Community Challenge Cambodia 2010 - MAG International

8/8/2019 Community Challenge Cambodia 2010 - MAG International

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In November 2010, 15 MAG supporters from across the world made the

long journey to Cambodia to take part in an adventure and experience of a

lifetime.

After trekking for two days through the greater Angkor Wat region we

embarked upon a project to build traditional Khmer houses for the poor and

victims of landmines. At the end of the challenge two families moved intotheir new homes after Buddhist blessing ceremonies.

Community Challenge

Cambodia 2010

This is my account of the Challenge! Thank you to everyone who sponsored

me in both monetary (well over 3000) and friendship terms to enable me to

take part in this event which was both a personal challenge and also a great

benefit to two families in Cambodia, and to the great work that MAG

International do throughout the world.

Sarah Kemp


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Well, what can I say?

This has been an amazing experience for me right from the very beginning:

from wrestling with myself whether to go for it at all and sign up for the MAGChallenge back in April 2010,

to the hard, but rewarding, fundraising work with help from my friends and family andworkmates and even people I dont know at all:Barn Dance, Mind Body Spirit Fair, Cake & Book Stall, Wine for Mine, Laugher Yoga

to the practical preparations for the trip:borrowing hiking poles, platypus, money belts, rucksacks

to the practice hikes with my friends throughout the summer and autumn:Kinder Scout, Ely, Tring, Thetford Forest, Chequers

to finally getting on the train to go to the airport (in tears and scared as hell!), andworried about leaving my two sons (in very capable hands of course)

to the trip itself !!!


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The Participants

There were 16 of us in total. Tina, Sarah S, Arden, Keith, Alison, Jenny, Nannette, Bryan,Martina, Helen, Ed, Kat, Kim, Abigail, Steve and me. We represented England, Wales, Austria,Australia, Korea, USA and Holland.

We had Dave, our leader, and Brett, our doctor, with us too from Action Challenge. Then we also

had local guides and translators who were fab. The house building was all organised by TheJesuits and we also had contact with them as the foremen of the project. Oh, and then we hadour two bus drivers with us all the time as well. So it truly was a team effort!


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The Trek

Well, this was the part of the trip that I was most anxious about. I was slightly encouraged beforeI left the UK, however, as several of us were vying for the title of the weakest link but I think Iwas pretty much at the back of the 16 strong troop for most of the trek. Some of the group wereexperienced hikers and were very fit and strong, and some of us werent! We started early thefirst morning after getting to the hotel in Siem Reap at about 6pm the night before, followed by

dinner and a briefing, so it was straight to work hiking on the first day with no time for rest!

We transferred by two minibuses to the Kulen Mountains (Lotus Mountains) which are sacredmountains north east of Siem Reap. We set off at a good pace and the narrow track graduallybecame steeper, rockier and more overgrown! The heat also became hotter! We were soonabsolutely drenched in sweat and my expensive pair of Tesco shorts soon looked as if I had wetmyself (which might have actually been easier than squatting behind vegetation en route!). The fitones forged ahead and the rest of us trudged and clambered behind, but we made steadyprogress and encouraged each other along the way. It was a great way to get to know everyone,well those at the rear with me anyway.

We stopped in a hilltop village (yeah, we did get to the top!) for lunch, which was a beautifullypresented packed lunch in a woven basket-like box. The villagers looked on in curiosity at themotley crew. One old lady came over to ask for some food, but we had been instructed not togive anything to the villagers as it would encourage begging. I hope there was some kind ofarrangement made whereby the villagers did profit in some way by allowing us to use their villagefor a lunch stop. The whole trip was expertly organised by Action Challenge in London and byExotissimo in Cambodia (on behalf of MAG).

At that point I mentioned that I think I had developed some blisters, but I was going to ignorethem and carry on and not look to see how my feet were faring. But our doctor (or rathersurgeon) on the trip, Brett, insisted that we take a look at them. So we did, and we plasteredthem up with Compeed to try to prevent them getting any worse. And off we set again!


