NOT FOR A WEAK STOMACH - KHMER ROUGE TRIAL

JULY 27 - I've been catching snips on Cambodia tv of Khmer Rouge trial which began February 2009. Cambodia tv station apsaraTV is carrying the trial live. This morning I settle in to watch for a couple hours. I thought you'd like to see what I'm seeing although the quality is compromised because these are pictures of the tv screen.

This is a specially built court outside Phnom Penh. The trial is open and the courtroom is full with several hundreds of victims. I'd guess many people who want to sample the proceedings will never get in.

The international tribunal ("Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia") was agreed to between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the United Nations after Cambodia's National Assembly and Senate finally approved the terms. Cambodia delayed approval for 7 years insisting among other things that more Cambodian judges sit on the tribunal than the United Nations wanted.

Although the genocide crimes date back 30 years to the period April 17, 1975-January 9, 1979, 98% of 537 Cambodians surveyed want to have the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and 63.1% believe it will bring them justice. [August 2004 survey by KID] More than 1.7 million Cambodians died from starvation, overwork and execution.

The highest ranking living Khmer Rouge leader is Kaing Guek Eav, former prison commander known as Duch, now 66 years old. He was commandant of the notorious S-21, Toul Sleng, formerly a high school in Phnom Penh, where he oversaw the deaths of nearly 16,000 men, women and children.

As exhibits are entered as evidence, tv viewers can see them. Some are simply too gruesome to include in this post. This series of pictures of S-21 victims following their deaths by torture, starvation or execution is just a small part of one page. Duch was asked if he recognized any of these people.

A week or so ago when I caught a short segment of the trial, Duch was explaining pictures/exhibits of S-21 prisoners tied to 4 iron bed frames in one small cell with each having his blood drained into 4 large pouches. Duch said they did this with prisoners at S-21 whenever "clinics/hospitals" in Khmer Rouge camps ran out of blood and requested S-21 to provide some. The judge asked how many prisoners had their blood drained like this. Duch replied there were about 20 that time.

On intake each prisoner was photographed, height measured, weighed. All this was meticulously written down. One might think it odd that there are extraordinarily comprehensive written records. It's because most of the high leaders of Khmer Rouge were teachers who had been educated in Paris.

English, Khmer and French are the languages of the court. I can listen to a judge questioning in English as well as hear the Khmer and French interpreters. There is a short time between the question and the beginning of Duch's reply while he hears the Khmer interpretation. The judges are distinguished by black robes, except the presiding judge wearing a red robe, all with the long white cravat. There are men and women judges and the presiding judge speaks French.

For several years, Khmer people have told me they think there will never be a trial of the Khmer Rouge. I hoped there would be. Now my hope is their hope: That this will bring them justice.

YEAR END EXAMS CAMBODIA STYLE

JULY 22 - I've stopped teaching English classes for the rest of this week and for next week. July 27, 28 & 29 are final exams for students all over Cambodia. Because of high corruption among teachers who monitor exams, teachers are moved all over Cambodia. E.g. many teachers from Phnom Penh end up in Siem Reap Town schools and other provinces. Teachers in Siem Reap Town go to other provinces. Yes, for about a week teachers all over Cambodia are staying in hotels and/or guest houses all over Cambodia. Every year like this.

Students are assigned to a particular school in the area where they live, a room number and a particular table. Teachers are also assigned to a particular school and room number. On Sunday morning before July 27, the list will be posted at each school. The list has the names of all the students who should take their test at this school with each student's assigned room number and the table number. On Sunday students must go to each school in the area until s/he finds her/his name on a list.

Cambodian students know the drill. If you're a student outside the general primary and high school and university daily classes--GED or Tourist Guide, for examle--it's negotiating time with your exam supervising teacher. If you're number 1 in your class every semester, you don't have to negotiate because everybody will know that you will pass the 3-day exams. I've been told by students that even if you pass the exams, you will fail if you don't pay. And if you fail the exams and pay the bribe, you'll be sure to pass unless you haven't written at all on your exam papers.

The student will be negotiating on Sunday after s/he finds out who his/her supervising teacher is. Once the price is set, anywhere between $500 and $1500 depending on the school grade/level the student is testing for, the student will deliver the money to the teacher on Monday morning. The higher the level, the higher the price. The supervising teacher will assure that the "paid" table numbers are reported to Phnom Penh so that the student passes.

Families who don't have money have no choice. Others borrow what they can from family and friends to assure passing the grade and getting the precious certificate.

I watch CTV sometimes, Cambodia's national tv station. I hear the Kingdom of Cambodia Minister of Education pleading for teachers and school administrators to honor proper channels and to upgrade the educational system for the sake of students and the Country. I wonder if they have ears to hear. When a supervising teacher shares $1500 with a Phnom Penh exam certifier...and this happens thousands of times over every year...I wonder if they have ears to hear.

