![Performing the Coconut Dance KCDI]()
Performing the Coconut Dance KCDI
Dear Kind Donors,
We Thank you all from our Hearts for helping our School take care of all our Children and for helping save Lives.
In our emergency appeal last month, I wrote of two Children who had been found living on the street. Later we were asked by the local authorities to take care of five Street Children. Happily we were able to track down the families of three of these Children and reunite them.
However, those Children who live with us permanently from early Childhood until they are independent adults, do not have families at all, or they have suffered extreme abuse and must be protected. These are the invisible Children and those completely forgotten.
Although they have suffered so much, but yet our School is a place of Joy and this Joy is contagious. Early in the morning they get on their bicycles to go to state school, with one of our Music Teachers ferrying the smallest Children to kindergarten. Then they come back home for lunch and a rest and then they have their Dance and Music lessons, then more play, dinner and homework. Our Blind Students have their Music Training too. In between lessons, the Students from TrayKoh District School come for their free Pin Peat Music lessons and then are transported back home. These Students come from severely impoverished areas of Kampot.
We are also constantly called for Emergency cases and also for cases of severe malnutrition, not only for Children, but for adults who are very poor and sick or elderly or disabled. We also provide shelter for abused parents with small Children. Last month we were asked to help with an expatriate person found in extremis at the hospital. For this poor person, I sent my own personal savings, as we could not with our currently low School funds, take from our budget. We were then able to care, feed and wash them in hospital. Alas, they passed away on the 17th October. We have over the last two and a half years, fed over five thousand people and three thousand Children all over Kampot Province.
Our School is within large gardens. At the beginning, everything was a rubbish dump and when constructing our School, human bones were found, having been pulled by animals from the next door Court House, where the Khmer Rouge had tortured and executed people. Later, a special ceremony was given to Pray for the dead and to Bless them.
We have four buildings. The first building, sponsored by the British Embassy in 1994, is our Children's Library, Emergency Shelter room (originally our office) and my own Bedroom. That is where I always stay and have stayed since 1994 when in Cambodia, allowing me to be on call 24 hours. For this building, I laid the bricks for part of the Southern wall!
Fish ponds were made in 1994, the old trees were preserved, as well as the Sacred Boddhi Tree and Stupa which is next to my room and which dates back 400 years and not 200 as first thought. Later I was to ask the Bokor National Park for rare tree saplings and these have become tall trees to the front of our School, conserving the traditions from the National Museum and University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh and helping our School stay fresh and full of little birds and wildlife.
We are also a serious Traditional Cambodian Music and Fine Arts School and we symbolize the revival and conservation of ancient Cambodian cultural heritage for future generations of Cambodians. As such we are recognized by UNESCO.
For many years in Kampot there was war. The Khmer Rouge stronghold in Phnom Voar, site of the terrible hostage crisis in 1994 and the focal point of many atrocities from 1970 - 1998. The local hospital in Kampot was a disaster. There I used to take care of tuberculosis patients who were left to die in their own filth, without food or proper medical care. I used to wash their wards as well. Later I was to get tuberculosis of the upper spine. Now the hospital is much better and the war has ended, but tuberculosis, which most often affects thoserun-down and malnourished, still kills many.
Around 70% of Cambodia's population lives in rural areas. Although there has been improvement in towns and for those who live by the main road, however for many who live in more remote rural areas, as well as those struggling in urban cities, life has got much more difficult. We have found as a whole, that more people are malnourished and left behind, as the price of goods continues to rise. A family will sell their house or livestock because of an emergency. For complicated medical procedures people need to go to Vietnam and cannot. Many people still live in thatched palm huts without running water or latrines. Hundreds are falling into impossible debt in the "new scheme" launched by government lending banks. My Blind Students who sing "Smoet", the special lament for the dead, during funerals, get to hear many tales of extreme hardship.
Although the Minister of Culture is a good and stalwart supporter of our School, other more powerful government members are the adult children of those who were in power since 1979. These new leaders were placed into power by the former prime-minister last year after the "elections". In an attempt to woo foreign investment and to re-paint Cambodia as a successfully growing economy and often with the complicity of foreign governments and economic forums, it has become taboo, almost illegal, to talk about poverty. But one must make a stand, otherwise who else will speak out the Truth?
As one of my Blind Students said, "Yeung gno sniem, bahn sok" - which translates as, "If we are Quiet, we will "have" good health." This is a reference to the spate of arrests and assassinations of those who dissent.
In visitng our School last August, the British Ambassador said to me, (although I cannot remember his exact words), "It is in places like this. Small communities who do good, regardless of what is going on around them, that the world continues"
Our School then is an Oasis for Children who have been so damaged. It is a place that resounds to the Sound of Music, of laughter and the call of many birds. We have been running since 1994 and those who were once with us, have now families of their own, some are professional Musicans and Dancers, others run their own company, work for businesses or own farms and most have their own families now and bring them to see us regularly. Some of their Stories I have already shared.
As the founder, I bear the weight of the well-being of all those in my care and have done for three decades... I keep knocking on doors to ask for a donation or some rice or other support. Sometimes the door is opened, but more often it is tightly shut. Sometimes we do not fit a particular critieria, especially because now, the care of Children who are Orphaned is not "fashionable", regardless of the realities of every day life. Many individuals also do not respond. One could say, "Many are called. Few are Chosen and Fewer still respond." Sometimes a person will treat me badly, but though I might withdraw I remain ever the same.
The world seems engulged in war and tragedy, anger and darkness. In every part of the world, Children are suffering. But they are All our Children and we are All Connected. We all feel what is going on in the world, even if we are not consiously aware. We are the guardians of all Children in the world.
In a way, instead of opening our Hearts to help more, I have found that this has made people afraid and so they help less. But yet in truly Giving, we never run out. For example, during the pandemic, I was in Italy with my Son. Being a professional Musician and unable to work was rather challenging. I used to give him my food and got wobbly teeth and fainting spells as a result, but, whenever a friend of his called, in a more difficult state than we were, miraculously there was always enough to feed them with. A dear kind Friend gave a Christmas present from afar and I was able to buy my Son a much needed winter coat. Near the end of one month, with only about $11 in my pocket, I met a homeless man selling socks and gave what I could to him. All the while I ran our School in Cambodia,long-distance and ensured that everyone was housed and fed and made sure that donors and institutions didn't panic and forget to assist our Children. We even got extra funds to provide hot meals to four thousand people who were literally starving!
Sometimes when everything seems dark, that is when we have to be most epecially brave. If we shut our hearts and treat others badly, because we are afraid, then the darkness wins. For the sake of all Humanity, we have to choose Goodness and Light. Even though there is terrible war and suffering, we can all play our part and share real Love and Kindness. It is like planting seeds in a barren garden and carefully watering and tending the saplings. With Time, a Beautiful Garden bursts forth and will grow into eternity. Then Light and Love wins over all things.
![More Dance!]()
More Dance!
![Our Mohori Music Master with former Student]()
Our Mohori Music Master with former Student
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