What is the Meaning of School? by Fiona Mahurin

The determination that children possess to go to school is perhaps the single most defiant act that we’ve witnessed thus far in Cambodia, a place that is often wrongfully characterized as having no will to act. Contrary to stereotypes of docility, children we’ve encountered have suffered abandonment, left caretaker roles over siblings, slept in libraries, walked for days, and even threatened suicide, all in the name of school. It is too early for me to decipher what school means to local youth in Cambodia, especially for those who have never attended, but it is certainly a very different space than what we’ve considered back in the United States. Here, school can be a safe space that combines multiple elements aiding in providing basic needs such as food, water, healthcare, and security.

Dr. Kim, the medical care provider at Koh Ker school, after having gifted us with a collection of local fruits, set aside a portion of his busy day to speak with us this past weekend about the history and current situation of the village, including an overview of how the village was resettled after the Vietnamese occupation in 1979. Our conversation made clear that Dr. Kim sees the social issues facing Koh Ker through a much wider lens than from a simply medical standpoint. Important services provided at school, supported and encouraged by Dr. Kim, include breakfast, hygiene, and clean water. Basic services such as these have enormous outcomes that impact attendance, retention, performance, security, and confidence. Other structural decisions keep these factors in mind as well, such as dividing up school days over twelve, rather than ten months. By doing this, children are less likely to return for the new year with new diseases that have to be treated, and can quickly resume their studies after short, periodic vacations.

Dr. Kim had recently received word that eighteen students from grades second, third, and fourth were being pulled from school by their parents and will take the investigation of this matter upon himself, “This is the principal’s work, but I want to know. If they stop [school], the principal doesn’t care because he works for the government.” Dr. Kim’s passion for his work, which takes him beyond the medical field, was made starkly evident over the dinner table. “It makes me crazy,” he said, referring to the lack of parental support. Regardless, Dr. Kim views the students defiance and enthusiasm with admiration. “I am very proud [of the students] because they can think by themselves. They want to learn.”

Consider Your World Without Borders by Christina Hiras

Blood orange. Do you understand? Tangy sweetness rests on my tired eyes. The awakening spike of menthol flavored chewing gum contradicts with my poor, longing gaze into the heart of the blood orange horizon. With each clack of my gum I imagine my taste buds reacting the way my thoughts often react when swinging above in playgrounds of clouds. If my mouth could taste just one drop of perfect crystallizing sunset atop a most decadent bed of clouds that these eyes have greedily stuffed in secret hiding nooks around my mind, perhaps my shell of a temple would rest a bit more deeply. And now I am so close: I have imagined, dreamed, foresaw this moment an infinite number of times before and yet I have never thought to consider its taste. How foolish the mortal beast that longs for stability.

Currently, my world is cascading to a grievingly realistic level of understanding. Each step I take furthers my timidness in transit, for I do not want to ignore my world’s inexplicable taste for a moment more. I saw rich colors of sky and land melded together and felt the warm pressure on my flesh like two young star-crossed lovers talking in code and shielded from the harshly sharp remarks of others. I spoke to climates that tormented me into submissing their alluring wrath and fell down on my calf-like knees, humbled and shivering by mightiness so heavenly I was a cradling fetus in the womb of my maker, helpless yet observant, so observant I became. Harness these words with the upmost care and undying devotion: taste the sweetness of your world, but never cease to misunderstand it. Lick every microscopic organism out of the blinded container that is your mind and feel the flavor crawl down your being and surge back into its rightful home… but never try to understand. This is a feeling that exists so purely on the compounds of your youthful emotions and if handled like the delicate and powerful entity that it is, consider your world without borders.