Located 75 km away from the city center of Stung Treng Province, Kbal Romeas village is situated between the meandering Sesan River, a major tributary of the Mekong River, and a jungle forest of towering maisak trees with broad green leaves. The Banong people, one of six indigenous groups living in Stung Treng Province, live here in Kbal Romeas village, yet their lives and the lives and livelihood of seven villages, 1,000 families, and 30,000 hectares of forested land, home to 500 species of wildlife are threatened by the impending construction of the Lower Sesan 2 hydroelectric dam by Electricté du Vietnam. If the dam is built, the village must move inland, 7km away from their village. They and other inhabitants in the area have already felt the impact of dams built upstream in Yunnan Province, China, Lao PDR, and the Yali Dam in Vietnam – low water levels, lower fish yields, contaminated drinking water, and waterborne diseases.
It was around mid-day when we arrived in Kbal Romeas village, sticky wet and humid from the slight, misty rain. We drove past a small, makeshift school lined with shiny wooden tables and chairs, but empty of students and teacher. The teacher is currently taking a course in town. It’s difficult to find teachers to commit to teaching in indigenous villages so remote, especially when salaries are paid so infrequently. The 25 USD per month salary are often paid every three months and rarely the full salary.
We searched for the village chief, but he was also away, taking a course in Rattanakiri and would not return until the evening the next day. His wife, Long Seung was the only one home with her four children. Her eldest son, age 15 years was studying in a school 100 km away from the village and living in a local dormitory. He and his female cousin are the only two in the village studying beyond grade six.
Long Seung introduced us to her brother-in-law, Srien Cheoun, the village medic. The village has changed significantly, he says. The villagers no longer wear their traditional clothing or live in their traditional huts. The village has even begun to adopt Khmer customs, cultures and religion. He tells us that during his parents’ time they only practiced animism, or the belief in local spirits. Now, the village houses a Buddhist pagoda. Multi-colored banners, the kind usually found in Buddhist temples, are strung across the village. But the most important change of all has been economical.
The villagers farm rice, hunt for wild animals and fish in the Sesan River. They only began selling fish and wild animals after the Khmer Rouge period. Before, everything was shared amongst all the villagers. Now, everything has economic value and can be bought and sold. When I asked the village chief’s wife, if she felt things had changed for the better, she was ambiguous:
“Today, we can have a better life than before because we can make money by selling what we fished and hunted in the forest. We can say that we are better because we can make money but we have less food for eating. For example, when we can hunt one wild pig, we will sell the whole body and just keep the head for eating.”
Before the villagers were able to catch 10 to 20 kg of fish in one evening. Now, they can only catch 3 kg. They only make 4,000 to 5,000 riels (1 – 1.25 USD) per kilogram, selling to a middleman from Banlung, Ratannakiri Province. The villagers must spend at least 200,000 riels or 50 USD a month on salt, seasoning, and medicine. For the last few years they have also had to buy rice. Flooding usually occurs once every three to four years. This year, the Yali Dam in Vietnam flooded the river three times, destroying most of their rice crops.
The villagers are also now suffering and dying from diarrhea and other waterborne diseases heretofore unknown in the village as a result of the dams built upstream. Diseases before were usually cured with traditional medicine. Now, the village medic dispenses modern medicine, which is still unable to treat some of the illnesses. Keo Mib, Chief of the Water Resource Committee, noticed many fish dying in the river and cattle also dying after drinking water from the river. The European Union and Oxfam have installed water bottles with filters in each home in the village. There is also a well from which the villagers draw their water. But it is uncertain whether the well may also be contaminated.
But the life of the villagers will change most dramatically when the new dam is built and they are forced to resettle seven kilometers away from their current home:
"There is no road accessible there. We can only go there by boat. We do not know whether the new forest (in the new location) houses good or bad spirits. If it has bad spirits, it will make villagers die or sick. Vietnamese workers who came to measure our farmland promised their company would compensate us everything. They will build new concrete homes for us, but they will be too small. We also want to be civilized like the other people wearing new clothes and sending our children to school. But it is really hard for us because we cannot even afford to buy rice.”
Before visiting Kbal Romeas village, I asked a villager in another village whether she thought life along the Sesan River had changed for the better. She was adamant that life today was indeed different:
“Fishing today is 100% different from the past. We cannot even afford to eat even though we fish the whole night. In the past, we share food among villagers but today everything is traded and exchanged for money. But it is good. A person who is hard working can have a better life, but the lazy one is still poor.”
One of the villagers in Kbal Romeas had just bought a small tractor, called yun keau, or cow machine, to help till his plot of soil. The village elders held a small ceremony to bless the tractor, laying out banana, incense, and even a small chicken to induce the well wishes of the spirits. The ceremony was to ensure the tractor would bring prosperity to its owner. I asked the owner how much he bought the tractor for. He said 10 million riels or 2500 USD. I asked him whether he would share the tractor with his friends and relatives in the village. He smiled and said he would not unless they paid him.
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