03.31.08
Posted in Current Events, Rants at 12:05 am by Kaihaku
The recent division of Kosovo from Serbia has been in the news a great deal lately. Like the Kurdish drive for autonomy, it illustrates the troubles that accompany strong nationalist movements. Perhaps realizing that its attempts to deny Kosovo independence are hopeless in the face of widespread international support for the Albanian nationalist cession, Serbia has presented a proposal to the United Nations to reclaim the portions of northern Kosovo with Serbian majorities and thus one hopes abandon their attempts to reclaim all of Kosovo. I laughed when I read the response of Kosovo’s deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi…
“This proposal is a provocation from Belgrade, and we reject it 100 percent. We want to help create cooperation between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo – not divisions.”
If the leaders of the new state of Kosovo are interested in cooperation between Serbs and Albanians, why did they cede from Serbia in the first place? That seems like a rather large division to me.
There is further irony in that Canada has followed the United States in recognizing and supporting newly independent Kosovo. I seem to recall a strong nationalist secession movement in Canada, does this represent a shift in the government’s attitude on Quebec? If so, once Quebec has achieved independence, will the new nationalist government also work for cooperation with those fringe regions of Quebec which have an english speaking majority?
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Posted in Current Events, Rants at 12:02 am by Kaihaku
The 4,000th American has died in the war in Iraqi. In a poor attempt at damage control, the government has adopted the line that ‘no life is more important than another’. That may well be true, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that the 4,000th death was any more tragic than the 3,999 deaths before it. Rather, it is a reminder that 4,000 tragedies have occurred.
Vice President Dick Cheney had the following to say, “You regret every casualty, every loss. It may have a psychological effect on the public, but it’s a tragedy that we live in a kind of world where that happens.”
I wonder what the tragedy is in his mind, that soldiers die or that their deaths have a ‘psychological effect on the public’.
Rear Admiral Greg Smith also issued a statement, “No casualty is more of less significant than another; each soldier, marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic.”
I believe that. I think many Americans believe that. Now, I’m not convinced that the American leadership believes it. If they do, how is it that only six representatives and one senator…one senator have children in the military? How is that when asked why she wasn’t in Iraqi, Jenna Bush replied that it “wasn’t even a practical question”. I appreciated the response of one soldier’s wife, “since when is war practical”?
Recently, Britain’s Prince Harry returned from the frontlines in the war in Afghanistan after a media blackout was broken and his deployment revealed. Returning home with two severely injured British soldiers, he commented that, “Those were the heroes. Those who were guys who had been blown up by a mine they had no idea about.” Of course he’s right…but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is not also heroic. Some of my British acquaintances have criticized the Prince for taking part in the war, condemning him for putting his fellow soldiers at risk as a high profile target. That may be true, but from the other side of the Atlantic where the vast majority of leaders protect their children from military service, he strikes me as a hero for being willing to take part in a war that he could have easily avoid. He, and in turn the British leadership, have more courage and integrity than the American leadership for being willing to put their children where their rhetoric is. The prince was withdrawn to protect himself and his fellow soldiers from ‘trophy hunting’ after his cover was blown, but he plans on returning to Afghanistan as soon as possible. I say bravo to him. The British nobility are showing more of a spine than the American nobility.
We seem to be living in a country where sacrifice is espoused by our leaders but rarely practiced. Hilary Clinton’s ongoing assault against her own party for a mere five percent chance of victory is a great exemplification of this.
