Love is a luxury when survival is the necessity.

(Yesterday I went with Jenny, Chhorn and Adam to help film some of the family's we support at CFI. We went to the most impoverished homes in rural cambodia. One of the most amazing experiences in my life. Hard to explain but this is my attempt.)

My reality was crushed today.
Twisted into their simple truth only for a moment, I was thoughtless with pain.
All forms of emotion came over me in such few hours of the day.
Hope. I saw hope in the kind eyes of the family with the small metal hut suspended over the water at the edge of the rice fields.
Flowers leaning on the small gate outside.
This is their home, but this is not their land.
I saw hope, in the boys eyes who had a chance for a job, teaching soccer.
I saw hope in the smile of the mother and how she held her baby so tenderly.
I saw hope in that the father was there.
To abandon them is so easy and so frequently it is done. But he smiles at his wife and plays with his small child, holding his tiny hand in his as they look at one another… smiling, barefoot, dirty and as precious as life.
I felt ashamed as we bumped along the dirt road past the rice fields on the motobikes.
Ashamed that I bother with the things that truly does not matter.
Confused why we strive to be anything but ourselves and crave much more then what is needed. That delusion that is toxic to love, truth and goodness.
I felt thankful. So thankful that I closed my eyes, that there are happy endings, along with the all the sad. Thankful that people do care sometimes.
Thankful that my friends spend endless days and nights finding a way to make it somehow easier for them.
A bit more rice in their bowls.
A way to send the children to school, building their confidence, strengthening their ability to survive and smile.
Finding a way to bring down a fever, heal a broken home, and take care of someone left behind.
He was left behind and his eyes are always so far away.
The circumstances of poverty are heartless.
Love is a luxury when survival is the necessity.
Did they ever say goodbye? Did they feel guilt or question leaving?
As a boy looks at his feet in the middle of a dirt road lined with trash, Alone.
Did they hug him before they left him in the dust?
I felt the sadness of a child left, in his eyes. At the will of those around him.
He is quiet and keeps his head down. He must only take what he can.
His aunt is bitter and his rations are small.
I felt lost in those eyes and in these emotions as I felt her anger, his silence and the other children’s neglect.
Chickens, dogs and roosters were noticed as much as the children, playing naked and wild with sweet smiles of rotting teeth.
When will they stop smiling I think to myself.
I am scared for these small souls born into situations that will break them.
I want to take them in my arms and hold them away from reality.
Safe in my helpless arms.
They should not be here, I hope they leave one day, smiling.
I can only hope.

-Maya Tucker (CFI volunteer)

Back in Battambang

I remember it all now…
The uncertainty of crossing the road, the smell of sweet roasted duck mixing with the sewage running down the sidewalk drain.
The beautiful pagodas with architecture like a twisted kings crown.
Monks talking on cell phones and smoking cigarettes, still make me smile.
Sunsets over rice fields as I ride on the back of a motto on my way home from the center. The wooden houses perched on stilts, crooked, looking as if they will soon fall into the muddy yet beautiful river.
The river lined with the greenest vegetation you have ever seen.
Banana, jackfruit, pineapple.
Oh the pineapple! Like you have never before tasted pineapple =)
Tuk-tuk! Tuk-tuk lady! Hey Lady!! Ladyyyyyyy!!
Everyone on the bus is throwing up in bags and it stinks and this nice lady next to me is making me eat something stringy, wet and black and I don’t want it,
I don’t want it.
but I just smile as she forcefully slops it in my hand and I say mmmmmm… ah koon =)
The potholes you hit with that crazy guy driving you.
He doesn’t care! HE has a helmet!
Wedding season outside your window, everynight, everyday.
The lady who rips you off at the market for a massive grapefruit.
Her toothless smile, you cant help but love her a lil, you smile as she waves and thinks “stupid tourist, HA!”
When I run outside of the town, people clap.
I liked it at first =) made me run faster.
Now I run in the park, people stop clapping after the second round.
The outlet is smoking….
The outlet is smoking a lot…
The shower is cold and refreshing.
How many 18 year old boys work here?!
Do you work here…? My outlet is smoking.
Karaoke bars are bad places
=( unfortunately.
Money spent on gambling and beer when there is no rice at home.
Abandoned, raped, sold, broken.
Our boys and girls and their survival…its barely.
Their strength and ability to persevere… they are the worlds tiniest heroes.
The stories are beyond and above what we don’t want to know,
Yet they smile, and they are only 7, 9 or 14.
They all have a story.
Now they all have some hope, and a pen.
And a teddy bear to hold at night, to replace a mother.
Laughter in the garden.
Games, games and more games.
They try to teach me but my shoes get caught in the tree.
We just laugh.
I’m digging in the garden and they think I’m crazy,
And I am. =)


