Animist

Namaste,

The chunchiet animist people of Ratanakiri in remote northeast Cambodia bury their dead in the jungle. Life is a sacred jungle.

Animists believe in the universal inherent power of nature in the natural world. The Tompoun and Jarai, among many animist tribal people in the world have sacred burial sites. 

This is the Kachon village cemetery one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok river from Voen Sai. The River of Darkness.

It is deep in the jungle along the river. You need a local guide and a translator speaking the local dialect.

The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site.

The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell. In their spirit story dream the shaman meets LOTH, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief says sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy LOTH.  It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.

After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, carve wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a festive week long celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village. 

Metta.

 

Loving August

Namaste,

August may be cruel. She may be kind. 

Here in Coma-Land, somewhere below the equatorial zone it is the rainy season. Coming down. Sheets.

What it is. Two seasons. Dry and wet.

Laundry hangs itself. Why does laundry hang itself? Poverty? Lack of initiative? Boredom? For the same reason the juvenile boy facing glass across the street passively performs circular tedious rag motions on a glass door.

His decrepit grannie living upstairs waiting to die a glorious peaceful death will inspect it. If her old tired gray eyes see one dancing smudge she'll begin screaming, Clean it again, Clean it again. He will hang his head.

In shame.

Listening class is permanently cancelled.

Around and around we go. Where we stop no one knows. If he knew the end game he'd cease breathing. He'd hang with laundry. He'd go to school. Too expensive. Yeah, yeah. 

Dirt roads are now expansive expensive elaborate esoteric lakes. Welcome to the lake district. Take the long way home. Endless landscape shrines are a luminous green. Eat it with your eyes, said Saigon.

Metta.

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.