Fish, Forums, and Forest

I have been recently very aware that my time as a SALTer in Mesang is approaching the final act. With less than three months in Cambodia remaining in my term, my thoughts have been drawn to deciding what I want to make out of this final semester of time, and how to make those things happen. The past month in the height of the hot dry season has continued to provide enriching experiences at home, at work, and personally, as well as a fair number of ‘opportunities for growth.’ Among the challenges has been the heat that accompanies everything, every day, everywhere, and forces my smelly sweaty self to take two, three, four, five, six, or more cold showers each day.

Sunrise over a rice field near my home during my daily walk/run through my neighborhood.

One area I have been focusing on recently at home, and plan to continue working towards in the next several months is helping out with chores around the house. As a man and a foreigner, I am neither expected nor encouraged to help with farm work and household jobs; however, as a busy-body and with a desire to contribute, I have been trying to edge my way into jobs such as chopping wood, cutting grass for the cows, and washing dishes little by little. These jobs are also generally not considered suitable for a person with my characteristics (male and foreigner), and so I have been making an intentional effort to help when I can. In Cambodia, women occupy triple roles in most households, including domestic work, income-generating work, and community work. Traditional gender roles are a strongly held value for most people, and is even still taught in schools across the country. As a result of this strict social hierarchy, domestic violence against women is a common problem in Cambodia.

Fortunately, this toxic hierarchy has not defined my personal family experience here, and I couldn’t admire my host parents more for the way they share responsibilities and show love to each other, their family, and their neighbors. My host mother is a strong and bold woman who gets things done and makes her opinions known. My host dad is a quiet and highly capable man who exudes kindness and generosity to everyone. They treat each other with the highest respect and I love to watch them interact and joke around with each other. The family they have created and nurtured at home and in the community is strong and healthy, and I feel proud, honored, and lucky to be accepted as a part of it.

A highlight from my host home experience this past month was helping to catch fish from our pond and make prahok. Prahok is a fermented fish paste used in most Cambodian dishes that originates from the tradition of life in a seasonal flood plain. Fish is very abundant and accessible for a short period of time when the water recedes at the end of the rainy season, so Cambodians have come up with this method of preserving fish for consumption during the dry months. My host dad, host cousin, and I spent a couple hours sifting through the mud to grab all the fish from a drying pond at our house, and then I spent several more hours helping my host mom and host sister cut them up and prepare them to ferment. This was a neat experience to participate in as prahok is a food I eat a lot, but until now have not had the opportunity to be involved with preparing.

A small portion of the fish we harvested from our pond to make prahok.

Just a reminder since it has been a while since I talked about my work, my placement is with a local NGO called Organization to Develop Our Villages (website link) that does rural development work in several districts of the province where I live. They focus on food and livelihood security for the most vulnerable people in the region, notably the poor, women, and households with a single head (usually a woman). Mesang historically has faced hardship agriculturally, economically, socially, and in many other ways. The entirety of the country suffered greatly under the Pol Pot regime of the late 1970s, but this part of the country was among the most impacted. Significant violence and instability also plagued Mesang for years before the Khmer Rouge (including from the American bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War), and for several decades following its collapse as well. This resulted in severe poverty, malnutrition, and community tension, which is why MCC decided to locate here in the early 1990s.

Two women supported as farmers by ODOV, both Khmer Rouge survivors, participate in an ODOV discussion forum.

ODOV’s nearly three-decade history here has seen the region through dramatic change into becoming the place it is today, and though by no means entirely responsible for that change, ODOV has been a major contributor towards the progress seen here. A major piece of my work recently has been helping to evaluate the impact of this work by accompanying ODOV staff on field visits to conduct a project assessment and collect data from participating households. I often go along with a staff member to the homes of ODOV farmers, and sit in on interviews and discussion forums where farmers can talk about the impact of ODOV’s work on their family, what projects they are involved in, what specific strategies are working, and which are not. My understanding of the Khmer language is still steadily improving, but remains insufficient for me to contribute meaningfully to these conversations, so my primary job is to observe and take photos during the meetings.

An ODOV project evaluation interview with a farmer being conducted in the shade of a mango grove.

I have also attended several gender inclusion panels recently with an ODOV staff member alongside several women community leaders. These several-hour forums provide a chance for ODOV project participants to hear from these community leaders as well as discuss several questions together in smaller groups. These are large meetings, and my job here is similar to most other field settings: observe and take photos. One of the most challenging parts of taking photos at large events such as this is to document the names and ages of everyone I have photographed (MCC requirement). I spend a decent portion of time going around to each person and asking for their name and age, as well as the usual small talk associated with the surprising presence of a foreigner speaking Khmer and taking photos at the meeting (a conversation I have gotten pretty good at).

A farmer supported by ODOV participating in a gender discussion panel in a pagoda in Ba Phnom district.

I was also fortunate enough several weeks ago to accompany a fellow volunteer with MCC for the year on a trip her organization took to Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Kampong Thom province. She works with another MCC partner called Peace Bridges Organization, and she and several of her coworkers organized a trip to a festival in Prey Lang and invited me to attend as well. Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected forest in northern Cambodia, and the largest remaining lowland evergreen forest in Southeast Asia. The forest is under threat from numerous angles, with the most significant being logging for timber and clear cutting for agricultural land.

Prey Lang forest offers a much different type of scenery from the region where I live about 9 hours south of the wildlife sanctuary.

The purpose of the event was to gather people in support of protection for the forest through the local community that lives in and around the forest. Nearly a quarter million people, many of whom are indigenous, live in and around the forest, and their lives and livelihoods intimately depend on the sustainable use and preservation of the forest. The main event of the festival was a tree blessing ceremony where a monk offers a blessing to several large trees and ties an orange cloth around the trunk. This cloth is a symbol of the blessing and tangible evidence of the community’s commitment to protect the forest posted on the largest and most prominent trees in the area.

A blessing ceremony in progress for a large tree in the Prey Lang forest.

I had the chance to Facetime with my parents and brother Ben this past weekend, which was a special treat considering the numerous different schedules and time zones required to navigate that connection. In a few weeks, Ben will return to the States from a study abroad semester in South Africa, reducing the anxiety my parents have been experiencing with both children on distant continents at the same time.

For the near future, I am looking forward to this next weekend and the celebration of Khmer New Year, the biggest holiday of the Cambodian calendar. This is also mango season, and I have been eating an average of about two mangos a day for the past several weeks. I was warned that I would get sick of mangos by the end of the season, but at this point I am still going strong!

Below are some additional photos from the past month…