In Cambodia, 11 children die when 100 born before they become one year old. Another 18 dies in addition to that, before they become five years old(1996, UNICEF). Theoretically only 70% of lucky Cambodian children born every year can live more than 5 years. Wait, there is a point. Are they really lucky? During my 10-day-trip of Cambodia for volunteer work, I had a wide chance to meet diverse Cambodian children. Basically, I love children. I just cannot stop looking and fondling them. Thus it is natural that Cambodian children were the best to impress me throughout the trip. They made me feel sad at the same time making me reflect myself. At some points they moved me but they disappointed me too. In the end, my feeling became somewhat unexplainable. Though, one thing is for sure: I was really angry at the circumstances of Cambodia which fundamentally affected the children.
Started with visiting the killing field, the trip evoked my great expectation. Killing field is the place where straightforwardly reveals the painful history of Cambodia. One fourth of Cambodian population died at this place without any specific reason under the regime of Toltore. Not only by directly confronting the remains of that cruel genocide, I also was greatly shocked and impressed by the children in there. I was wandering around the ironically calm and peaceful place chatting with one of my friends. It was then the two smiling Cambodian boys called me.
They gladly waved hands at me and smiled brightly. Seeing my camera, they unhesitantly made the ¡®v-sign¡¯ for taking the picture. That was so natural and I took a picture of them.
Surprisingly, just after I took the picture, there smiles immediately faded away and new look appeared, which aimed to evoking pity. And they said, ¡°money.. money¡¦¡± I couldn¡¯t do or say anything. I was just stunned at the moment. One of the Cambodian university students who travelled with us came to me and moved me out of the place. ¡°Don¡¯t do anything dangerous¡±, he told me. I was really confused. It was obvious that the children had a purpose in approaching me. Even though they had exceedingly innocent eyes, they didn¡¯t have any kind of innocence, for sure. But, is it justifiable to call them ¡®dangerous¡¯? That was my first question.
In front of the department store building, a girl made me feel truly guilty and sorry. After shopping at the department store, I felt really good together with the ice tea on my right hand and a bunch of snacks with my left. I dropped the empty can of ice tea at a trash basket. And a girl next to the basket immediately grappled the deserted can and shook the can into her mouth in order to get the final drop of ice tea.
I couldn¡¯t believe my eyes, however, but it was not only for her. Near the garbage can, there were a few children finding some food from the trash or carrying a bag for gathering trashes.
Who did drive them into that desperate situation? In Cambodia, there are many children who live on the streets with no house and no parents, and no way to earn money normally. Only in Pnomh Penh, it is estimated that more than 1000 children are living in the streets. They just wander around the streets only with a fragile and bonny children¡¯s body. Their ways of life are very simple: search the garbage can(46%), or begging money(18%) to get money. At worst, some of them sell their body too. According to the statistic data from 1979, the latest one so far, there are 250,000 children without parents in Cambodia but only 2379 can live in the orphanage. Then, where are the other children except 2379? It¡¯s obvious: on streets. The circumstances in 1979 must have changed a great deal but the basic concept is still same, I suppose. After all, however, I didn¡¯t give them anything. I could have given them my snack on left hand. Or I just could give them some money. But I didn¡¯t. I just completely relied on what the guide say ¡°You should not give them any money or food. You might get in trouble.¡± I wonder now. What was the thing I was afraid of at that time? What prevented me from helping them? I said that Cambodian children make me sad all the time but I didn¡¯t do anything extraordinary to them.
Those experiences were meaningful, though. Through the children, I could made up my mind to do pour my everything on the volunteer work. It doesn¡¯t need to be anything big or special, but I did want to help Cambodian children in any way and did my best on it.
