Femmes des rizières

After more than 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Battambang on February 4th, 2020, tired but well. After a short rest at the hotel, I was picked up by Patrik Roux and we drove straight to the safe house, where I immediately started working with the seamstresses in the workshop.
Dara is very pregnant and her baby (probably a boy) is due at the end of February.

The mammoth task ahead of us is to transform Esther Enkelmann’s generous fabric donation into different styles for our upcycling project. Since we had already defined the production of an upcycling coat before my trip via Skype, I was able to inspect the first finished model upon my arrival and we spontaneously decided to make a matching bag as well. My godchild, Heidi, had to quickly jump in to be our model for the bag.

After dinner in the safe house, it was my honor to share some news with the kids. Patrik and Theavy had not yet told them about our planned trip to Siam Reap. The children were absolutely thrilled and loudly expressed their overwhelming joyfulness about this very welcome change.

The next morning, Theavy and I went shopping in the various markets. We found two pretty green patterned fabrics and Vichy patterns in different colors. Unfortunately, the availability of fabrics remains an unsolved problem. We are staying tuned!
At the market, we visited a young girl from the safe house who successfully completed the tailor training and is now working for a seamstress, as well as another graduate who runs her own business. As her sister sat pregnant on the floor and ironed, the owner’s little son crawled all around the floor. I wasn’t very comfortable watching!

Afterwards we got some local specialties like water cockroaches and silkworms (!!), tamarind and fish cooked in banana leaves. We also bought noodle soup-to-go from a woman with a mobile food stall. We then went to a grocery store specializing in foreign products, where we bought butter, flour, sugar and cocoa powder since we wanted to bake cakes and cookies together for the children.

The next thing on our to-do list was to take a look at a booth which sells sugar cane juice as we needed some inspiration for the a project in Kenya.

Chrabcrosang Elementary School was on our list for the next morning. The hardworking assistants, Soklida, Saya and Thida, together with some of the girls had already loaded the small truck with approx. 100 kg rice, 600 soy bottles, 600 fish sauce bottles, 100 water bottles, 200 soaps, 100 uniforms, 100 packs of noodle soup, 100 bags and 100 packaged school materials. All of the bags and the uniforms were made in the safe house tailors’ workshop. In fact, the children’s uniforms were custom-made as the studio keeps a file with all of the children’s measurements.
The decrepit and rickety small truck brought us to Chrabcrosang Elementary School, very close to the safe house. In this school, the NGO avec looks after 100 children from the poorest backgrounds. These visits, which take place every two months, are focused on preventing absences from school and motivating parents and students to attend school. Therefore, one parent or relative must also be present during the visit. The children sit in neat rows on the floor, sorted by class, and their relatives sit beside them. Theavy checks the absence lists and the students with the most days have to step forward with their relatives and justify their absences. A complex but also very effective process. In the end, the relief supplies are distributed. There are also school supplies for the entire school and small monetary gifts for the teachers.

In the afternoon, I was able to take a look behind the scenes when we visited some of the families of these students in their own homes. One mother had a completely swollen foot. It was green and her toes were discolored. The injury was already three weeks old. Despite severe pain, she could no longer go to the hospital because after two weeks it is no longer considered an emergency and she cannot afford regular treatment. This woman has a total of five daughters, with the oldest being an accounting student. She does not know how she will finance her daughters’ education, so it is quite likely that the eldest daughter will soon have to drop out of school and go to Thailand to earn money for the family.
All of the houses are extremely fragile and in poor condition. The house of one grandmother, who takes care of her granddaughter since both parents work in Thailand, is in particularly bad condition. But she seems very satisfied and content. Just watching the silent agreement between grandma and granddaughter was very moving. The puppies crawling around and wagging their tails added to this positive impression.

We then entered hell in the front courtyard. Several families live on the site of a garbage company, which stores their large equipment as well as garbage here. A fish is hung up to dry at the entrance gate and there is a strong smell of garbage everywhere.
Patrik ventured a little further into the interior of the dwellings and said that there was an overpowering, terrible smell which he could not identify but was sure was unhealthy, if not toxic. This visit left me shocked and speechless because the surrounding area was so much worse that what we had seen previously. The children, however, played happily and everyone happily posed for photos together. No one should have to live in such conditions!