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The camp was already set up for us, single tents on wooden platforms with mattresses andsheets inside. I think i would have slept on a bed of nails, as I was so exhausted so the campwas actually really cosy and welcoming. We had a warm welcome by the campsite staff adrinks reception, and restaurant like tables had been set up, and also a seated chill out areafab!

After getting ourselves sorted out and changed, and visiting the really quite disgusting toiletfacilities(!), we sat down to a gorgeous meal served by waiters and waitresses as if we were in aluxury restaurant. We had a Cambodian Volcano Pot which is basically a dome shaped tin with amoat around the edge. This was placed over hot charcoal in the middle of the table. Veggieswere put to cook in the moatand meat was grilled on the dome. Very tasty! Brett was on mytable and he was our chief chef, cooking by head torch as it was so dark. Funny!

I went to bed quite early at about 9.30pm as I was tired out. I slept pretty well actually, lulled tosleep by the very noisy waterfall a few meters from my tent, and I did wake early in the morning

to hear animal noises under the tent platform. I am sure it was the local friendly dogs.........orthats what I told myself anyway.

Breakfast was another gourmet affair. We had a chef in a real chefs hat who cooked breakfast toorder.


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Some of the others then went for a dip in the larger waterfall. I unfortunately couldnt partake asBrett had bandaged and Compeeded up my poor feet by then I had 6 blisters and things werepretty BAD. I did climb down the rickety wooden stairs with random stair heights and missinghandrails (no H&S in Cambodia!) to watch the others swimming in the cold water. It was anamazing sight and sound to see the huge waterfall. One of the highlights, even though I didnt get

to swim.

All too soon it was time to set off trekking again. The terrain was more user- friendly however,and was through rain forest that was flat and easy to walk on (despite my blistered feet). After amorning of hiking, we reached some big uneven steps of rock and clambered down them. At thebottom was another temple which we stopped at for a while.

Then we continued the descent down some more regular steps (lots of them) to where ourminibuses were waiting for us.

Hurraah we all did it !!!I was determined to complete the hike and feel very pleased that I did!


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It was then decided that we would then walk the 3km to the second village of Thlat, and meet thefamily at House 2. This turned out to be not a very popular idea as it was now the middle of theday, and we were walking along a long dusty road, being followedby our minibuses at a snailspace. I started to develop blisters on the bottom of my feet at this time, and eventually decidedenough was enough, and a couple of us got onto the minibus to be transferred the last 200m !

We then met the family at House 2. The Dad, Sam Nen, had lost a leg to a landmine on the Thaiborder. His wife, Cheap Kham and he have three children (Samoun 16, Mau 7 and Kanha 6).None of the children went to school, despite one being just down the lane. It is a case of havingto have the uniform and having clean clothes to wear apparently and the family wasnt up to this.The daughter, Kanha, who was 6 years old, is beautiful and very photogenic.

We had another packed lunch at House 2 while being watched by the family and some of the

villagers. Then we headed back to the Lotus Lodge Hotel for a well deserved swim and rest forthe rest of the afternoon.

Every evening we had a group dinner at a local restaurant. All the restaurants were fabulous andthe food was much better than I had been expecting. All the dishes were beautifully presentedand tasted great (if you like rice, ginger and chicken which did seem to be a recurring theme!)Steve, our MAG representative on the trip, and Helen both hate ginger, which was pretty amusingfor the rest of us who didnt.


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The House that MAG Built

Day OneFreeze Frame

We were split into 4 groups, and I was on the Green Team with Arden and Keith, the two NewYorkers on the trip who were in their seventies, but didnt seem it at all! We started off at HouseOne. When we arrived the Jesuit foreman (a landmine victim again) set us all to work making

bamboo frames as the walls for the house. The basic structure, including foundations andcementing had already been completed before we arrived so we just had the walls to complete.

