Well Intentioned Theivery

The tour we went on today was essentially a day out with N to visit the floating village on Ton Le Sap lake, in which she introduced us to some of her friends. We bought some delicious food, drink and expert transport services from them and learned a little about daily life. The tour we did not go on was one of the myriad of tour company operated versions, in which we would buy a day out from the tour company, some of which may or may not find its way to the people directly providing the elements of it, depending on rates, which would include some details about daily life with an emphasis on poverty, followed by entreaties to buy pre packed goods such as school exercise books and pot noodles, to ‘help’ the villagers, and greeted by crowds of children begging for a dollar. The school exercise books etc. are immediately returned for resale. I’m not entirely sure what happens to the money paid for them.

This is not a rant about con artists. Those tours are not cons as such, some money does make it to the villagers. All tour operators are not gangsters. There is a deal struck with the villagers involved, and even the resold textbooks do bring in some money, albeit not in quite the way the purchasers might have imagined it. We didn’t avoid this because we are all knowing – we avoided it because we were lucky enough to meet N, who offered.

The people in the floating village are not poverty stricken and helpless, they are simply at the mercy of the elements. The methods they use to combat these elements are not quaint and simple – they are ingenious.

Our tuk tuk driver takes us through precariously surfaced narrow dirt paths, which are subsiding, in great chasms, down into the river. He drives us seemingly effortlessly, weaving around pot holes. He is with us all day, driving us long distances on difficult terrain and the whole thing costs only fifteen dollars.

When we clamber out of the tuk tuk to transfer to the boat, clambering over various other, larger boats to get there, we realise that according to the infinite knowledge of google maps, we are still several kilometres from the start of the actual river. The flooding is substantial but nobody is phased. We ask N whether people lose their livelihood or their houses. N looks at us blankly.

“Well, no” she says, “because that is why the houses are built on stilts.”

Houses are made of bamboo and wood, which can bend and weather the elements better than concrete are built high, so that even as we sail through the deepest flooding, the floor still easily clears the surface of the water. In the dry season, the animals live underneath the house, which provides shade for them and storage room for crops. In the wet season, the water flood the bottom ‘storey’ and the animals are built a special platform which either floats or simply forms another level between water and floor.

When we reach the floating village which, due to the flooding having been relatively low this year, we can walk on a narrow strip of dry land through, we visit the Village Chief’s house. The Village Chief himself is not home. He has been elected three years running and is in charge of ensuring that the village is kept free of illegal fishing activities, and has at his disposal a small budget which he uses to provide loans to families in poor harvests, if they are struggling to feed themselves. Note that this is a loan and that it is small. It is neither a hand out nor something which will enslave its recipients by being much bigger than they can ever expect to pay back.

The house itself is incredibly cool and airy despite there being no fans, electricity or air conditioning. The temperature is simply in the ingenuity of its design.

We eat some newly made waffle cakes we buy from a lady selling them in the village. They are delicious and calm my churning stomach, following our spiralling tuk tuk and long boat ride. 

When we climb into a smaller wooden row boat, in which we travel cross legged on the floor, for a ride through the flooded jungle, N tells us that the jungle once housed elephants and pythons, now migrated elsewhere at the advent of humans. N tells us that the jungle is protected, because it in turn protects the village, sheltering it from wind and providing it with leaves and cures for various ailments The villagers make medicine from the jungle flora, for fever, indigestion and even certain kinds of malaria.

“Does it work?” I enquire.

“Oh yes,” says N, seemingly surprised at the question, “it works”

N points out the different plants and the level of flooding – which we can see from the marks on the trees, is much lower than in previous years, meaning less fish and a smaller harvest. She asks the lady steering the boat for us, if she could stop every now and then to pick up the small snails which cling just under the water level, on the trunks of the trees.

“They are nice” says N, snacking her lips, “I steam them for dinner.” And then, “Sorry. You are vegetarian.”

I am not sure if she is sorry to potentially offend us, or if she is sorry for us, that we are vegetarian and so have missed out on the snails.   

We arrive back at the village, and climb the wooden step ladder into the Chief’s house again, for a delicious lunch prepared for us by his wife. On the way we have stopped at a small stall, to buy a watermelon for dessert. I am trying to hold onto this whilst climbing the wooden ladder and kicking my shoes off.

“Ha!” says N, laughing to herself and taking it from me, “it is hard for you to carry a watermelon.”

I resist the urge to affect a Dirty Dancing accent, roll my eyes and say, “I carried a watermelon”. It is a cultural reference that would be lost on everyone. M included.

Lunch, which we eat on the floor of the beautifully cool house, is simple fare but seasoned so well that the tastes, if not the actual ingredients, are complex.

What I am learning, is that the villagers, however poor they may be, are certainly not stupid. ‘Poor’ is not synonymous with ‘stupid’. Neither is ‘rural’. Even ‘simple’ means something rather more impressive than a western viewpoint might assume.

Bob Geldoff has recently been under fire in the media for apparently patronising African society in his most recent Band Aid single, in aid of Ebola. I understand why, but I am also a little sad for him. Some of the criticism feels malicious, and heavy handed. It is hard to see a situation which moves you, but which is far from your own experience, and try with fervour to help - and get it perfectly right. You can care a lot and still get your manner of caring wrong. It is hard to have a genuine emotional reaction if you always have to temper your response with careful thought. Much reflection can cool the initial heat of your response. And you need the emotion to drive you. It’s human.