-Maya Tucker (CFI volunteer)

I Believe I Can Fly

Before I left for Cambodia, Andrew’s father (a carpenter by hobby) mailed me a bunch of small steel carabineers for a project in CFI’s garden. Although it is not difficult to get most materials in Battambang, the quality of said materials is extraordinarily unreliable. So, I packed my bags and took these mini 'bineers on a 7,000 mile journey.

At the same time I arrived, a French volunteer, Thomas, came to work with CFI too. In France, Thomas worked constructing ropes’ courses: wiring and bolting cables in forests. With such fortuitous timing, Thomas, Seang (CFI’s handyman), and Andrew (co-director) spent the afternoon hanging what is now the centerpiece of the CFI garden. Using two branches to support the weight of the swing and its swingers, a couple steel cables, the imported steel carabineers, an old rubber tire, and a few man-hours, CFI’s tire swing was put into action.

On any given day, rain or shine, kids flock to the garden and pile onto the tire swing. They take turns and sometimes get into little tiffs concerning prime tire real estate. They continual test the swing’s capacity as to how much weight it can bear and how high it can fly. Not even the most servere swing-sickness can prevent both boys and girls from swinging to and fro, again and again.

It is amazing how a little swing, something that seems so trivial to me, can provide so much joy. When Srey and Muhtang swing together, they hold each other’s hands, giving each other support and strength. When Sreymeth and Tiengy want to swing, the bigger children help them onto the tire and take care not to swing them too hard—for they are too little to both get on and start moving the tire themselves. After class and before going home, kids can fly, soar, and simply swing. They do not hide their toothy smiles and they do not muffle their screams of thrilling adventure.

Although CFI’s garden is awaiting beautification (in the form of funding and flowers), it remains the epicenter of recreation. Children skip ropes, hoola-hoop, dribble footballs, hit badminton birdies, and, of course, swing on the garden’s greatest attraction. On the tire swing, kids believe they can fly because they truly can.

- Laura and Chris

CFI supports local family through micro-loan

In mid-February, three weeks after we first met them, we found out that two girls and a boy had been taken to Thailand overnight by their mother. They had just been been accepted by CFI's sponsorship program and were going to attend the CFI school once it opened when their mother took them to join her husband working in Thailand. The neighbors told us that the children left crying and kept saying that they wanted to study at CFI, they didn't want to leave.

Their father, an amputee, lost the better part of his left leg to a land mine. He finds sporadic work, but not enough to feed his family. He is a good man, loves his family, and does not waste the little wages that he does earn on drinking and gambling, like so many of his peers. In order to make a better life, he and his family packed up and headed west to Thailand.

Many Cambodians leave their country in search for work in the wealthier neighboring country Thailand, believing that they will be able to have a better future there. In reality, Cambodian immigrants, who do not speak the native tongue and who do not have any rights as non-citizens, are greatly mistreated in Thailand. They work for wages too meager to support their family.
Some see themselves forced to sell their children, to starve, to beg. Children are especially vulnerable to abuse.

After two months and many many work hours, CFI's social worker Chhorn was able to locate the family in Thailand. He convinced them to return and arranged for their transport back to their village in Ek Phnom commune, with the promise to help the father set up a small business. CFI loaned the father money to build a fence around his property and a chicken coup and to buy 30 chickens for his start-up and rice on a monthly basis for current sustenance.

