Progress Report: Spring 2003
This first report reflects progress in our plan to build a school in Poum Steing Village in Cambodia, and progress in continuing to provide school uniforms to children in that area. Sarith's older brother, Prang, is supervising the building project and sent these pictures.
Construction: We have sent $5,000 to Prang and construction has begun. Here you see men from Poum Steing (River Village) working as volunteers to clear the school site of brush, our first task before bringing in fill. These men are subsistence farmers. They mainly grow rice and some vegetables, supplementing this with fish from the river. They have enough food to survive on, but little cash money. The birth rate is high and they have big families to feed.
Poum Steing has 184 families living on both sides of a small river. It is five or six kilometers from the nearest school. Our small school will teach the youngest children until they get old enough to cross the busy highway and walk to the bigger school.
Here you see some of the Poum Steing children, back from Tik Tlah (Clear Water) school. Many are wearing the uniforms that we passed out at Tik Tlah last summer. They are standing on their school site. You can see the cleared brush burning in the background. The children are small for their age because nutrition is sometimes inadequate. The land here is a low, flat plain. In the rainy season, both the river and Tonle Sap Lake flood, and these waters meet here in the village. This means that buildings must be raised above the plain or they will flood every year. So, after clearing the land, our first priority in construction was to bring in fill to raise the level of the building site. Here you can see the beginning of the fill project. The truck is powered by a Hyundai car engine of about 55 horsepower. It has almost completely bald tires and was put together out of several other trucks that were in even worse shape. It is not a dump truck and is loaded and unloaded by hand. The truck comes from outside the village. This village is not mechanized. There are around 10 motorbikes and no cars or tractors. About half the families have bicycles.
In these pictures, you can get a little better idea of the scale of the project and here is another view of this lovely truck. Rainy season starts in May, so we want to get the fill in, get the slab poured and begin laying bricks. The project is of great interest to the villagers, but it clearly is also confusing. It has been difficult to explain to them why we would help when their own government has not provided such assistance.
Here is another view of the school site (you can see the fill in the left background). The men are standing on the road that goes to the highway between Siem Reap and Thailand. This road is under water in rainy season. Poum Steing Village is 20 to 25 kilometers from Siem Reap. The young people who want to earn cash must ride their bikes into town, at least an hour's trip. They work sunup to sundown to earn $1 per day.
Construction Finances: Here, we have to confess to a rather embarrassing mistake. We did not plan for bathrooms. One hundred children without a bathroom is not a happy thought. The bathrooms must be built to last as long as the school. Adding the cost of bathrooms pushes our construction budget from $10,000 to $12,500. Thanks to your generous contributions, we have so far collected $12,000, so we will be able to build both school and bathroom this year. We also have recognized another need: there is no clean water in Poum Steing. We hope to eventually fund a good well for school and village.
Uniform Finances: Of the $4,000 we seek, have almost $2,000. Students at East High and Cherokee Middle School in Madison, and Northside School in Sun Prairie raised funds. We are impressed with the open hearted generosity of these children. Here is a
group of American heroes from Sun Prairie. These boys and girls at Northside School raised $1,305.73, enough to buy one uniform for each of the over 400 student at their school. We are proud to be associated with such great kids. Thanks to all contributors.
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