Thirteen Years in America, Six Weeks in Cambodia , by Larkin Dhillon-Richardson

PLF volunteer, thirteen year old Larkin Dhillon-Richardson, joined Lang in Cambodia 2014 as a guest blogger.

I sit bracing myself for the sudden bumps in the road that will nearly jolt me out of my seat. Luckily, the tuk tuk has a yellow handle on the side that I can use to make a (usually futile) attempt to keep my balance. I have traveled this road numerous times over my past six weeks in the beautiful country of Cambodia. I now know to keep a look-out for the familiar sights that mark my distance in the hour ride to Khnar school, my destination. The Sunset Temple represents about 45 minutes left. The multitude of hats hanging in the front of a small countryside shop on the side of the road represents about 30 minutes left. The Cambodian Landmine Museum means that Khnar is about 2 minutes down the road. Finally, I see the familiar entranceway of the school in which I have invested the majority of my field project time. Sometimes, there is a group of children playing nearby the entrance who stop to wave hello to foreigners entering the school ground. When most children see the tuktuk, they stop and stare. I hardly blink an eye at this because I know I would do the same if I were in their shoes.

Stepping foot into a classroom filled with art projects and excitement from students made me remember how enthusiastic I used to be to do my own art projects. When I was about three or four years old, I walked to my own art table and reached across dozens of art supplies to select whatever I needed to create that day’s project. I also remember loving science; going into my backyard and examining different plants and looking through a magnifying glass at insects. Witnessing how eager the kids were to paint or color, for some the first time they had the chance, made me think about the privilege I had and still have. I took everything I had for granted, not thinking about how fortunate I was to have everything I needed, and more, at my fingertips. Looking at the thrill that these kids have when they lay their eyes on paint, or the light in their eyes when they see a microscope, forced me to consider how and why some of us have opportunities and others don’t. The only reason that I had access to everything I needed was because I was born into a family that was able to provide these things for me. The families here in Cambodia are rebuilding after years of war and the aftermath of the United States bombing. Many families are living in poverty and educational supplies are not present on their list of priorities because their basic needs are not met.

Things like that are out of a child’s control. And these children are not less valuable as human beings than myself or any other children on the planet.

What I have learned from my time here is that being granted different amounts of privilege and opportunity shapes children into specific kinds of people. Before I came to Cambodia and really got an inside glance into the depth of inequality in the world, I had no frame of reference to grasp all of the chances I have been given to learn. Now, I often think about how other people my age, thirteen years old, still look at the world the way I used to. Disturbingly, the majority of people my age in America and Canada, my two home countries, are too busy perfecting their personal image to even find Cambodia on a map or understand how the United States is connected to the lives of people here. Children who grow up having everything given to them have a different mindset than children who grow up having to worry about finding food and providing for their family.

And I am so grateful for my time at Khnar school and to the Ponheary Ly Foundation for giving me this opportunity to spend some time with the brilliant and energetic young children who make up this country. Ever since I arrived in Siem Reap, I have noticed something different. Not just with the children, but with everyone. It’s appreciation. It’s taking care of the people around you as much as you take care of yourself. It’s being generous. It’s being courageous. And it’s refreshing.

A Twisted Tongue, by Veija Kusama-Morris

Words. Language. Broken down into definition and constructed into meaning. The potential to synthesize the world or devastate it. Persuasion. Capacity. Propaganda. The words an individual believes they have the aptitude to employ, what they have a right to say. Tradition’s repugnant clash with ‘success,’ littering Cambodia with the remnants of its discord. Here are your options. We have to be realistic. This is what your life will look like.

New Hope is a Cambodian NGO located in the Mondul Bai district within Siem Reap province. They frame themselves as a ‘grass roots’ organization striving to provide ‘free education for all,’ particularly the children of a ‘broken community of army families, sex workers, and displaced parents.’ Logistically, the organization provides schooling for approximately 600 children in various disciplines, including computer skills, English, math, sex education, and sewing. Despite a newly inaugurated project to open a public school in partnership with the national curriculum, New Hope’s educational methodology contains no instruction in Khmer, only English. Their defense of this strategy is fair, albeit disheartening. The paramount concern for these students post-graduation is to gain steady employment and earn a livable wage, in Siem Reap that is predominantly associated with tourism. In the pervasive interlocking of education and money, New Hope was left with a choice and English proved victorious. Cloaked in logic and rationality, New Hope’s decision illuminates a conditioned and extensively inveterate dynamic. As the languages of success and tourism merge into synonymy, the lens through which the youth of Cambodia are prompted to view their own potential becomes increasingly opaque. The terminologies surrounding their futures blend into uniformity, and consequently manageability.

In her work The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics, author Tania Murray Li writes that structures often move to change emotions towards an ‘issue’ rather than targeting the source itself. In the same vein, by changing the landscape of language, various apparatuses are constructing the value of these people into acquiescent niches. By utilizing the ideals of self-determination and the promise of individual success, the State is given the opportunity to set the terms of achievement, to restrict the capacity of its population.

It’s not difficult to ascertain why this dynamic occurs. During the three weeks I’ve spent in Cambodia, I’ve observed abundant illustrations of grace, perseverance, intelligence, kindness and ambition, and for a government that appears to desire passive conformity, all of these serve as a threat. The truth of the individuals we encounter is mauled by a surging tongue of dominance. The frequent utterances of reality, slums, poor, disadvantaged, modernity, and tourism have crowded my ears since arriving in Cambodia. This onslaught is contrasted by the fact that I’ve heard the word ‘dream’ three times. The youth of Cambodia are not a cause, they are not to be lost or found. They are present, they are living, and they are capable. In a world willing to paint them as the residue of war, it is these people that have the opportunity to change the face of this nation.