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03.24.08
Posted in Life and the happenings there of, Rants at 12:41 am by Kaihaku
Well, today was an eventful day…
Approximately eight months ago Hiek Sopheak and I had visited the CEDAC organization’s Ba Phnom office as part of efforts to survey all development agencies in the province. The director was two hours late to our appointment that morning. Sopheak and I spent the time talking and visiting the family of Uong Sam Ang, my khmer language teacher. We had a good meeting and my suspicions were confirmed that CEDAC was not a Cambodian agriculture NGO, it is the Cambodian agriculture NGO. Established in 1997, it has worked for the development of small scale agriculture and sustainable management of community based natural resources through participatory development research and extension, teaching and training, and promotion of exchange and dissemination of information. Like most of the farmers, government officials, and development workers I’d spoken to, the director had primarily positive things to say about CEDAC. He told me that the NGO had good donors and good support, with a broad network of partner organizations and access to knowledgeable experts for technical aid. He added that the Prey Veng staff were qualified and had a good understanding of their objective. Most striking to me, he said that the organization was focused on learning and adapting, one which strives to not only teach but learn from farmer associations and community leaders. The meeting went extremely well and I must admit that I left it thinking rather highly of CEDAC.
Sopheak took me to his cousin’s house where we enjoyed a nice khmer lunch. Like his cousin in Kompong Trabaek, this cousin also made a living creating ancestor shrines and other religious icons. On our return to Prey Veng town, one the moto tires went and we ended up getting it patched by an older man with a well tended home and garden. It was here that I got to walk through a sugar cane field for the first time. The differences between processed sugar and raw sugar cane is almost beyond belief. Unexpectedly, the old man knew Sopheak’s mother and had been on the commune council with her several years before.
For those of you who are wondering, CEDAC is the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture…or, using its original name, the Centre d’études et de développement agricole cambodgien. Despite the name and heavy European funding, it’s a national NGO with Cambodian leadership. On a side note, I stumbled across a startling coincidence while looking for the original name of CEDAC… So close.
Just about eight months later… Today Miles and I re-visited CEDAC in Ba Phnom, unfortunately I was in the role of translator rather than Sopheak, making things a bit more troublesome. Once again, the director was two hours later for our morning appointment, however unlike last time when Sopheak was able to get it out of the staff that he would be about two hours, I was politely told again and again ‘just a few more minutes’ so that hindered us visiting Sam Ang’s family. Instead, Miles and I looked over the CEDAC office and chatted with the guard and librarian. As part of their farmer to farmer extension services, CEDAC publishes a farmer magazine which we glanced through, despite being in Khmer it was an interesting “read”. Eventually the director arrived and we had a good visit. However, I noticed a profound shift in focus… Instead of focusing on their excellent established agriculture programs, the director spent most of our visit talking about their new HIV/AIDs program and their new shop in the capital. I don’t know if it was because my ‘boss’, Miles, was there or if it was the sign of a more profound policy change, but the director continually returned to these ‘cool’ projects. The number of new programs after only eight months surprised me; CEDAC now has an organic food store in the capital complete with organic beer, a domestic violence program, a gang education program, a partnership program with local schools, and a nearly complete pilot project for supporting individuals with HIV/AIDs which includes handicraft production. While I’m certainly not attempting to imply that these new programs will be poorly run or not meet needs in the local community, I’m quite concerned that this could be the beginning of a donor-driven shift in focus, moving CEDAC away from their agriculture work and into other more focused areas.
I should note that the threat of HIV/AIDs is on the decline in Cambodia and the situation has improved to such an extent that the MCC Generations at Risk program recently ended their work here to focus on other regions. It is important to continue to work here, of course, but HIV/AIDs is no longer as serious a problem in Cambodia as in other countries. Local hospitals, probably through an international aid program, are handing out free antiretroviral drugs to individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDs. The rate of infection is one of the lowest in the region. I suspect one reason for this is that one would be hard pressed to find a country with a higher percentage of international relief and development workers per capita. The capital alone has over 6,000 long term expatriates. There are a host of NGOs and government programs focused on HIV/AIDs, in this context I have difficulty understanding why an established NGO working to meet a great need in the broader community would begin to shift to focus on the minority with HIV/AIDs…unless it was a donor driven decision.