5 TO A ROOM

JULY 21 - Light, lack of it, how it's used...affects me...you know waxing and waning of the moon, candlelight, etc. So moving from a second floor interior room after a week to the third floor corner room at the front of Siem Reap Riverside Guest House is a great day! There is a wood (thin wood) wardrobe I can hang my blouses in and 2 drawers. Yea, I can finally unpack...not only my clothes, but the one suitcase full of fabric, thread, first aid supplies and personal care items.

I am not alone here. I share the room with 4 geckos, 2 adults, 1 mid sized, and one very tiny thing about 2 inches long almost translucent. The guy in the picture is the tiny one. Mostly they inhabit the tops of the walls and the ceiling...I think it is warmest there. They seem to like to be between the drapes and the windows and behind the air conditioning unit at the top of one wall. Sometimes a tiny one is in my toilet/shower room. I don't know if he's the same one.

When you can't see them, you can hear them. They "talk" - something like a frog, not a bull frog. This is a more delicate and melodic sound. Well, it's hard to describe. We don't have anything like it in Wisconsin.

Some geckos grow to 2-1/2 to 3 feet long. They're called "duc tou." They talk, too, deeper sound and very distinct. They, too, like to inhabit tops of walls somehow able to keep their massive weight up there, but these guys are often outside and on the ground, too.

FASTER THAN FAST

JULY 11 - Sam and his interpreter Prem and I and my interpreter Mony set off for a 2 pm meeting Saturday afternoon with teachers and administrators at Kessararam Primary School ["KPS"]. Yes, Saturday is a regular school day in Cambodia! I had already met with the teachers and administrators so they were ready for Sam.

Sam evaluated the records needs of the school and recommended a computer system and useful programs. In the meantime teachers and administrators had been surveyed to see who would commit to a week of computer training with Sam. By 4:30 pm we were on our way to abc Computer System to purchase a complete computer set up.

During the same time the teachers brought chairs, desks and a table for the computer into a small office with a white board. They rearranged the room to make it a workable, if "tight," classroom. I can't even get all the people in the room in one picture!!

And the teachers selected 8 teachers to be in Sam's class so that by our return to KPS at 5:30 pm there was a classroom! To make the most of Sam's week in Siem Reap Town, classes were scheduled twice daily at 9-10 am and 3-4 pm for Monday through Friday.

You can read more about Sam's classes and his other Cambodia experiences on his blog from a link on this blog.

FASTER THAN FAST - PART 2

JULY 20 - Sam crunched a lot of information about Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel into his twice-daily five days of classes with the teachers at Kessararam Primary School. But we knew more was necessary for good and well-learned skills.

On Sam's last day, Sam, Prem, Mony and I met with the teachers at the end of Sam's last class with them to talk about followup.
They were eager to do so. But as usual in Cambodia, where's the money? Sam and I know this and had already decided to pay for a maximum of 3 teachers to continue classes.

Quickly we were on Mony's phone to our "go to" Khmer computer resource...Bun Ly, owner of abc Computer Systems. We're asking whether classes would be better at KPS or at abc Computer Systems, cost per student, duration of course, what to cover in the classes, etc. An abc Computer Systems instructor could hold class at KPS; the disadvantage is that there is only 1 computer. The KPS teachers could go to abc Computer Systems where they teach classes and have a computer for each student. Moreover abc Computer Systems had no class going at 9-10 a.m. Perfect...same time, different location as the teachers' class with Sam.

While we're consulting with Bun Ly about possibility of classes for KPS teachers, the teachers themselves are taking in our side of the phone conversation and caucusing. The teachers ask if we would be willing to send 4 teachers to computer classes...2 women and 2 men, and the 4 will share what they learn with the other teachers. Sam and I agreed.

Within minutes, Sam, Prem, Mony and I with our 4 teacher-students were headed for abc Computer Systems to register them for computer classes to begin the following Monday morning, 6 days a week, for 2 months. The classes would cover Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel and Power Point. Cost per student: $35US.

Monday morning I headed for abc Computer Systems and found our 4 students, Mrs. Van Marath, Mrs. Ngin Chankrisna, Mr. Pat Un and Mr. Muy Rachna, at their computers in class with their instructor. I was happy with the instructor, a fellow who was followup to Sam's pioneering of computer classes at Khnar Thmei Church 5 years ago when we established our relationship with abc Computer Systems and bought our first computer. Because of the distance from Siem Reap Town to Khnar Thmei Church, at that time the instructor went daily to the village to teach classes to 10 students.

At the end of their first class, the teachers realized they had stayed more than 1-1/2 hours and said it was because they were so interested! Happily their instructor hung in there with them!

DENGUE FEVER, MALARIA AND ?