Basically we were creating huge trellises out of stripped bamboo. Easy! But it wasnt......thebamboo was difficult wood to work with sometimes the nails went in easily, but other times itwas like hammering into steel! I soon developed a technique where I would think of somebody Idont like very much when hammering the difficult nails it worked! We hammered andmeasured, all day long, with the villagers watching and helping at times too. The kids were justamazing so happy and curious. Brett automatically became the Big Kid of our group and startedfooling around with the kids immediately.

When we had hammered all the nails into the trellis (252 nails on a small trellis, 300+ on a largerone!), we sawed off the excess bamboo on the edges of the trellis and then turned over the trellisto hammer the nails flat against the frame. I liked that bit! A bit of indiscriminate hammeringnever hurts anyone!

Brett also did a surgery for the villagers in the afternoon and he spotted cases of TB, a bad heartcondition (the lady would have had a heart bypass operation in the UK) and possibly a stomachtumour in another man. Lots of the kids were malnourished too he said. Lots of people also cameto see the doctor when they obviously didnt have anything wrong with them which Brett toldthem in no uncertain terms (theres nothing wrong at all with this chap) and left the poor translatorto put it to them more gently funny!

After a day of scrabbling around in the dust and dirt, and hitting our thumbs with hammers andgetting hot and sweaty again, we returned by minibus to the hotel for a swim and chill out! Aproductive day.


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Day Two Hammering and WeavingAnother Leaf in the Wall

On day 2 I was on House 2 (we were swapped around so it wouldnt become a competition) andagain we were hammering but also the excitement of weaving was ahead of us. I had visions ofsitting in the sun, weaving away contentedly.....no such luck. The weaving was actually reallyHARD work. We had to fix the palm leaves onto the frames in a systematic manner by pokingholes in the leaves and then poking wire through the holes and twisting it tightly together onto the

frame! Fiddly and finger hurting work!

I was working with Tina at one point and we had a system going (one of us either side of thetrellis) and we were using a rusty nail to poke the holes in the leaves (again no H&S here welove tetanus). We got into the routine of saying Rusty Nail Coming Through and then poking thewire through saying yeah, got it and on and on we went until the whole trellis was covered.

That evening Nannette had booked the Seeing HandsMasseurs to come and give 3 of us amassage at the hotel. This is an organisation that employs blind people to train as masseurs.When they arrived their helper led two of the masseurs to my room (where Nannette was alsohaving her massage). It was odd to have them feeling their way around the bed to find their wayaround but it was a fantastic massage and I realised my legs ached more than I thought theydid following the hike.

When the massage was over, my lady asked to go to the toilet so I led her into the bathroom.She stayed in there for quite a while (!) and Nannette and I and the other masseur were waitingfor her to reappear....which she finally did! Then we had the difficulty of how they were to return

to their helper.....they tried using a mobile phone to ring her, but maybe they dialled the wrongnumber! So we were left wondering what to do.... Nannette went to the lobby to look for thehelper and I stayed in the room with the masseurs. Then, they suddenly decided they were goingto leave and asked me to lead them both back to the lobby. Its not as easy as it seems to leadtwo blind people! They were having trouble both holding onto me, and over the step of thedoorway. One masseur then turned left onto our balcony area and the other one went straight on!HELP! Luckily the helper and Nannette then appeared and the helper led them off in a follow myleader fashion, after some confusion about how much to pay them and who should take themoney. It was a relaxing experience honestly! It was also a funny experience, but not when Ithen went into the bathroom and found that my masseuse had some tummy problems!

Ed also visited their salon for a massage, and he was offered a girlfriend for the evening too they sure can multi-task!


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Day Three More Weaving!

More of the same, again at House 2, or as they say in Cambodia same same but different. Moreweaving, more sore fingers and a few disputes about the best way of weaving. The foremen atthe houses both had different ways of instructing us to fix the leaves so this caused someconfusion. But it all worked out in the end. I started off sitting and lying in the poo smelling mudwith Nannette to fix the bottom leaves onto the frame dirty and horrid work, but hilarious too. All

dignity was lost (if I had any to start with).