With the majority of CEDAC’s funding coming from France, Germany, and the EU, I can see why organic food for one would be a big focus. Like many development agencies, CEDAC has long been a proponent of natural fertilizer and pest control – not so that an organic label could be stamped on the produce but because, in the end, the natural is cheaper and safer. Brace yourself for a generalization – the average european is far more concerned with organic produce than the average cambodian; when you know the pangs of famine, getting food is more of a priority than the quality of that food. As long as their ‘cool’ projects are built on sound reasoning, I support them…but I worry that the day may come when style is more compelling than substance. In my limited understanding, PEDAK is the only NGO that has done more to help improve the livelihood of rural Cambodians than CEDAC but I think that it is important to remember that the issues which sparked the creation of CEDAC still exist. While on a food security field visit in Me Sang district, Scott met an old farmer whose two sons were blind due to poor nutrition. Minorities such as the disabled and those with HIV/AIDs definitely need special attention…but, that doesn’t mean that they should be the focus of all attention, especially when the majority of people are also in dire straights. Even if he was only talking about the ‘cool’ projects to the westerners, this visit with the CEDAC director reminded me of the dangers of donor influence, even well meant donor influence.
I’m being overly harsh though, CEDAC has a excellent history of meeting the communities they serve on their own level and learning from their beneficiaries. If a ‘cool’ project doesn’t help the local community, I hope that CEDAC will realize and respond appropriately as they have done in the past. From my understanding, for years their overlaying policy has been keep programs simple and effective, make them easy to implement and sustain, and adapt them to the local context. It was just a strange experience to sit down with a man who eight months ago had talked at length about agricultural extension programs and instead hear about the “social movement” of individuals with HIV/AIDs returning to normal life and about the need to send peaceful heart consultants into the countryside. There was that and that whole organic beer thing.
The director ended the meeting by offering to show us a family farm that CEDAC helps. So, we pulled on our moto helmets and hopped on our motos…and then he left us in the dust. Completely missing which way he went at an intersection, we waited for a few minutes, then returned to CEDAC office to get his phone number and call him. After learning he was near a village I know on the road to Prey Veng town, we swung by the store of Sam Ang’s wife to say hello and were there forced to quickly down two coconuts. I was done mine in about ten seconds, Miles took a bit longer…maybe a minute or two. In the interim, I asked Mrs. Ang about her children, one of whom is moving to Laos with her husband who will be heading the ACLEDA bank branch there and the other who has received a scholarship to study at a university in Hawaii. She vented about how alone she is now, with Sam Ang teaching in Prey Veng town during the week and with the rest of her family dispersing. Then she told me that Sam Ang is sick and she wants him to retire. It’s something I’d already asked him about a few times before, he started smoking when he was six years old and though he stopped in the nineties the damage was already done. Despite his poor health, Sam Ang is one of the most driven Cambodians I know and my regard for him has only increased as I’ve gotten to know more of his life’s stories. For what it’s worth, I agree with his wife that he should retire to Ba Phnom but Sam Ang will not retire until he finishes working his last child through school.
So, we paid our thanks to Mrs. Ang and raced north along the dusty dirt road towards Reay Cheay. The CEDAC director was waiting for us, more than alittle confused as to why we took so long to join him. He introduced us to the grandmother of family who owes the small farm and then left us, bound for destinations unknown. The old grandmother was a bit uncertain what to do with these two westerners but answered what questions we asked in halting Khmer. The garden was most impressive but I won’t go into details…come and see it yourself.
Afterwards, we continued on way back to Prey Veng, stopping only for a brief visit at the home of the old man who had patched my tire and to pay a young man begging along the side of the road. We had passed the young man in question several hours previously en route to CEDAC and he was actually filling pot holes in the road, so I wasn’t as reluctant to give him something as experience had taught me to be with most beggars here.
