CAMBODIA
The Land
Cambodia is about the size of Wisconsin. The land is mostly a low (and seasonally wet) central plain surrounded by mountains and forest. The population is three times that of Wisconsin, with 80% rural. Phnom Penh, the capitol city on the Mekong River, has two million residents. Siem Reap, the capitol of the province where we have built our four schools, has 140,000 residents. Half the population of this province lives in poverty.
When the rains stop, the water that filled the rice fields slowly drains through the canals and streams back to the Tonle Sap and the Mekong. This natural irrigation system allowed Neolithic farmers to domesticate rice, and thousands of years later rice is still grown the traditional way. The country’s oldest religious rituals and classical dances revolve around the blessings of water and the fertility it brings. Irrigation and water storage helped the Khmer create the empire that once ruled most of what is now known as Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Siem Reap (Siemreab on the map) is just north of the Tonle Sap. It is rapidly modernizing. Siem Reap hosts nearly a million visitors a year, coming to see one of the few wonders of the ancient world that still exists - Angkor Wat. Urban prosperity has not reached the country. Farmers have sold much of their land to foreign speculators and will have little land to leave their many children. This is why we focus on education. With modern skills, these children will have a chance of participating in Cambodia’s modernizing economy, and to have a family and a life.
History
People have inhabited the rich river valleys and deltas of this part of the world since Paleolithic times. Natural irrigation allows intensive rice growing and fishing is an important source of food. In the country, families still net and catch their dinners. Here you see a brother and sister who go to our first school in Puom Steung (River Village). They are in the family boat, gathering food for the family in much the same way their ancestors have for the
past millennia.
The earliest Neolithic civilization we know of here was formed in the Mekong Delta at Oc Eo (now in Vietnam). This became the first Cambodian state, called Funan by the Chinese. Located on this rich delta on the South China Sea, the Khmer built a big maritime empire. In the first century CE, merchants and traders from all over were coming to Funan – Roman coins have been found there. They traded for cardamom from the mountains and white and black pepper from Kampot, still prized by chefs in France.
Funan gave way to Zhenla, an inland kingdom north of the delta in what is now southern Laos. Water control allowed the Khmer to grow great quantities of rice. Local tribes and neighboring kingdoms were conquered. By the 7th century, the Khmer were settling near the Tonle Sap. Angkor (it means city – Wat means temple) became their capitol. This small area, the size of Manhattan, at one time housed 750,000 Khmer. From the 9th to the 14th centuries, magnificent stone temples were built at and around Angkor. Angkor Wat, the largest stone temple in the world, is shown here. The site is a symbolic model of the sacred world. The five central towers represent the sacred mountains, from which the god-king rules the earth. The oceans are represented by the great barays, huge external reservoirs around the temple, holding water used to irrigate the fields during the dry season.
The cold war between communism and capitalism followed upon the collapse of French colonialism and engulfed Cambodia. Their eastern boundary was violated continually by Vietnamese soldiers protecting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were bombed intensely everywhere Communists were thought to be present by the U.S. The bombs disrupted the complex irrigation system without deterring the Communist guerillas, who actively recruited impoverished rural youth. A military coup in 1970 was followed by civil war. The country fell to the communist Khmer Rouge soon after the U.S. left SE Asia in 1975. The brutal Marxism of the Khmer Rouge displaced most of the poor to slave labor camps and was the death of most of the middle class. Even more people starved. Some two million of the seven million Cambodian population died in the next 4 years. Finally, in 1979, the Khmer Rouge were defeated by their old mentors, the Vietnamese and driven to the mountains. In 1993, the United Nations brokered an end to the civil war and conducted elections. Civil unrest ended and it is now safe to travel and live there.
The Present
Urban Cambodia is clearly better off now than when we started in the late 1990’s. Many hotels have been built and businesses have been started. Without a strong educated class or judiciary, however, there is little to balance the profit motive. Government has been unable to control development or to reduce corruption. Investment has grown, but the poor do not have access to these resources. Here you see a new hotel in Siem Reap. Traditional Cambodians do have remarkable social assets, which partially offset their difficult circumstance. They share, they know how to make do, they are used to hard work and many of them have strong family support. With literacy and education, children from our school villages will be able to survive and support their families.
The Future
Jayavarman VII was one of the great Khmer kings. He built the temples at the Bayon and Angkor Thom. The entrance at Angkor Thom, shown here, is guarded by huge stone gods, holding the Naga, a great symbol from the oldesttimes. Jayavarman built hospitals, public works and temples. He was much renowned for his humanitarian ideas. The holocaust of recent memory has been followed by peace and at least an opportunity for prosperity. As is so often the case in such poor countries, however, the very poor are mostly excluded from opportunity.