Our next project was called “We bake cookies and cakes”. I naively assumed that it was an easy thing. Not even close! I hadn’t counted on the Cambodian stove. It was an older gas stove, which you could see. Of course, the furnace also had no temperature display and so we simply put it on high. We had already got the missing ingredients the day before and so I happily went to work. Another major challenge, especially when dealing with ingredients such as butter and chocolate, is the temperature, which is well above 30 ° C. The butter melted within a very short time and the chocolate soon melted as well. After Theavy and I got the cookies ready for baking, the moment of truth came: Usually, i.e. in my Swiss oven, the cookies have a baking time of 15 minutes. Well, in Cambodia it was 45 minutes … The next almond ring cake was partially a victim of the oven. Although I had put it on the lowest level and left it inside twice as long as in Switzerland, I failed to turn the mold … which led to a partially charred result. We then cut the burnt part out, which Patrik claimed was still edible….
With the second cake, I knew better. I positioned it in the middle of the gas oven and turned it several times. The result was a visually more appealing and, above all, completely edible cake.

Theavy and Patrik had decided to make educational use of the weekend trip to Siam Reap and announced that on Friday evening, the names of the children that were allowed to go with us would be announced. Over the course of the whole week, the children had been mulling over whether they would be allowed to ride or not, sometimes even packing their things. S. and M., 6 and 8 years old, had even expressed their concerns at the table every day about whether we would take them because they did not always brush their teeth. Theavy had drawn up a list of the names of vulnerable children that she was willing to take with her, but she expressed her dissatisfaction with certain behaviors and announced that she would hold one-on-one meetings the week after. In the end, only one boy fell through the grate: Unfortunately, he always stands out due to his aggressive behavior, and he has also injured other children. I felt sorry for the little boy and tried to put in a good word for him – to no avail. Patrik and Theavy insisted on the need to set an example of him, especially towards the other children, and not because they were convinced that this would change the boy’s behavior. In view of the fact that they are raising 35 children, I had to accept their decision, albeit with a heavy heart.
The excitement the next morning couldn’t have been greater at the safe house. The bus was already ready to leave. The majority of the children had boarded the bus and those who feel usually sick when driving had to find a place on the back of the pickup truck. Cambodian pragmatism!

More than three hours later, we reached Siam Reap where we went to a simple but clean place for lunch. The children spent the afternoon at the hotel pool. In the evening we went to a so-called Apsara restaurant, i.e. a huge restaurant for tourists with Apsara shows and a buffet. The restaurant was almost completely empty, as Siam Reap also lacks the large number of Chinese tour groups that are not granted travel permits due to the corona virus. One man’s joy is another man’s sorrow! Theavy was able to negotiate a very good price … especially for the smallest children. Patrik said with a smile that they had no idea how much the small children in particular could eat. This prophecy also came true and resulted in the smallest girls breaking the greatest records in eating ice cream: 10, 7 and 6 pops!!!
I was already aware that with 35 children, you have to exercise a different form of discipline than you so with only two. And yet I was so impressed by the exceptionally good behavior of the children: not only was the noise level in the hotel kept within limits, the children thanked us for each meal individually and the adults looked after the children in an exemplary manner, e.g. all small children were each designated to an older child and the two then walked hand in hand and there was no hint of a problem with this.
While I was having a glass of wine at the pool with Patrik, a huge surprise awaited me: Some of the older girls handed me some presents that they had made for me. It was sooo touching …
The next morning we first went to Angkor Wat and then to Bayon Temple. Again, I was amazed by the children’s incredible discipline.

Since I had several pieces of the Femmes des Rizières collection with us, we decided to combine the Sunday trip to the temples with a photo shoot for Femmes des Rizières. I had distributed the clothes the night before. It was so great to see how committed and eager the girls and young women were to preparing for the photos, posing and taking the pictures!

Unfortunately, it was time to say goodbye. It was wonderful! We all had a wonderful time together and not only the children have wonderful memories – but I do too!

Note: We had discussed in advance whether it would make more sense, for example, to buy a small motorcycle for one of the older girls rather than to go on this excursion. In the end, I decided that we would make the trip. These children all have such terrible backgrounds and we wanted to create some positive childhood memories. Of course, there was a trace of selfishness on my part when taking the decision. In any case, the memories of this trip with live on in everyone’s minds for a long time. The expenses for the excursion were privately covered!