As if all of that wasn’t enough excitement, that night I was invited to a birthday party by Miles and Ruth’s landlady. It may well have been the first twelve year old girl’s birthday party that I’ve ever been to. Though, truth be told, we were more the mother’s guest than the daughter’s. She served us dinner before the daughter had even arrived. Feeling rebellious or, at least, not so willing to play the foreigner trophy guest, I instead went downstairs to where the daughter’s friends were waiting her arrival. There were about three times as many girls as boys and the boys were all huddled together hiding outside the yard. I decided to stir things up a bit, insinuating that they were afraid of the girls and telling them to have more courage. One of the boys rose to the challenge, telling me in mock desperation that the girls were terrifying and brutal; that these girls were even known to hit and pinch boys. He then singled out one in particular who was especially savage and noted that “she has skin like an african.” Of course, she then did exactly as he had foretold, walloping him across the side of the head. He used that assault to support his attempt to convince me that the boys were right to be cowards, for the girls were so cruel and terrible. He also complained about the head trauma he had sustained throughout the night, though I imagine that it only grew worse as the night went on as he continued to say things that got him hit. At one point a girl went after him with a wooden stick but fortunately he evaded her. I don’t remember my own early teen years as being quite that energetic. The birthday girl finally arrived having spent a good bit of the afternoon getting dolled up at a hole in the way beauty parlor somewhere in town. The first time I met her, I mistook her for a fifteen year old, dressed as she was for her birthday if I hadn’t known she was twelve I could have easily mistaken her for eighteen. Being downstairs encouraging the boys to heroically enter into the yard, I was drafted to be the photographer for the group pictures in the mango orchard. After fulfilling this duty, I rejoined the other westerners upstairs and had a lime, a few pieces of a fruit called mean, some bread, and lots of soy milk for dinner. The main dish being served was Nom Mhan Chok, one of my least favorite khmer foods, so I didn’t particularly mind having missed out on most of it. The boys finally gathered their courage and came to the bottom of the stairs inside the yard after the girls came up to begin eating. It took them awhile more to cautiously come up the stairs and sit down to eat themselves. In typical fashion, once they sat down, the girls waited on them hand and foot. In between servings, they moaned to me about how mistreated they were. Ruth and I gave them the reminder of our Nom Mhan Chok so they could grow up big and strong, then as the girls slipped back downstairs after eating, I helped the mother and aunts clean up a bit before saying my farewells. I had left my bike at Miles’ house and as I left before them, it was securely locked away. Fortunately, it wasn’t a long walk back to my lodgings. Along the way, I stopped to talk to a few people sitting out in their shops along the road. One group thought I was drunk because I hit my head on the roof and jabbed my toe on a step, I really need to remember the word for clumsy.
Yep, today was a eventful…or rather…last thursday when I started writing this was eventful.
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03.12.08
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:27 pm by Crystal Graber
the air is rich with grief. families. students. faculty. staff. gathering together in solemn black processions spotted with a colorful blouse here or there.
we remember the dead
and the light spring light amid snow and trees seems thick, heavy. inhaling brings tears to my eyes. i think about running away, hiding. more than anything i want to attend the Service of Remembrance–that’s what they’re calling it. but i want to attend with someone. loneliness wraps me, but not in a bad way. even in my solitude, i am connected to each one, breathing together, sharing the same tear soaked air
most heartbreaking is tim berta. he’s here, you know. the player who survived. he kept his life and lost his limbs and part of his mind. therapy has been good, they say. but in the midst of television trucks with big satellite dishes ontop all i see is him pointing to his father at something, his face unable to formulate the words. and his father pushes his wheelchair…after one year and 10 days he is in a wheelchair…
the campus feels shut down today. classes happened. but they aren’t happening tonight. the tech center is dark and even in lively marbeck there is a darkness. the weight of the dead. 5 boys. a busdriver, and his wife. i hope that their children are here, even though it scares me a little to think of it.
breathing in sorrow, trembling in my throat. i didn’t have to know them to know the hurt, to recognize human suffering. grandparents who have buried their grandchildren. fathers, sisters, brothers, mothers. best friends and girlfriends. lunch tables, drinking buddies…all gathered to remember and to say goodbye, all over again.
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