In April when Jenny and Andrew met the father, he was depressed. He felt that he had no options in Cambodia, that he wasn't able to feed his children. In May, Andrew and I visited his home. The father had a noticeable change in his demeanor. He opened the gate to his bamboo fence with pride. He built it. He led us around his chicken coup, a sturdy structure that houses a couple dozen growing chicks. Again, he built it. Every day he mashes banana tree and rice hulls for chicken feed. He is breeding chickens so that he can sell their meat. A few of his chicks have died, but the remaining grow stronger and bigger everyday. Although his family is still receiving rice from CFI, he plans on earning enough money in the future to buy his own rice and to repay the loan.

All three of his school-aged children attend CFI's school. They are performing very well and will enter public school in October, after summer vacation. Microfinance is not CFI's main goal and this is a test case, but its effects are already positive. CFI's greatest concern is to keep children in school and in the country. We are able to do that by providing school uniforms, school supplies, reintegration courses in Khmer literacy, and rice. We want to keep children with their families whenever possible and help provide families with sustainable livelihoods where they are comfortable sending their kids to school every day instead of sending them to work or even selling them.

A death in a slum

In the midst of moving and preparing for the blessing ceremony, Chhorn, our social worker, gets a call from a neighbor of one of the families that we support in the city. The mother has had breast cancer for several years and for the same amount of time none of the four children has been in school. Instead, the oldest brother worked at the taxi stand, unloading cars, the girl stayed at home taking care of her sick mother and the two younger boys collected garbage to sell and make a few cents every day. We met the family about three months ago for the first time. Since then, the three younger children have re-entered public school. The two boys attend school regularly, whereas their older sister dropped out again to take care of her mother. When the neighbor calls today he tells Chhorn that the mother has died.

We visit the family in the evening, as soon as we get back into town from CFI’s center. The house is in a slum-area and there are only four or five tables set up for the ceremony that is always held after someone has died. The youngest son pushes his way past the small children jumping around the tables and greets us politely. At first I can’t tell in the dark if it’s really him, he seems very composed for what has just happened. He brings us to his dead mother. It’s difficult to talk to anyone because of the loud mourning-song that is being blasted out of megaphones and speakers. On my right the woman is lying on the same cot she always sat on when I met her. As I arrive, someone covers her face with a white cloth. There are five or six women sitting on blue plastic chairs in the dirt beside her cot. Three meters next to the cot, to my left, a man is sawing the plywood-casket she will be burned in. In front of me, a woman is tacking black cloth to the board that the casket will be transported on. There are neon-lights coming from somewhere and Buddha-images in neon colors under them. I look around until I’ve spotted and greeted all the children. The second oldest boy comes towards me with a big smile until he remembers why I’m here, then he just nods. The daughter stands around with some other teenage girls, and the oldest son is the only person I see with tears in his eyes. A middle-aged man with a freshly shaved head greets me, someone says it’s the children’s father. He’s drunk and stands for a long time looking at the neon lights and the boards that will form the casket. It’s the first time I’ve met him. A cousin of the mother has come from Phnom Penh. He seems to be organizing everything and keeps telling us that the children can not stay with their father. We will talk tomorrow when the grandmother’s here. We offer some money as support for the funeral expenses, as is customary. The youngest boy – the one that greeted us, he’s ten – is sitting on the cot next to his mother. Very lightly, he lifts the white cloth that covers his mother’s face and bends down to look at her. The women sitting on the plastic chairs and I watch him as he lies down next to her, stiff, in exactly the same position she’s in. He’s so close to her that their arms are touching. His eyes are open but not moving. No one says anything, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t move. When I leave some time later he’s still lying in exactly the same position. I cry.

-Jenny

The move, bathrooms, and blessings

Ten months after the first children moved into CFI’s temporary children’s home, it’s time to leave it for the newly renovated children’s home at the community center. A small pick-up truck is all that’s needed to move. We pile a few rattan shelves and bags of clothes on the back of the pick-up, along with kitchen supplies, school books, diapers, a bag of shoes, two bicycles, two dogs (that belong to the housemother and would otherwise have to be abandoned), two housemothers and seven children. The children note that the owner of the house is crying a lot, then they get on the truck, wave to her, and we leave.

