Good Intentions

Namaste,

Hugo in France recently connected with his thoughts on the Orphan Tourism article. This is what he wrote.

Hugo met Benoît sailing over The Silver Sea to Uruguay. 

"It happened Benoit made a trip in a neighboring country named Cambodia.

"And there he saw. He saw the refugee camps on the border. He saw and he realized.

"He began the first Cambodian foundation to help children. The task was huge and often thank less.

"He had to deal with a lot of people, customs and beliefs. Blind or deaf children were considered as useless and cursed beings. You have no sight because you have a bad karma. You have a bad karma because you were evil in your previous life. You have what you deserve, so I must not care. At the time, there wasn't even a Braille system for Khmer language. They had to create it, with help from the Thai Braille language.

"He had to use his trust with great caution. Try to explain long term big projects to people more interested in small time big money.

"And however, here he is. Here they are. Twenty years later, they have their first few bachelors. Those who don't pursue studies do traditional work, earning money for their families, who don't see them as useless anymore. The foundation is recognized by Unicef, and its staff is mostly Cambodian.

"We discussed about humanitarian associations, and he said to me a lot of them are runby either unprincipled or too naive persons. Due to his financial work experience, he was able to give his own association a solid and viable structure.

"But this kind of practice is not so common in such organizations. He also told me about the complete stupidity which is called child sponsoring. Attract western compassion, but create division. I am a sponsored child, you are not. The road to hell is paved with good intentions..."

Cambodia roads are red dust.

Thank you Hugo.

Krousar Thmey

Metta.

Orphan Tourism

Namaste,

According to an article by Charlotte Turner, there are 269 orphanages and 12,000 orphans in Cambodia.

"Visitors see some poverty and they feel bad about it," said Ashlee Chapman, a project manager with Globalteer, an organisation that matches volunteers with local organisations.

"They want to do something," she adds, saying they might visit a children's project for a few hours, donate money and toys, "take a holiday snap and feel that they've contributed."

"Constant change of caregivers gives emotional loss to children, constant emotional loss to already traumatised children," Jolanda van Westering, a child protection specialist at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told AFP.

Read more.

The Cambodian children pictured here are not orphans.

Metta.

Bayon

Namaste,

The Bayon from the 12th century at Angkor Wat features 48 faces. All directions. 

Immense and powerful.

This slide show also includes images of detailed carvings from the main Angkor temple, depicting "Churning The Sea of Milk," an ancient Sanskrit Hindu story.

Metta.

Red dust town

Namaste,

The machine world in Banlung roared, reversed, revered and resounded with the musical machine opera.

Chugging down the street, old trucks recycled from devastating and catastrophic wars, death and suffering with bombings, genocide, insurrection, forced labor, starvation, land mines and descriptive historical footnotes blended black diesel dust, billowing forgotten memory into the breeze. It danced in swirling red dust.

The remote wild west red dust town, smaller than a city, bigger than a village welcomed smaller. The dexterity and fortitude of thousands in a flip flop world of opportunity, risk, chance, fate, and destiny ate pastries and delicious yoghurt, in many flavors. Ambiguity, contradictions, paradoxes took everything for granted.

Assumptions wore Blue Zircon seeing harlequins.

Destiny rested as noon heat reflected anxieties. A bored mistress washed her red underwear in a river. The exhilaration of washing introduced her to a cloud. Lightning flashed. 

Children in red and white dusted Santa caps dragged their expectant mothers toward dusty chrome plated display cases. 

This one! This one!

On main street a happy girl of 13 sawed ice. She sold blocks of ice from a large portable orange plastic box. Her smile and pronunciation were perfect, I am a seller. 

Metta.

ice cries

Namaste,

Dreaming of ice a boy sawed crystals of clarity in a tropical kingdom. He saw but didn't see.

He stood in the back of a blue hyperventilation dumptruck with his rusty trusty bladed saw.

Blocks of ice disguised as solidified water were longer than a flowing, overflowing, flowering Mekong river feeding Asian lakes.

He unwrapped blocks. He sawed. He tapped a hammer defining worlds into melting scientific serious sections.

His friend loaded condensation on thin shoulders. He carried melting weight to a bamboo shack. He dumped ice into a waiting orange plastic box. A smiling women frying bananas over kindling gave him some money, Thank you for the cold.

Carver carved. Tap-tap-tap.

The woman assaulted ice with a hammer, shimmering blocks, refreshing beverages. 

Ice blocks in shadows melted latent desire. 

An old woman in pajamas sweeping dust heard ice.

Metta.

  Nam iceman cometh.