On the other hand, I can also see why a continual portrayal of a people as being, first and foremost, poverty stricken, can actually hamper the emotional response of the people being asked to care enough to donate to it, because it’s difficult to respond to the needs of a people you cannot imagine you have anything in common with.

But people, in whatever situation, remain people.

As we walk through the village we see a lot of rubbish on what ‘ground’ there is, especially plastic bags, bottles and containers. N explains that the people throw their rubbish into the river when the water is high. When it subsides it therefore deposits half a years’ worth of rubbish back down onto the ground. The people collect it and burn it. Which would explain the smell of burning plastic. It is this sort of information that I imagine prompts western Health Organisations to tell Dr. Beat Richner that he should not provide sophisticated healthcare until the people have learned ‘basic sanitary practices’’.

However, N continues to explain. The reason for this seemingly short sighted or slovenly practice is that until quite recently, food and goods were packaged in banana or palm leaves, which, being biodegrable, weren’t really a problem if thrown into the river, and which I imagine provided a useful carpet against the dust when the water subsided. The use of plastics is relatively new, and the people haven’t changed their practices yet.

Ah. So it’s a problem of progress moving faster than society catches up? And of unlearning bad habits and ingraining new? Remembering to recycle, for example, or trying not to use more plastic bags than needed? Hmmm….sounds familiar.

The Khmer people who live in the floating village are not stupid. They are just human.

Not only that but there is an ingenious solution, which catches our imagination so much that later we fight a little about who is going to include it in their blog. (Until we realise there is no rule against both including it, and decide to get a grip.)

N explains that she worked with others on a project to use the waste plastics as materials to build schools, bridges and work places. They collected small plastic bottles usually sold with drinking water inside, and filled them with other rubbish so that they were packed tight and sturdy. They could then be used as bricks, lashed and weaved together to make buildings, or, in one case, even a bridge. N hopes to run another, similar project, but is waiting for government buy in.

It is very easy to be patronising about a country. I have portrayed Cambodia perhaps a little too much in this blog, as being poverty stricken and hopeless. But it is also a verdant green landscape, full of rare and beautiful wildlife, birds and plants. It is home to some of the most amazing temples and ruins I have ever seen, awe inspiring and imposing, and dating back as early as the ninth century. I have portrayed the centre of Siem Reap town as being westernised and an ex pat hub, but it is also replete with enough services and facilities to create a stay of any character that appeals to you. You can club all night. You can tour the countryside. You can buy amazing souvenirs. You can eat with as much opulence or simplicity as you like. And you are never, ever, without access to a tuk tuk. Or, for that matter, a yoga class.

I have portrayed Cambodia as being the scam capital of the world, but I am thinking only of the very specific tourist centres. The majority of Cambodian people do not live in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh, but in the countryside, and they are warm and generous. When we stop on the way home to see a family who are busy harvesting their rice field, they hand us a sickle and invite us to help, not minding our scrutiny or the interruption. When we have a go at harvesting the rice we realise it’s very hard work and it is being done in the middle of the day.

“They want to get it done quicker,” says N, “so they don’t rest.”

I have asked before, why it is that Cambodia has managed to recover so obviously as, say, Vietnam, from its atrocities in the 70’s. But over dinner, N explains that there was still severe fighting until the early nineties. Vietnam stepped in and helped Cambodia, at its invitation, to defend itself against the resurging Khmer Rouge in that decade. But it seems they took home with them, quite a lot of Cambodia’s treasures and riches. By the mid nineties the UN had stepped in to help a triumphant Cambodia institute a democratic system. They did so – and Cambodia, though still considered poor, now has one of the fastest growth trends year on year in the world. But in the process of advising on the new political system the UN brought with it an HIV epidemic. It seems the visitors were careless and a little oversexed.

It’s very easy to unintentionally thieve from the people you are helping. One article, by an African writer, about the issue with Band Aid, raises concerns that the continual image of Africa as a raw nation, plagued by poverty, sickness and death, discourages potential tourism, investment or other very valid economical tools for progress. In essence, it may accidentally be stealing Africa’s chances for a sustainable future, even as it raises enormous one off contributions.

N tells us that the growing practice of tours to the floating village, is encouraging the children to beg. Well meaning tourists give money to the barefoot children who pleads with them to spare just one dollar for food. The tourists are not wrong to care enough to give to them. But there is, N says, no future in begging. We are thieving the chance for the child to grow up and learn the skills that have kept his parents alive for decades, or to gain the self confidence that accompanies independence.

“They should sell something” says N, “or do something skilled. Or learn something in school. It is better than begging.”

When we give in the short term, are we having an unexpected long term effect? Are we giving money to a child with one hand and stealing his or her future with the other?

What I don’t have, however, is any patience for the harsh and unreasonable criticism levied at people who, however simplistically, are trying their best to help. For each verbal denouncing of one method of ‘charity’, are we putting our money into a better one? Is pointing out the flaws in the tax paying habits of the people involving in the Band Aid single, going to cure Ebola? Is refusing to visit the floating village going to help the families who are struggling because there’s not enough fish?

It’s complex – and yet simple. We should buy rather than give, consume carefully, and, where we are donating, give to charities like Tearfund, Trailblazer and the Kantha Bopha hospital, who focus on long term sustainability.

Maybe part of the key is avoiding that guilty tendency to think of ourselves as a nation more worthy of dignity.

“It’s supposed to flood this year in the UK again,” say M’s parents, “that’s several years in a row now.” Perhaps we should build our own houses on stilts, or, as M’s parents suggested, have our garage space underneath.

Just because these countries are still developing, doesn’t mean we couldn’t benefit from learning from them.