We arrive almost at lunchtime, but there’s no time to think of eating. Every child that is old enough to carry something helps bringing bags here and there, sometimes in circles, the two housemothers (Sitha and Siyean) and teacher Genev make sure that the children’s rooms get equipped with the proper clothes, I run around with toothpaste, toothbrushes, sleeping mats and similar things, the boys pile their new blankets and towels and pillows on their arms, more small children than we have living with us seem to be constantly running into us or running away or demanding to be picked up or fed, the dogs bark as soon as no one’s paying attention to them, the boys discover the water hose outside and how to make water come out of it, Chong wants to go out to take a bath and can’t believe that he can wash in this strange small room next to his room, ‘you mean I take a shower inside?’, Srey doesn’t believe that she can go to the bathroom inside either and keeps asking where to go, the floors get mopped even with children running around barefoot, the children do eventually get fed, and somehow in the middle of it all Se, our advisor, prepares the living room for the blessing ceremony that five monks will hold in a very short time. It is a tradition here to have a new house blessed before moving in, and Sitha says that she and the children will be able to sleep much better because the ghosts won’t be there anymore after the blessing ceremony. Several older women from the neighborhood lead the ceremony, along with the five monks sitting in front on their pillows, behind candles and bouquets of flowers. They chant and the women chant and the children return from running around to sit down with their hands folded before their chest, until they get up and run around again in between being blessed. The women from the neighborhood each get a big bottle of coke as a thank you, the monks get especially prepared presents containing soft drinks and hygiene articles.

After that the children actually take over cleaning the entire living room when I have to run off with the humongous bundle of keys to open yet another door, Sitha, Siyean and Genev get the kitchen set up, buy a 60kg bag of rice and pour it into a big bucket, wonder why I didn’t buy anything red (because I don’t like it) and the younger kids take their third shower of the day, complete with their third change of clothes, while the older boys are watering the flowers a second time already. I am relieved at how smoothly the move went and have one more visit to make before it gets too dark.

-Jenny

Everyone was very hot and dirty and smelly (says Fong) (*reposted from Oct. 2009)

We had found a location and facility for CFI to set up its new center. But before we could begin renovations we had to clear the old garden and clean up the general backyard area. Fortunately we had the help of the students from Chrey, the village we previously worked in.

I was hoping for a couple dozen volunteers but when I arrived in the truck I was surprised to find nearly 50 children and teenagers ready and excited to work; in some cases kids I hadn’t seen in nearly a year.

After a ride along the bumpy dirt roads we finally arrived at the new facility. I tried to give the kids a tour of the house but they were too excited to listen. They ran up and down the stairs and in and out of the different rooms. And it wasn’t just the younger kids. The older, 'cool' kids were having fun too.

Our task for the first day was to cut down the banana trees. Abundant in Cambodia, they bear fruit only once and are not very strong. We’ve all used the expression, “It’s a jungle out there.” But when it came to the backyard, really, it was a jungle out there! Wandering merely a few yards from the house one immediately became disoriented and lost sight of the house. Cutting down the banana trees in the backyard would clear out a significant amount of space and create a safer environment for the facility.

From the moment we began work the entire garden was full of children kicking against and jumping on the trees until they fell, pushing down and cutting the trunks, digging out the roots. Once the trees were down and chopped up, we dragged them to a hole at the end of the garden which gradually filled up with banana-tree-trunks and leaves.

It was a typically hot Cambodian day; the sun beating down on us for hours. When we tried to wipe the sweat from our faces we only smeared dirt into the sweat. All of our hands and clothes were covered in mud and banana-tree-trunk juice. Carrying the trees away, the kids managed to avoid the half-inch long red ants scurrying along the discarded plants. In fact, I think I was the only one to yelp when they tried to bite their way through my flesh.

"Everyone is hot and dirty and smelly," said Fong at the end of the day. Already the backyard looked like an entirely different place. We could actually start to imagine a garden with flowers blooming and children playing. Eventually there will be swings for play time and benches for studying. And while the children who helped us that day live some distance from the new facility, we plan to arrange transportation a few times a week so they can benefit from what on this day they helped create.

- Jenny