JULY 13 - Even with the no-rain rainy season, there is plenty of water laying around Cambodia for a high dengue fever and malaria season. One other terrible thing especially for infants and toddlers here. Many young children get this infection I do not yet know the name in English. It was described to me as inflammation of the lining around the brain. I see some of these children. They are lethargic and listless.

If parents can get money, they can take the child to a clinic and get the medicine administered, get some oxygen and then get sent home with the oxygen tubes in place in the nose. I'm not sure yet how all this works. Clinics and hospitals are now administering this medicine routinely to infants and children.

I think this is a dangerous year for infants and children in Cambodia.

NO SUCH THING AS DISTURBING THE PEACE

JULY 11 - If there's music in the air, it's Cambodia! This is the third morning I've awoken to traditional Khmer music...played from dawn to about 8 pm...maybe 2 blocks from Siem Reap Riverside Guest House where I live here.

Each kind of celebration has its distinct melodies and combination of instruments, so Khmer people can tell immediately the kind of celebration by thge music that is played. It floats throughout the neighborhood as a kind of invitation/announcement. Khmer traditional music is based upon the polyphonic stratification of several musical lins and melodies based primarily upon 5-tone scales as compared to the 12-tone scales familiar to our western ears.

My first couple years in Cambodia, I could not distinguish the melodies, instrumental ensembles, whether sad or happy...it all sounded minor key and haunting. Today I know this is not funeral or wedding music, but I cannot otherwise identify it except to know it's a happy occasion. I learn it's a candle celebration. This is a celebration a family mounts to consecrate large...very large - 4 foot tall and 6 inch diameter...candles that will be carried by the family, guests, monks and nuns in procession on the third day from the house to the pagoda.

While most celebrations are religious, many take place at home and the monks come to the home to chant and pray for the ceremony...wedding, blessing of new house, blessing of child on 1-year birthday, 100 day anniversary of funeral, 1 year anniversary of funeral, e.g....or at least start at home and end at the pagoda on the last day...funeral, consecration of young men to become monks, pagoda candle celebration, e.g.

Almost any Khmer celebration is 3 days and the family that mounts the celebration must provide food and drink for guests, stipend for the monks, rent tables and chairs and some sort of overhead shelter from the sun and rain, engage Khmer traditional instrumentalists and vocalists.

So poor families may never have an optional candle celebration. In the case of a funeral or wedding, some families with not so much money, maybe a 2-day celebration, and for the very poor, just 1 day.

A QUANTUM LEAP FORWARD

JULY 11 - A hint about what we CAN do for Kessararam Primary School ("KPS") this year came in the meeting yesterday.

It's end of school year. My Teacher Readers will know well what this means. The teachers are "closing the books" and preparing necessary reports to the Siem Reap Provincial Ministry of Education. Stacks of yellow-cover books, 1 per student, and summary reports were accumulating in the office for validation. ALL record keeping and reporting is done by hand writing. Kessararam Primary School is responsible not only for its 1507 students, but for 4 outlying primary schools as well. KPS has no typewriter or computer. Actually no primary school has a computer. Some high schools "yes."

Not only do the teachers and administrators spend countless hours handwriting the student data and reports, but any mistake or erasure means the Ministry of Education will send the paper back to the school to be redone perfectly!

I probed about the format and data in the student record books and the reports. I looked through some student books and was shown sheafs of handwritten pages reporting to Ministry of Education. My mind is whirling about the countless human hours required to create this redundancy and how the magic of the electronic spreadsheet would improve efficiency, accuracy, retrieval, and release the teachers for more time WITH the students!

I thought this was a perfect application for a computer in the school office. None of the teachers or administrators at KPS knows how to use a computer. I know this will change their world forever!

Before I commit to the project, I want to get Sam Pritchett's opinion; he's got the expertise to thoroughly assess and implement. Sam arrived from Texas late last night and we're meeting for breakfast this morning to talk about best use of his 1 week in Siem Reap.

Check out Sam's blogspot via the link on my blogspot.

CHECKING IN AT KESSARARAM PRIMARY SCHOOL

JULY 10 - I prepare for this day with high emotions anticipating familiar faces in familiar places. For me the question is always "what difference do we make?" Kessararam Primary School in Siem Reap Town is such a place. Summer 2008 we put a well with Afridev pump (high volume use model) at the School for the 1507 students grades K-6 and 42 teachers. May 2009 we installed 10 sinks in 10 classrooms for teaching and practicing good hygiene.