The children I met at the first day of Cambodia actually devastated me spiritually. I did know that the circumstance in Cambodia is desperate but experiencing it directly was still shocking. Cambodian¡¯s attitude toward education is substantially different from the one of Korean. Compared to the fervent parents of Korea, Cambodian parents are indifferent to their children¡¯s education. Mainly because of the Killing field genocide, which killed the most of learned people, people generally think learning a great deal is more dangerous than beneficial. However, for Cambodia to develop well, the education toward children is absolutely necessary. Our group went to one of the schools of Cambodia to make the children¡¯s learning environment more pleasant. The school was about 30 minutes away from Pnomh Penh.
Even though the elementary education is guaranteed by law, only about 50% of children can attend the school overall in Cambodia. (Others have to do work for their living, sadly.) The extra money takes for the school uniform, enrollment fee, test fee, etc. prevents children from going school due to the availability of education for free. Especially, in case of local area, the problem is more serious; the education infra system is not actually equipped. The children in the school happily welcomed us. Their pure and innocent eyes were brightly shining as saying that they are really glad to see us. I was just overwhelmed by the warmth of them.
Lida and Srein-ruh were the most impressive girls at the school. Both girl helped us in repairing the old school building and re-painting it. During that process, I had a great deal of chances to have conversation with them. They really interested me by telling the Cambodian youth¡¯s way of life. Most of all, I was surprised to see the popularity of ¡°Rain¡±, Korean singer and actor. Not only for that, their loving and caring attitude moved me from deep inside my heart.
I was so thankful since they gave me warm love without any specific reason, or any other purposes. Lida gave me heart-shaped Cambodian money which she made by herself through folding it. The Cambodian girls gave us everything they could. Srein-ruh gave me a picture drawn on her paper, reluctant to receiving the Korean money I brought. Their heart was so sweet. The devil called poverty might have avoided them. They were so untainted. Lida likes math and Srein-ruh¡¯s favorite subject is literature. And they both wanted to be a doctor. I was somewhat surprised to see Srein-ruh wanting to be a doctor since she likes literature.. Then a Cambodian University student next to me said that whether they are boy or girl, all Cambodian students want to be a doctor. It clearly reminded the desperate employment situation in Cambodia. The working condition of Cambodia is extremely unstable; even university graduates have hard time finding the job, which is absurd considering that there is only ¡°one¡± university in Cambodia. Obviously not all people can be a doctor. After I come back to Korea, I suddenly became sad thinking about the possibility for them to be doctors. It is even harder for them since they are all girls. The gap between the percentages of boy and girl students attending the school widens after the age of 12-13 so that at the age of 17, only 30% of female students can attend school. That¡¯s not all. In order to become doctor, they have to get university education, which is available only for few. As I said it before, only one university exists in Cambodia. Can they be the ¡°lucky ones¡±? They can be a housemaid at the rich house, or can work at the farm. They are likely to marry at that age, and at the worst case, they might have to sell their body for living-many young girl sell their body at 5-10$ per night at the sightseeing spots.
They are extraordinarily kind and sweet people. It was indeed a great chance for me to meet people like them. Their future, however, is so uncertain that nobody can guarantee it. Nobody can guarantee the pureness and bright smile of them.
The younger Cambodian children surprised me in somewhat different way. Well, more exactly, they shocked me. One of my friends told me about a girl she met at the front of the Cambodian department store. She begged for a snack wretchedly. She gave the child a snack, but the response was something unpredictable. Instead of saying ¡°Thank you¡±, the girl said ¡°One more, one more¡±.
The children in school were not actually different from the girl. At the last day of our volunteer work, many students from our school gave Cambodian children presents. There were notes, pens, pencils, and other school things from Korea, which are scarce in Cambodia. The problem happened when distributing them. Many children wanted to have some more of them. They desperately jostled their friends in order to get one more present, and soon the place was filled with the voice of children shouting ¡°Moi! Moi!¡± (meaning ¡®one¡¯ in Khmer language) hiding the already given present at their back. In frankly speaking, seeing that turbulence brought me disappointment. But after deep consideration, the disappointment eventually became something else.