Towards the end of the afternoon, everyone was well and truly fed up of weaving. Tempers werefraying slightly and some much needed hilarity was provided when Jenny kept saying no nail,no, I cant see it from her side of the trellis, with Abigail on the other side incredulous that ithadnt poked through! Nannette then pointed out that the nail was clearly visible and everyonecollapsed in stitches! You had to be there!

We had pretty much finished all the walls by the end of the day, with only half a wall left to weaveon Day Four, so the end was at least in sight!

Day Four The Blessing from the local Buddist Monks

The Green Team were back to House 1 and overnight the locals had fixed most of the walls uponto the house already. So there was nothing much to do really apart from play with the kids andwatch Brett and Bryan (a GP volunteer on the trip, who decided to help out with the villagesurgery) do their stuff. I was on balloon blowing up duty too. We were then summonsed over toHouse 2 for the blessing, and would then return to House 1 afterwards.

At House 1 we were all told to follow in a procession behind the three monks around the housethree times. A drum was being beaten and we all started fooling around and dancing around.This caused much laughter amongst the gathered villagers so the monks obviously decided threetimes wasnt enough so we must have gone round about five times altogether.

Then we had to take off our shoes and go inside the house with the monks and the family. Themonks started chanting and spraying water around to bless the house and the gathered people.


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We were allowed to take photos and at one point one of the monks took out his ownmobile phone and took a picture of US ! Funny!

Afterwards it was time for a group photo outside the completed House 2 and thengoodbyes to the locals.

We then went over to House 1 to do a similar process. The monks there obviously didntlike dancing so we didnt go round the house here but went straight inside for theceremony.

Afterwards the family wanted to thank us for our work but the Dad lost the words, but youcould tell they were very happy to have a new home for themselves and their handicappedson.

It was more emotional saying goodbye to the locals at House 1 as they seemed to be amore friendly bunch and the kids were fantastic, and Kat had also got to know some of theladies too. Eventually we left and headed back to the hotel.


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Thursday night and Friday morning MAG Presentation and Demining Demo

On Thursday evening the MAG Cambodia team had come down to meet us and present to usabout their work in the country. Jamie, Lauren, Frank and two country managers whose namesare too Cambodian for me to remember (sorry!) presented all about the situation in Cambodiaand how MAG work there.

MAG is very much a humanitarian organisation and chooses sites to clear based on their impacton the community. Eg it is more important to clear an area where locals believe there to belandmines and they want to use the area for agriculture, rather than clearing a larger area whereit is known that there are landmines (but nobody wants to use it for agricultural purposes forwhatever reason). MAG are very keen on ensuring the land cleared has real impact and meaningfor the community and have evidence of land they have cleared resulting in higher incomes invery rural and poor areas.

On Friday morning after breakfast we were treated to a demining demonstration in the hotelgrounds. Two deminers (both of whom were landmine victims themselves) showed us how theyuse metal detectors to search areas systematically and carefully to local anything that might be a

landmine, and then how they excavate the area around the metal to check if it is in indeed a mineor a UXO (unexploded ordinance) and then mark it ready for detonation.

It was explained that it is a much prized job to be a deminer, as it is well paid and often landminevictims find it hard to find employment. MAG employs many women (Cambodia is still a quitetraditionally male orientated society) and helps families to improve their incomes in otherwisevery difficult situations.

Then it was our turn. All the volunteers on the trip got to dress up in the full PPE (protectivepersonal equipment) to see how hot and heavy it is for the deminers. We then got to use theheavy metal detectors to scan the marked out area at the hotel (in narrow lanes) until we struck

metal! I found the clothing and the metal detector very heavy and I was told that I needed to bepatient not one of my virtues as many people already know! I did, however, succeed in finding aMAG metal badge


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In the evening we had our Presentation Dinner where everyone photos were shown on a largescreen and we all celebrated our great achievements! There were also some humourous awardshanded out. I got one for the Blisters with Most Styleand others got things like the Love ofGinger WeavingAward, the Marriage that survived Weaving for Arden and Keith, the Big KidAward for Brett etc etc.

