house. The time for evening prayers would commence shortly. The air was sweet and moist and fragrant mosquito coils were lit to keep the mosquitoes at bay. We scratched our feet as the mosquitoes gnawed them with an unusual ferocity that evening.
Sa Ri began his story where we left off, two years ago when he was still in school. Although realistic of opportunities available to him in such a small floating village, at that time, Sa Ri was still hopeful that he would be able to continue his education.
I remember when Sa Ri described for us the wonders of his village – the bountiful purple hyacinth flowers in December, the festivities of prahok (fermented fish paste) making in January, the swimming holes that he and the other boys frequented. The descriptions were of a paradise, but always tinged with the bitterness of never being able to leave this heaven on earth.
Sa Ri had achieved the highest marks in his Khmer language class for writing a story about the Tonle Sap, his village, and his family. The manuscript was pinned to the school wall for all to see and is now probably lost, possibly used to wrap pieces of dried fish. Sa Ri left school to attend a Cham Muslim boarding school that taught the Cham language and religious texts. When he left, his teachers understandably called after him, regretful to lose such a bright student.
Sa Ri left the village for Phnom Penh with his cousin, Sa Li’s second youngest son. It was their first venture outside the village, but not one that promised the freedom they expected. They woke every morning at 3AM to wash for morning prayers. Sa Li would doze during his lessons and every nod was met with the slap of a solid ruler. He had to memorize and recite religious texts without question. Sa Li could no longer take the strict schedule and prohibitive curriculum. He packed his bags and set out to return to his village alone. His cousin remained, determined to bear it out.
When Sa Ri returned to the village, his father resolved to put him to work, although Sa Li wanted to continue in a secular school. As the eldest in a family of six children, the value of Sa Ri’s capacity to work and help his father with the fishing was much more tangible and immediate than the uncertain and seemingly remote rewards of a higher education.
The rain poured continuously the next few days, but never with the extreme intensity of former years. It remains to be seen whether the Tonle Sap will flood enough for Sa Ri and his family and the village to move their homes to the top of the island this year.
