It was a journey of a lifetime, this undertaking of three weeks and two days in Cambodia. It was a string of encounters with people who are significant in my life, but whom I am unlikely to ever see again. What I record here may give you a sense of this.
==
There is a striking young woman whom I have known since she was a small child. Even then she was articulate and friendly, she with her gentle smile and long braid of brown hair. Her mother worked in the Krom Akphiwat Phum team. We have arranged to share a meal together, mother, daughter and me. The mother comes from a large family where her father was well respected in his leadership responsibilities. By the end of the ‘Pol Pot Time’ the only survivors in the family were one boy and one girl. Charkrya loves her mother and is glad of this outing together. We are in the White Rose Café on a busy corner of Battambang, close to an open window with plants in window boxes. Charkrya is nearing the end of her secondary schooling, she talks enthusiastically about science and math subjects. She tells me that last year she represented Cambodia in an academic contest held in China. Next year the contest will be in Indonesia and Charkrya will represent Cambodia once more. This said, I must add that her friendliness is what I notice most of all. Something of her mother’s family, those who died too soon, lives on in her.
==
Bob is a long-time friend, an American, a former Jesuit. He has never wavered in grasping every means to secure peace in this beloved Cambodia. While we worked in the camp on the Thai border at the height of the war, Bob joined with the Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda in launching the Coalition for Peace and Reconciliation. They organised peace walks through the battlefields, monks leading the line, from the Thai border to Phnom Penh. I go to the Wat on my first morning in Battambang when the sun is still low on the horizon. I find that Bob is already at work at the new Buddhist University. A young man who works in this Wat leads me across the river to meet Bob. We talk and we listen, Bob and I. For many years now Bob has lived in the Buddhist Wat keeping the eight precepts of the monks with fasting and prayer, still forging a culture of peace, still listening to many who want to talk with him, including Jesuits who want to strengthen contact with Buddhists.
==
It is the bustling old market in Battambang town. The narrow aisles are dim, crowded, little changed since I last came. Malcolm, an Australian friend, is with me as we navigate unexpected steps and broken floors. We round a corner and are met with noisy greetings, the most urgent from an eighty-year-old woman who has spent much of her life sewing silk garments in this exact place. We recognise each other. She shows me how she can still set up the treadle machine even at her age. I claim that I still can do the same even though years older than she is. She sits me down, puts her hand on my shoulder and suggests making an outfit for me out of the bright silks on her shelves. Younger seamstresses are hooting with laughter and positioning with their phones to take photos. This kind of banter in this part of the market is unchanged; when walking through I have always chosen the seamstress lane on purpose.
==
At a social event a young Cambodian man speaks to me quietly in private. There are hundreds of guests, there is music and dancing, but we find a quiet spot to stand together. We have met before at a professional function. Now his tone is intense as he says that Cambodia is not a safe country for him; he always keeps his passport in his pocket. If anything should happen to him, he would like his family to be kept safe.
==
Sokathy was the youngest woman in the first Krom Akphiwat Phum team. With Moira and Mal, Australian friends and colleagues from those early days who supported this journey from the beginning, I come to her simple house in a back street of Phnom Penh. Sokathy has never married; living with her are three young people whom she adopted when her sister, their mother, died. Sokathy has suffered TB of the bone. Surgery saved her life but has left her with serious pain in her back; she shows me the brutal scars. Ouk, a bright young woman, is hovering close by her beloved aunt. She tells me that Sokathy dreams that someday she may be able to bring her three young people to a ‘good life’ in the USA. Ouk is studying medicine with a firm intention to spend her life in Cambodia where there is an urgent need for doctors. She will always care for her aunt.
==
I meet a soldier. I knew him when he was a youngster in the Thai/Cambodia border. He coped with a great deal of trauma while in the border camp and on return to Cambodia. My most recent glimpse of him was a few decades ago. He was in an army vehicle travelling south and I was in a crowded taxi travelling north on Highway Five. My driver and his driver made contact. They could not stop but slowed a little, and tooted horns. We leaned out the windows and waved to each other. Now he towers over me and exudes confidence. I ask about his duties as a soldier. He replies that there are no enemies at present, but as a professional member of the army he proudly organizes rescue work in emergency circumstances such as the recent floods.
==
Kike has, to my amazement and joy, become ‘Bishop of Battambang’. Malcolm and I know him well from our days together on the Thai Cambodia border. We call around to the Catholic community ready to leave a message that we are in town. Kike comes immediately to greet us, and we spend the better part of the day together. We have a second breakfast in a leafy nook on the ‘Catholic block’, where hospitality is available for everyone, and there is live-in support for recent land mine victims and programs for children with special needs. Kike has strong links in the mainly Buddhist community, he still works in the wheelchair business, and he still promotes skills-training for people with a disability. He is happy for the chance to share this with us. We see the small ‘O Battambang’ hotel just out of town and lunch in the Lonely Tree Café downtown. Kike tells of setting both up to enable skills training and references so that people with a disability are equipped to work in hospitality. We visit the amazing textiles centre, a light airy space where modern knitting and weaving machines are controlled digitally. It is a successful professional business staffed and led by women and men with disabilities. This all gives me hope for people in need and for a Church that surely must care for their need.
==
I am invited to lunch with Mom, Vanna and family. They live in a narrow house on a pathway that links six houses to the nearest laneway. Should anyone have a car it must be left out in the laneway or further away on a road. Since the location of this little dwelling is close to the center of Phnom Penh it is a popular stopping place for friends or relatives travelling through the capital. I stayed there myself when the children were small; they are proud to welcome me back to show me what they have made of this home of theirs. When the children grew bigger, they built a second story. I climb the steps holding to a handrail. When the children were at university, they built another level to have access to Wi-Fi. Again, the steps and handrails. There were costs to cover as the children studied so they built two more floors for student accommodation. ‘Income generation’, Vanna says. These parents are rightly proud. The daughter has an economics degree now, the son is well on the way to becoming a human rights lawyer. Mom and Vanna have continued working, he with an NGO and she as a chef’s assistant. We celebrate with the best Cambodian meal I have ever enjoyed.
==
I will remember this three weeks and two days as a thread of conversations: over cups of coffee, at family meals, while travelling together and at planned celebrations, a Krom reunion and two weddings.
Those I have known through the decades are parents, grand-parents and wisdom people now. The younger ones I met are studying and shaping careers. None have become rich. As I meet them now everything is as familiar as it was decades ago: shoes at the door; meals shared from steaming cooking bowls; family photos on the walls; bedding on hand for whoever might stay for the night. We shared news of mutual friends and dreams of change: slow, measured and secure, so that life will be better for all.
My final goodbye is with the laughter of the smallest of the children, Neta and Mauna. It is the eve of Khmer New Year.
Stories and Musings 