BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (UCAN) -- A Church-organized traditional Khmer dance troupe that includes physically disabled children and teenagers recently went on a six-week tour of Spain.
Monsignor Enrique Figaredo, apostolic prefect of Battambang, organized the tour for the Dance Group of Tahen, based in Tahen, outside Battambang town, about 250 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh.
During the Oct. 26-Nov. 5 tour, about 70 children and teenagers, of whom 15 are disabled, performed more than 20 times in more than 10 major cities. They also visited five schools for exchange activities with local Spanish students.
According to Alvaro Figaredo, who helped organize the tour, the Spanish students enthusiastically welcomed the Cambodian performers "as if they were the Rolling Stones" rock band.
The layman, a cousin of Monsignor Figaredo, a Spanish Jesuit missioner, told UCA News the Cambodian dancers covered more than 10,000 kilometers traveling around Spain. Aside from performing and making friends, he said they also saw an amateur bullfight and attended Mass at the Holy Cave of Covadonga, a Marian shrine near Spain's northern coast.
Recalling the tour, which sometimes involved getting up early and eating at odd times in odd places, Alvaro Figaredo said, "We have learned a lesson on sacrifice, being positive, happy and flexible, and especially on companionship." He added, "When one asks the Cambodian dancers what they like most about Spain, they inevitably answer: 'The people, the Spanish.'"
Some of the young performers spoke to UCA News, both in Spain and when they came back to Cambodia, on their experience.
Sam Botumn, who contracted polio when she was 9 months old, had not previously gone abroad. "I'm so happy to perform the 'blessing dance.' I thought I could not do what other people can do. But now I can do anything that physically abled people can do, even though I am always in a wheelchair."
Another girl, Pen, was 6 years old when polio struck her. "Being a disabled girl, I'm so proud to perform our Khmer classical dance, which is very hard to study," she said. Pen was thrilled to hear that some audience members planned to visit Cambodia. "I can help my country a little by letting the world know more about us. Before, the world knew Cambodia because of our war," she noted.
Cham Mech, 49, who was in charge of the troupe, commented: "We did not come only to perform our traditional and classical dances. We came as witnesses to our Catholic faith by the way we pray, celebrate Mass and also the way we sit and greet."
Alfonso Gonzalez Garcia, a volunteer who helped out during the tour, told UCA News he was impressed with how the troupe combines able-bodied and disabled youngsters in its dances. He also found the young Cambodians to be very respectful of elders and helpful to each other. In Spain, he remarked, it is difficult to find a child who smiles at a stranger.
After the tour, five young Spanish volunteers were set to go to Battambang to work with the Dance Group of Tahen.
One of them, Adela, told UCA News she was at first unsure of going to Cambodia but after being with the dance troupe for six weeks, "I truly want to go with the group and help out in Cambodia, especially in Arrupe and Tahen."
Monsignor Figaredo runs Arrupe Center, a care center in Battambang for disabled children.
During its tour of Spain, the troupe collected enough funds to finance two rural projects to support underpriviledged children in Battambang prefecture.
Empowering disabled children and promoting Khmer culture are just two of the many ministries that the local Church has undertaken since it revived in the early 1990s after two decades of civil war and religious persecution. Almost all Khmer, the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, are Buddhists.
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