Others
This is an update, about what I’ve been doing throughout my time away, up until my return this week. In a nutshell, this has been a trip with three goals: To make sure our projects are coming together, to network with new compassionate people, and to do research on a revolutionary method of humanitarian aid.
Watergate & Canal Reconstruction Project
There is still a sad spot under the sun where a small river flows through the ruined walls of an ancient dike. There are still bone-dry rice fields because of this, and thousands of villagers with barely enough to eat. There are still a group of monks from this community trying to organize ways of pulling people out of poverty. We are still helping them do this, and it has become something much larger than I ever originally imagined.
It has been a difficult journey at times, but this has not been a trip about suffering and redemption, nor trauma and catharsis. It has been a trip about progress, and the gradual, rolling pace it has come about. I am learning that these steps ahead are hard-won in Cambodia. They involve putting feet forward, then taking one back, while holding the faith that you're actually getting somewhere.
Cambodia has not stopped being a raw and vivid place, but I have begun to adjust to its oddities. The everyday beauty and ugliness of this country have merged, and I am starting to call them both life. Strangely enough, this is a life I have come to really enjoy.
But this trip has not been about me. It has been about others, reaching out and helping to realize our goals. They are the best way through which to explain what has happened with Human Translation, because they have been a part of it.
Steve Forbes - Engineer Without Borders
I left on Christmas eve, and spent my holiday in a cramped dry airplane and an airport in Korea. I arrived in Siem Reap after my third flight, and immediately met up with an engineer from Texas named Steve Forbes.
Steve took it upon himself to come out to Cambodia over Christmas at his own expense for the sake of the dam reconstruction project, and his insight has been tremendous. He works with Engineers Without Borders (ewb-usa.org), and spends a great deal of his time dedicating his considerable skills to small development projects like ours. We spent the week trolling around the dusty villages and rice fields, meeting with monks, and talking details with provincial leaders. Steve brought his voluminous knowledge of hydrology to the project, and has guided our local engineer towards understanding what we need to make this project happen safely and sustainably.
Pros: Proper engineering and sustainable prospects!
Cons: Showed us how much more work we need in order to do this right.
I spent New Years in Phnom Penh with a few friends, and had a chance meeting with prominent author Loung Ung, who wrote the well-known autobiographical book ‘First They Killed My Father,’ about her life as a child growing up under the Khmer Rouge. She is a powerful inspirational figure, and we shared some common ground on work in Cambodia. She has provided sage advice about nonprofits and some wonderful insight on being successful in helping others.
Pros: She expressed interest in contributing to Human Translation in the future. Cons: She sets the bar very high indeed.
I flew back to Bangkok to meet Irene Pak, a friend and filmmaker who had decided to come out and start a documentary about aid-work in Cambodia. Her camera, bandana, and shotgun microphone were a ubiquitous sight throughout the following month as we hopped from project to project.
Pros: She got some beautiful footage.
Cons: She also sadly got Dengue and Typhoid fevers, simultaneously, after a month. She cut her trip short and flew home from Bangkok, where she has now fully recovered.
Sut Dien
On our way back into Cambodia, I searched out and found Sut Dien, the little girl whos life collided with mine last year. She is doing fine now, and her extended family (whom I’ve finally met) seems to be tremendously sweet. When my Khmer is a little better I have plans of collaborating to help her through school.
Just a few days later, Orion Henry, voluntary tech director for Human Translation, flew in with his bright enthusiasm and voracious appetite for Khmer culture. In his short ten-day trip I did my best to throw as much authentic Cambodia at him as he could take. In turn, we used his fresh perspective and external legitimacy to stick some tough questions to our local governmental engineer about the necessity of the current design. What came from that focused dialogue was a big reduction in the engineer’s cost-estimate, by about twenty-thousand dollars. That conversation brought the total down to around $50,000, and us almost half-way to hitting our mark, which is great news for our monks and our villagers in Balang.
Pros: Massive cost reduction.
Cons: Getting Orion to stop raving about his trip.
After a month of work I headed back to Bangkok for the third time and met up with William Haynes-Morrow, one of the most determined and committed additions to Human Translation. He has proven himself to be a great contributor to our project. Up until this point he has worked with a Cambodian community in Chicago to build support for our organization from a distance. We spent a full week brainstorming about the future of humanitarian aid, and sharing mutual inspiration about the necessity of helping Cambodia.
He comes to this endeavor as our second full time volunteer, after myself, and brings a wealth of nonprofit experience with him. He just took my place in Siem Reap, and is now living there as our project manager, spending his time in the villages, and building a better relationship with the monks.
Pros: By working from Cambodia, he has doubled HT's capacity to make an impact.
Cons: By working from Cambodia, he has made me really jealous for the months I am home.
Throughout all this traveling we’ve been working on something big. Something much larger than Human Translation has ever attempted. This is something new, and is for you just as much as it’s for the thousands of Cambodians we’re trying to feed. Expect more on this from me soon – and thank you for catching up.