Because of poor funding for Cambodia's Ministry of Education and because foreigners prefer to help rural schools, many needs of larger city schools go unmet. Kessararam Primary School ("KPS") is prone to frequent flooding from runoff from more recent development on all sides which built up the land before building on it including a large pagoda on the south and National Hwy 6 along the front/west. It seems there is always standing water on the school grounds...in rainy season as much as a foot...no way to get from the street to the school or from building to building except through the water. This year is not normal rainy season, in fact no rain for days at a time so there is minimal water on the school grounds right now. KPS is hoping for landfill. This project would cost $13,000US. I write about this and other issues but I am mindful of our primary focus on clean water, good hygiene and sanitation, adequate and safe food, and education to improve health, reduce disease and death, and improve outcomes for a good future. I always listen politely and ask questions to get enough information, but when necessary as in this case I explained to KPS the primary focus of our work in Siem Reap Province.

KPS has 9 buildings, 1 building with school offices and a library and 8 buildings w/5 classrooms each, 2 of concrete covered brick and the remainder of wood, all with tile roofs. Tiled roofs of several of the buildings have holes which let the rain fall into the classrooms year round. Two of the buildings are closed to use now because too much rain falls into those classrooms for it to be healthy for the children. Cost to replace tile roof for 1 building is $6000US.

PICTURES: Top: Students passing between classes. Middle: Bicycle parking on the north wall of Kessararam Primary School. Bottom: Young students breaking at the concrete game table at the school.

July and August are vacation months for primary and secondary schools and universities/institutes. Still all the teachers are at the schools 6 days a week and many students attend in the mornings. These students have not yet successfully passed to the next grade. They are studying for and getting extra help from the teachers for their exams.

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT

JULY 9 - New for me this year, to get to Siem Reap I traveled on Korean Air via Seoul. For about 3 years now South Korea has trade/commercial agreements with Cambodia permitting flights directly from Seoul to Siem Reap. I took advantage of this Chicago-Seoul-Siem Reap...cut 10 hours off my airport/air time and avoided restless Bangkok.

Just like the novel T-shirts they sell in Cambodia, Siem Reap is: SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT. You get the full effect when you see "same same" on the front of the T-shirt and "but different" on the back!

Siem Reap population in 1998 was approx 500,000. Today it's 900,000.

New rules of the road that all motorbike drivers must wear helmuts. Traffic police do pull over and fine any motorbike driver they see not wearing a helmut.

Siem Reap Town has alternate sides of the roadway parking laws, even numbered days one side, odd numbered days the other side. Local traffic police make a handsome supplement to their monthly government salary by enforcing this law. Siem Reap Town has a particularly successful policeman, the infamous Mr. Veng [R in picture], who with his unusual height for a Khmer is powerful and feared by the ordinary people but not so much by people who have money...because if you have money you can pay the fine, whatever Mr. Veng says--on the spot, of course, and then you're free to go. No writing up a ticket, no appearance at traffic court, no sending in the fine to the clerk of traffic court. You have no money or no driver can be found, the new tow truck tows your vehicle to a fenced municipal lot where you can pay a lot more to get it back.
Siem Reap urban area is now officiallydesignated "Siem Reap Town" as are several other larger villages, primarily provincial seats, such as Battambang, Sihanoukville, and Kompong Cham.

Regular gasoline in Siem Reap is $.89 a liter, or $3.33 a gallon.

Cambodia's currency is quite stable over the last 10 years fluctuating between 4100 riel and 4350 riel to a USD. This morning I bought groceries for $8.70 US and paid 36,584 riel with four 10,000 riel notes.

I'm at the Siem Reap Riverside Guest House on the south side of Siem Reap Town. When I arrived, they said I'd be moving to a different room and floor in a couple days when it becomes vacant. For now I live out of suitcase. I brought 2 suitcases, 1 is full of thread, fabric and first aid supplies.

Continue the Dream

Welcome to the Cambodia Wells Plus Blog. You will find updates on current projects, details about past projects and information on ways to get involved. Please also use the comment section to show your support or ask for more information. We are just getting started here so come back often to see this summer's project take shape. Deanna Shimko, missionary to Cambodia, will be traveling July 7 through August 23. Read her tales here and learn about how your gifts are being put to work providing clean water wells, toilets, seeds, piglets... All this advances the health and welfare of the people of Cambodia. Their dreams are a reality because of a gracious God and a people willing to step forward with prayers, lots of elbow grease, and monetary gifts.

Caldwell United Methodist Church in Mukwonago, Wisconsin (45 minutes Southwest of Milwaukee) is the hosting site for many events benefitting Cambodia Wells Plus, but the support the project has received has come from as far away as Stockton, California and Canada. The thousands of people that have received clean water and the thousands of people who keep the project going are connected together as one body. Cambodia Wells Plus proves that in the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you just might be the world!

Keep Dreaming, People of God!

Sincerely,

Pastor Grace Baldridge

www.caldwellumc.org
Caldwell United Methodist Church
Proud Sponsor of Cambodia Wells Plus