What on earth made the children like that? What is the thing called ¡®poverty¡¯? Is it that great to drive the children into the desperate condition? During our volunteer work, very little children with a bag constantly followed us in order to gather the empty bottle of water. If they fill the whole bag, they could get a few cents for it. The children stared me with miserable eyes all the time I drink water and protruded their hands, tiny and bony ones, to me. Poverty makes people to forfeit their pride. I could feel that from deep inside of my heart.
Did the Cambodian children born like from the very first time? Absolutely not! The hopeless conditions made the children like that. Poverty took away the innocence from the children who must smile brightly and chatter pleasantly without knowing any gloomy side of the world.
I cannot forget a girl who remarkably liked me and followed me all the time. As soon as see me, she came to me and tried to hug me. I just liked it, the small body coming to me with sparkling eyes. I too hugged her powerfully. The weightiness of the body wasn¡¯t felt at all. There was a small and bony body, something felt like sticks surrounded with a hide. I actually was surprised to see her response. Normal Korean kids ran away when I do hug them strongly. But she did like that a great deal. Since then, she followed me all day with six or seven of her friends. She refused to be away from me and always grappled even at a small part of my body. She loved to kiss me at my chin. She could not understand English or Korean and I cannot understand Khmer. Of course there wasn¡¯t any kind of proper communication between us. Even though, she just kept following me. Maybe she liked the warmth of people, which she can hardly feel.
Even after I, became dreadfully weary after the hours spent with children, get her back to her sister almost abandoning, she did not throw away her fondness upon me. I was concerned about her sullen look appeared going back to her sister, but she waved her hands fervently toward me and gave me a bright smile seeing me again. Back at the hotel, I could not fell asleep soon thinking about her.
We leaved the school after 4 days of volunteer work. Staring upon the leaving buses of us, many children cried whether they are big or small. The crying look of Cambodian children made my heart almost crying too. There wasn¡¯t a class of the school at the last day of our volunteer work. The school temporarily stopped all the normal functions for us to finish the remnant volunteer work and have a party with the children. Do you think the same thing is possible in Korea?-a temporary holiday of a school caused by the visitors from foreign countries.
Suddenly a thought that the meaning of this volunteer work might be much bigger for the Cambodian students and teachers than us, who virtually did the volunteer work, appeared in my mind. Bored with the daily work without any change, tired with the hopeless condition of the country without any visible possibility to improve, the Cambodian children and teachers might be fed up with their identical lives for ever and a day. Our visit to them might had imbued new vigor and energy into that ¡®everyday¡¯ life of them and made it interesting and special. Indeed, the atmosphere of the volunteer work place was full of energy with willingly working students from Korea and curious and amused children from Cambodia.
Their sense of loss after we left that place will be big for them to deal with. With clumsy English, they told us again and again ¡°I¡¯ll miss you every day. I love you¡±. Their teary eyes will not fade away in my memory forever.
At first, I was regrettable since I could not visit and do the volunteer work in the AIDS hospital, different from the first plan. During my trip to Cambodia, however, the dissatisfaction had completely changed into the gladness originated from the effort poured in the volunteer work and meeting with the diverse children.
Changing the old and dark school into the new and bright one by re-painting and cleaning it was truly meaningful. The Cambodian students were also happy about the newly constructed volleyball field. Seeing their cheerful faces also made me feel happy. I could make special memories thanks to the Cambodian children. Meeting people like them was the genuine good luck of me. I will always keep he heart made from money and clumsy but beautiful pictures given by them. And I hope I too would have given them special memory too.
It is true that I could not contribute anything directly to the wretched Cambodian circumstances and change it into better ones. At least, however, I could know more about the situation in Cambodia, which I didn¡¯t really care at all before. I now can see the contradictions and problems in Cambodia. This volunteer work does not mean ¡®the end¡¯. In my opinion, the main purpose of this trip is to know about the conditions in Cambodia. Now that we know much about them, we can actually work for that more effectually and seriously. If I could have a chance, I am absolutely willing go to Cambodia again and do the ¡®real work¡¯ for the children in Cambodia.
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