The other side of building houses in Cambodia

I’ve just returned from 4 days in Cambodia and to be honest, I’m still processing the whole experience. It was one of those trips that, on paper looked to be pretty incredible, daunting and exhilarating all in one, but it could never be truly understood what it would the genuine impact would be like until I actually was there to touch and feel it first hand.

Here is our story.

A group of us, Bob and Boobette the builders, all went to put together houses, 16 in fact, for a little community an hour’s bumpy ride from Phnom Pehn. The estate we created were shiny rich green-tinned one-roomed Cambodia chalets on stilts. Each with three windows all fitted with the very natural Russian Air conditioning (rush in air) and bamboo flooring throughout. The big glorious green front door (as all Asia front doors should be) opened to a lovely wooden stair case that lead to the playroom down stairs and chill out area, or better known as the best place to rest the hammock.

The Cambodian dream; prime real estate; rice paddies fields out of your left window, the lou shack to your right, the main road close by, the local school upon your back door steps - location, location, location.

At lunch time we would transform ourselves into Santa and his elves and shower the children with presents, balloons, eye masks, pens and texters, rainbow coloured everything, noisy blowy things, more balloons and all sorts of shiny stuff that kiddies dreamed or heard about from other villages. It was Christmas every lunch time for these people.

Then, it’s paparazzi time, happy snaps everywhere with the children, and pucker up buttercup. Snap, snap, snap. Oh how cute, lots of giggles, lots of cuddles and so many of us have fallen in love.

The other side of this story is that as more Bob the builders came year on year, and that the total number of houses built per year had grown from 400 in 1996 to 1053 houses in 2010, the joy of Christmas has become more like the mad rush of the Christmas sales frenzy – everyone desperate to grab or get their hands on something shiny before some one else did.

The angels stopped singing, and the fantasy was cracking a little bit now – the happy faces turned to desperate ones, the kids scratched, the mothers whipped and the elves turned instantly into frightened white volunteers from Singapore. The dusty frenzy to grab that balloon was a sure sign that spirit of giving had naturally created an element of competition amongst our village, innocent, cute brown eyed beloved Cambodian families. If it were Willy Wonker and Chocolate Factory, someone would have fallen into the chocolate lake for sure. It was a little scary to be honest.

The naïve spirit of giving from the white people, from us all, has transformed our harmless people into aggressive snatching animals, clutching to have something materialistic because their community had elevated the value of these giving’s as status maybe? Has our commercialism turned their purity into ugly rivalry? Funny isn’t it, we think we are giving, yet, by our mere hope of philanthropic joy, we have created something far worse. Have we in fact turned these families and children into even more desperate people? Have we forced our inflated importance on material possession on these people? I'm still thinking about this.

Overwhelmed by these unexpected scenes, I stopped to take in what was really happening. These people live on less than a $1 a day, families that shelter their whole extended family in room that is 5M/5M sqm with a rickety door, windows that have no cover from the rain, the house is on stilts so they don’t wash away with the floods, and their feet score from the nailes poking out of the bamboo floors because our builders hammering techniques weren’t so great. Then there is the tin that is like razor blades, and if leant on out a window that hasn’t been nailed flushed against the wood frame, can cut through skin like butter on a hot day. I went to work to hammer the upstanding nails, and push down the tin that was not flush on the window frames. Actually, we all did from my team on that last day.

You know what, the Green tin is a recognition of the work and markings the Tabitha foundation, to represent progress in the community.

Each house cost just under 1000 USD to make with raw materials, and all the family had to do was contribute 40 USD to Tabitha to earn their new abode. Not a bad deal really! Prime real estate.

The extended families I mentioned are as old as I am. I made friends with a traditional dancer who looked about 18 in her photo she showed me, but she was probably more my age now. She had 2 kids, but no husband. There was one old woman there. But the elderly were scarce, they didn’t exist, they were extinct.

These communities were the young generations of Cambodians that were survivors of the Pol Pot regime. These were people were the new world that had lived beyond the hinaus crimes of the Khmer Rouge.

The reality of what these people had been endured was going to be far beyond anyone’s comprehension. Like words on a piece of paper, words like S-21 and the Killing Fields were “titles” I had chosen to block out because I knew they represented pain and blood shed. All until I was faced with the cold hard reality of these from the dawn before.

I will not be alone when I say that I have returned from this journey a slightly different person. Our leader Dougie said on the last night dinner that he would say that we all knew each other better, knew the country better and have learnt so much more about humanity, ourselves, our partners and friends throughout this trip, lessons that none of us would forget. He was right.

My building buddy Bill said, that he believed that this was a time when people were as real as they could be and therefore was the best time and way to get to know people. He was right, it was such a raw experience for all of us. Each and every person on this trip at some point came away with a new friend, or bond that we will cherish.

It’s incredible how in the face of diversity and hardship, or rawness of life’s cruelties, we get in touch with our real love for human nature and find ourselves drawn to the noble need to nurture. To nurture our friends, our families, our partners, our loved ones, our new found friends less fortunate and finally remembering for ourselves.

Like I said, I haven’t quite reconciled this experience yet, and maybe I wont until I do it again. But I will say this; help those that are not as strong or fortunate as you. You don’t have to build a house, or give them stuff that is commercial, you can simply extend a simple olive branch, but in your own special way, you can give back. It’s really simple.

Lots of warm and fuzzy.

TBS

xxx

P.s - Thank you to every one that supported this trip. You will never be forgotten.

I have written a separate blog about the trip to S-21 and Killing Field