02/05/08
Hi Everyone,
Thought I'd send an update on our last day in Cambodia for this year.
The Trailblazer foundation work for this year has been rewarding and
sucessfull on a few fronts. The $5,000 donation from the Alaska/ Kalani group has been earmarked for well drilling at several new sites in existing trail blazer locations and in the three new villages that they will be going into this year. Once the wells are drilled in March, locations for the water filters will be determined and they will be installed.
We took the two hour trip in the back of the pick up truck to Sras Village
which was the pilot project for trailblazers. There are 5 water filters in use at the 5 room existing school. The school and the water system has made the village prosper beyond what anyone expected. An organic garden has been planted, a few women tend it and started a school lunch program on site. A micro sewing business has taken off, which also sews uniforms for the 250 students that currently attend the primary school.
Jim, Jay and the staff went to the school about 2 weeks ago and the
foundation pilings had just been installed for the addition to the school. ten days later when I went out with them, the walls are almost all up and the window frames are being built and readyed to put in place. The addition will double the size of the school and is already paid for.
Trailblazers trains and utilizes only local labor. The "bottom up" approach, rather than the top down (or trickle down as known in reagonamics) has proven to be the most effective method with long term success and growth for the community. Trailblazers always makes sure that the local people's needs are fulfilled, not some outsiders desire for them. They also use only technology that local people are willing to take care of and maintain. As a result, their water filters are in high demand and will drilling is not yet keeping up to the request for filters.
We took a three day side trip to Battambong to ride the "Bamboo train." This was a high priority item on Jim's life to do list since seeing it on a Discovery channel special. The train is a small 8 X 10 foot bammboo platform with a small belt drive on a generator that can be lifted on and off of the rali belt by two people. Passengers sit or stand on the platform and the ëngineer (ours ws a girl who looked about 12 but was probaby 25 or so) pulls the starter like a pull lawn mower and off you go! What a blast.
The best part of the day long trip though was meeting ""Bunny"" our cyclo
driver. Educated by Buddhist monks and one of 11 children, his parents lived through Pol Pot's regime. The 2 eldest children were 8 and 9 years old when the entire family was forced to live as rice farmers, as were the majority of Cambodians under Pol Pot's plan to have one class society. They were all starving and one night the two eldest boys went out and "stole" some corn and were caught. The guards brought them back and awakended the entire village at 1AM so they could observe the execution. His mother had a heart attack but survived to raise the rest of her 9 children. Bunny is highly knowledgable about Cambodian history and enterprise as he took us to many local businesses and told us in detail how rice paper, fish sauce (very stinky), rice noodles and palm wine are all made. We also heard about the 3 major politiacl parties and Cambodia's hope for a brighter future.
Bunny also had a great sense of humor (and was good looking to boot :)) On the smelly fruit, Durian, he said it is like "eating chocolate ice cream in a public toilet." Tammy and Mike can use that one!
We met up with our friend Suel for a couple of days. He has finished his 8 years of work with friendship village hospital in Hanoi and is still very active with Vets for Peace in the US and abroad.
Our two "daughters" here is Siem Reap are still in touch. We will be taking Thyda out for supper tonight, the first night of Chinese New Year (of the rat). Chantey is in Sweden with her "boyfriend" (she's 22 and he's, as Thyda says pointing at Jim, "like Him"). Sometimes these things work out but I'm afraid not in this case. Jim's cell phone rang at 11 PM last night, we we already asleep, so didn't realize who it was until jim handed the phone to me. It was Chantey in Stockholm! She was very lonely and sad missing home and crying. I could certainly relate to her talking about the cold and dark at 3 PM. We talked for some time and she definitly wants to come back and stay when she returns to Cambodia on Feb 28. So, we will probably see her again next year.
The last stop on our tour with Bunny was a food stall out in the country.
Jim and Jay rode their own motor bikes and I was passenger on Bunny's. He said he thought we must be hungry by now and pulled up to the stand where they sell everything deep fried...frogs, eels and RATS! Needless to say we politely declined and all the Cambodians got a good laugh. Jay decided he was indeed a vegetarian along with Jim and I (at least for that day). Bunny bought a bag of rats (kid you not) and we made one more stop at his best friends home where he delivered the gift of this delicacy to his family.
Happy Chinese New Year, may you all recieve a bag of rats!
much love,
Lynne
Our friendly rat at this year's Kalani retreat.
He loved to watch us do yoga.
We named him "Rainbow."
