1 in 290
By Jeff Kennel
14 June 2008
I am on an assignment documenting the work of International Bridges to Justice in Cambodia for 8 weeks. Recently I went to Pursat, 3 hours from Phnom Penh, with IBJ Fellow and lawyer Ouk Vandeth for another trial. The trial was cancelled. Turns out the judge fell ill the day before and will "probably" be rescheduled next month.
Sanity, or a functioning version of it anyway, one that is undoubtedly beyond the scope of most Westerners ability to comprehend, certainly beyond mine, that is unless you've lived through and are living in what Cambodians have and currently are living through, requires the cultivation of an infinite amount of patience, an enormous serving of "c'est la vie," and a whole lot of Manifest Destiny mumbo jumbo.
Asked why they didn't call us to let us know not to come Vandeth replied, "The judge's clerk said he forgot." So it goes, 2 days wasted for us, but nothing compared to the man who will remains in prison for another month awaiting his fate.
Vandeth's eyes aren't too good so he doesn't like to drive at night which meant we were staying in Pursat for the night. Needing more photos of people outside the city, photos of "normal" Cambodia, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk along the river not too far from the hotel. Lining the banks are shack after wooden shack. I walk down a ways, feeling a bit like I'm walking through someone's living room with my shoes on. Sure it's a public street, but walking in tight communities where everyone knows everyone I always feel like this. I stop to watch a group of men and women gambling at some inexplicable card game inexplicably playing happily next to a noisy, diesel-smoke filled construction site. I wander down the street and sit down at a convenience store, a.k.a. a shack that sells snacks and a few drinks out of a cooler. I grab an orange Fanta, am handed a straw, and sit down. Within 2 minutes word is out that the "Falang" or foreigner has stopped moving, appears not to be a threat, and is available for closer inspection. Soon a good sized group of cute, mostly toothless kids have surrounded me and are pointing to my camera asking me to take their photo. I photograph them and show them their photo on the LCD. They love it and now everyone wants to try. Fine by me. After a good 20 minutes I notice out of the corner of my eye an old lady hobbling gracefully across the street towards me. I glance down at her legs in an instinctive attempt to identify the what's happened to her. I see what looks to be a decayed black foot. She no doubt notices my confused face and taps her foot with her cane and lifts her sarong to unveil the skin (western skin) colored prosthetic. Her leg is gone from the just above the knee. Cane and prosthetic connect tap out a tune making a nice solid sound as she smiles saying something in Khmer. Her teeth, what is left of them, are a brownish red. Her smooth ageless face lights up as she speaks, no doubt telling me how this leg became lost. It is a story I wish I could understand. But, after only 3 weeks here, my Khmer is still at zero. I use my two fingers and make like a person walking and then stepping on land mine and ask her, in as gentle a way possible, if this is what happened to her. She says what I take as a yes, making the sound for an explosion in Khmer and pointing to a place not far from where we are sitting. No doubt where her and her leg parted ways. I nod, suddenly not knowing what to say or do now that we've gotten this far. She smiles her beautiful smile and we sit just looking at each other. I offer to buy her a Fanta. She grabs her stomach and makes a bloated gesture saying, "No thanks, it will make me fat." We laugh. I motion to my camera and ask her if I could take her photo. She nods and is happy to oblige...making the serious face that everyone makes here when they pose for a photo like in those antique photographs. I motion to her leg and shyly ask to photograph it. She smiles again and lifts up her sarong laughing. I don't know what to say and bow to thank her. By now the kids are feeling neglected and begin asking me to take their photos again. I take a few more and it's time for me to walk back to the hotel to meet Vandeth and the new intern Rachel for dinner. The Fanta costs .50 cents and I give the shopkeeper a dollar and tell her to keep the change. As I'm leaving the old woman says something. I pause and shake my head saying "I'm sorry but I don't understand." About 4 other very nice women that have been hanging about silently with us suddenly come alive in unison to say what sounds like, "Money, something something something." It's only fair. I've taken something from you...your time and your photograph. This always cheapens the experience for me, but, who am I fooling walking around with a camera? Photography in places like this often does. I wonder how they feel about it. I open my pocket, peering down into it looking for an appropriate bill, not wanting to pull out the wad of money I have for fear every single person watching will start chanting "Money, money, money!" and things might get weird. I find a 1000 Riel bill (about .25 cents) and hand it to her saying thank you for letting me take your photo. She is pleased and the transaction, our relationship, is complete. Everyone seems content and I leave with a group of kids in tow until I reach the end of their street which is the boundry of their world. We say goodbye, neither of us understanding each other, but understanding anyway. Or, more realistically, never really understanding either of us at all. Two alien planets passing silently through space.
From BBC news:
"With a population of around 11.5 million, Cambodia has one amputee for every 290 people - one of the highest ratios in the world.
Outside the main cities, 85% of Cambodians rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Cambodia's chronic mine contamination problem means the threat of death or serious injury is a daily reality for most people here.
"A recent survey found that more than 40% of the villages in Cambodia have a mine problem," says Sean Sutton from the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), an international mine clearance charity.
"Cambodia was constantly at war for more than 20 years. Landmines were widely used by all sides. Each time an area changed hands fresh mines were laid in areas that were already heavily contaminated," he said.
Indeed, Pol Pot - the head of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime blamed for the deaths of millions of Cambodians during the 1970s - described landmines as his "perfect soldiers," so effective were they at causing fear and death.
Democratic elections in 1993 heralded the start of a period of relative calm in Cambodia and many displaced people began returning home from refugee camps in Thailand.
Yet this population movement brought another wave of landmine casualties. "Many villagers lost limbs trying to reclaim the land they'd been forced from years before," explains Sean Sutton.
"Many of them knew their villages and fields were mined but they needed to work the land in order to survive.
"They knew they were risking their lives - but they had no choice."
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