Afterwards we went onto Pub Street (Public Street but aptly shortened to Pub Street) to listen toa band at the Banana Leaf pub in the street and drink and dance! I left the drinkers to it at about12pm and headed back to the hotel as we had also arranged a trip to see the sun rise over theAngkor Watt temple, leaving the hotel at 4.30am !

Saturday

I dragged myself out of bed at 4am and met the rest of the troop many of whom were still drunkand hadnt been to bed at all! It was pretty funny especially as Brett took over as unofficial tourguide and had us in stitches with his lack of knowledge about things.

We got to Angkor Wat in the dark and waited patiently for the hopefully amazing sunrise over thetemple. In actual fact, it just got steadily lighter with no colourful sky or anything! Oh well. Gotsome good photos anyway, and then we had a brief tour of the temple too.

Lots of the group were in pretty bad shape on the way back to the hotel and slept their hangoversoff! Lots of them were also flying home that evening so I didnt envy them at all!

At around 2pm it was time to say goodbye to the majority of the group who were leaving to goback home. It was strange to see our new friends leave, but I was also looking forward to myextra week of sightseeing and R&R to come......


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Conclusion

It was an amazing week, full of experiences, sights, sounds and laughs. The 15 of us raised 45k profitthat will go to MAG. That is enough to clear land the size of three football pitches of mines, which may notsound like a huge amount, but football pitches are huge, and if you think about the amount of land whichpeople will be able to use in their everyday lives, its a real achievement.

We also built two brand new homes for two very deserving families. As soon as we left the villages, theywere already moving in and making the houses homes. We hope the houses will last a long time (theframes around 5 years, and the weaving around 3 years before they need replacing apparently maybewell have to come back!)

I also think that working alongside the local people also helped educate both us and them as to how

people live on the other side of the world. The Cambodians thought our noses were really funny as they

are quite pointy compared to theirs, and they were also laughing at how fat we are they dont ever

manage to get overweight!

It has certainly made me appreciate the comforts and opportunities I have at home compared to the

poverty experienced by the majority of the Cambodian people, and I truly admire their community spirit

and sense of fun and their chilled out attitudes, and this is something that I will try to keep hold of.

One of my favourite memories will be having made friends with a very shy young 12 year old girl at House

2. On the first day she wouldnt look me in the eye and would turn her head away, but she was very

curious and interested in what was going on. Maybe she reminded me of myself when I was young! By the

end of the week, she was laughing and playing with everyone, and when we went to visit the school she

couldn't tear herself away from the skipping rope! She wore the same dress every daymaybe it was her

favourite dress, or maybe it was the only one she has?

On behalf of MAG, the families and communities who benefitted, and from me personally, I would like to

thank everyone who has helped me in terms of monetary and moral support with this adventure andexperience. I know there are some opinions that this kind of experience is more like a paid holiday for

the participant but I can assure everyone that I paid for my own flight and for the expenses (as well as for

the extra week that I spent in the country on holiday). We also worked in the heat, dust and dirt doing

manual labour which was definitely not like being on vacation!

I do also feel that this particular event worked directly with people in need and we provided two new

homes which the families would not have been able to afford in terms of the building materials or the time

away from work needed to build them. We have also raised funds that are much needed by MAG to use

as emergency funds / standby funds (most government or individual donors want to know exactly which

project their donations are going to, leaving any ad-hoc activities hard to fun). I feel this challenge was

more directly beneficial for two communities, rather than an event such as cycling or trekking which are

biased more towards the personal challenge and the sport side of things.

Of course this was also a personal challenge and one I am very proud of having achieved.

I will cherish the memories for years to come, and am now reflecting on how I can do

more along similar lines in the future...........

..........without so much fundraising!

FROM ME AND MY NEW FRIENDS IN CAMBODIA, AT MAG AND THE

VOLUNTEERS FROM AROUND THE WORLDA BIG BIG THANK YOU!

Community Challenge Cambodia 2010 - MAG International

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