Below is a response from the principal of Don Bosco Technical School in Sihanoukville to KJE's article about "Life in Cambodia". For those who don't know who KJE is, he is an American who is an ardent supporter of Mr. Hun Sen's leadership and policies. This article is also published at Ki-Media here. Please have a read.
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Dear friend, I share with you my reflection on the article "Life in Cambodia" by ALL ABOUT CAMBODIA.
Dear friend, thank you for visiting the rural areas of Cambodia. I wish that more foreigners from NGOs, companies and other offices in busy Phnom Penh will do it.
Statistics are statistics and they help us to understand the results of any particular reality. First, they cannot be assumed as a total vision of the reality, but at the same time, they cannot be dismissed as an relative tool. Relative is of course the reactions of those who find statistics in favor or against their particular interests. Therefore, statistics are object of manipulation. Monitoring must come always from very neutral sources.
As educator of children and youth from farm communities since 1999, I am at the side of the farmers everyday and I know very well what is to live in a Cambodian farm. We know that 90 % of the Cambodians who live under poverty, are in rural areas. It is true, even if we want to underline the romantic point of view of a country life. Then, we have to meet the concept of poverty and how relative it could be.
Children from most rural areas have not access to education. Many of them walked for kilometers to attend a school that is rather not well furnished for education (have you studied in the classroom of a tropical country without a fan?) Then at midday children should walked kilometers back to look for that food you are suggesting is everywhere.
Farmers depend also from the jumping of prices in the market. They are particularly susceptible to harvest production (floods, dry season, typhoons like the last one of Kompong Thom, etc. can let them without that abundance of food.) It is enough you do a visit for farmer families in Kompong Thom now, the ones that suffer the consequences of the last typhoon.
Even if they live a peaceful rural life at the side of their pagodas (it is not true either in many other rural areas,) farmers are cut from the stream of telecommunications and then living in ignorance of what happens in their own country and world. You know that ignorance makes a population at the mercy of ambitions from rural powers.
Health is out of reach of farmers. Even if you suggest that the villagers you knew go to the nearest big town (Kratie?) there are villages too far and without proper roads, where a doctor is a very strain, far and expensive guy. Natural medicine is their health service and - with the due respect to ancient traditions - several natural practices are the main cause of death tolls, including that of the friendly mid-wife.
If Cambodia wants to reduce poverty, it has to attend urgently the rural areas: infrastructures, telecommunications, electricity, running water, schools and agricultural projects. In Phnom Penh there are enough funds to do so. However, to do so, we need that the air-conditioning-office officials and private employees from departments, NGOs (most of them settled in Phnom Penh) and companies, bring their so expensive (?) cars to the dirty roads of the villages of their country in order to proof how true statistics can be.
Greetings in the name of my children and young people from farms.
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Don Bosco Technical School Sihanoukville
Secretary: 034 933 764 - Salesian Community: 034 63 63 551 - Communication Department: 097 96 75 042
management@donboscosihanoukville.org
www.donboscosihanoukville.org http://www.google.com/profiles/albeiror24 .
http://person.yasni.com/----------------------------------------------
Dear friend, I share with you my reflection on the article "Life in Cambodia" by ALL ABOUT CAMBODIA.
Dear friend, thank you for visiting the rural areas of Cambodia. I wish that more foreigners from NGOs, companies and other offices in busy Phnom Penh will do it.
Statistics are statistics and they help us to understand the results of any particular reality. First, they cannot be assumed as a total vision of the reality, but at the same time, they cannot be dismissed as an relative tool. Relative is of course the reactions of those who find statistics in favor or against their particular interests. Therefore, statistics are object of manipulation. Monitoring must come always from very neutral sources.
As educator of children and youth from farm communities since 1999, I am at the side of the farmers everyday and I know very well what is to live in a Cambodian farm. We know that 90 % of the Cambodians who live under poverty, are in rural areas. It is true, even if we want to underline the romantic point of view of a country life. Then, we have to meet the concept of poverty and how relative it could be.
Children from most rural areas have not access to education. Many of them walked for kilometers to attend a school that is rather not well furnished for education (have you studied in the classroom of a tropical country without a fan?) Then at midday children should walked kilometers back to look for that food you are suggesting is everywhere.
Farmers depend also from the jumping of prices in the market. They are particularly susceptible to harvest production (floods, dry season, typhoons like the last one of Kompong Thom, etc. can let them without that abundance of food.) It is enough you do a visit for farmer families in Kompong Thom now, the ones that suffer the consequences of the last typhoon.
Even if they live a peaceful rural life at the side of their pagodas (it is not true either in many other rural areas,) farmers are cut from the stream of telecommunications and then living in ignorance of what happens in their own country and world. You know that ignorance makes a population at the mercy of ambitions from rural powers.
Health is out of reach of farmers. Even if you suggest that the villagers you knew go to the nearest big town (Kratie?) there are villages too far and without proper roads, where a doctor is a very strain, far and expensive guy. Natural medicine is their health service and - with the due respect to ancient traditions - several natural practices are the main cause of death tolls, including that of the friendly mid-wife.
If Cambodia wants to reduce poverty, it has to attend urgently the rural areas: infrastructures, telecommunications, electricity, running water, schools and agricultural projects. In Phnom Penh there are enough funds to do so. However, to do so, we need that the air-conditioning-office officials and private employees from departments, NGOs (most of them settled in Phnom Penh) and companies, bring their so expensive (?) cars to the dirty roads of the villages of their country in order to proof how true statistics can be.
Greetings in the name of my children and young people from farms.
--
Don Bosco Technical School Sihanoukville
Secretary: 034 933 764 - Salesian Community: 034 63 63 551 - Communication Department: 097 96 75 042
management@
www.donboscosihanoukville.org http://www.google.com/
Join donbosco1.ning.com
3 comments:
KJE,
I second your observation. I was in Kratie, a sleepy little town on the Mekong river bank, and surrounding hamlets a few months ago and observing the same plights that ordinary citizens had to go through and endure whether in sickness and health. But they gleefully yet determine to go on with their lives despite the lack of necessities. One village on the other side of the river just up stream from Kratie, there isn't a single local pharmacy or Doctor clinic. The whole place has only one small general grocery store. Sick people have to take a small ferry to cross the big river then a long moto dup ride to Kratie. This city itself needs much more developments.
During the stay, I saw a handful of American, French, and even British there. Some were actually working for some organizations. They disappear in the morning and show up in the late afternoon in Kratie riding in those old French Deux Chevau or British Land Rover cars. At night along the river bank, there are food, drink, and desert vendors with sitting tables selling all kinds of goodies. There is no loud and distracting music or noise, just the passing by moto's with families, couples and young people. It was an added bonus with a full moon and stars. Kratie is an idyllic and quiet town, I have to say. I almost did not want to leave. By the way, I am a Khmer to the fullest.
A few that criticize, it is doubtful that they ever set foot in Cambodia needless to say Kratie and remote villages.
Kratie, like Stung Treng and Prey Veng, is one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia. Many people are poor. I don't see KJE talking about these very poor, only to observe the happiness of his wife's family members who are probably a bit well off compare to living standard in Kratie. The pictures we saw in his blog where his wife's relatives live on stilted houses and had tractors suggest that they are more well off than average Kratie population. We need an objective observer, not one that is always flirting with Hun Sen regime, like KJE, to tell us about Kratie people.
Kje is a bigot and a demagogue.
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