If you're still reading, here's the final part of my 3 part series... For our 3rd day project, we headed to a village about 40 mins drive away from Battambang town... The rows and rows of congested shophouse buildings fade in the landscape and was replaced by the view of stilts homes and straw homes (pictured below).
This reminded me of the story of the Big Black Wolf that could huff and puff and blow the house down. It looked like the straw house in that nursery tale which the wolf blew down at his 1st attempt. How do they weather the heavy rain and crazy heat in these?! Some of us sleep in aircon 24/7. We are indeed blessed.
A very slim cow (most of the cattleherds looked like this, I did not deliberately chose the skinniest of the lot to photograph). I understand that most steaks that you eat in western joints in Cambodia serves really tough steaks. When you see where it came from, you know why.
This is a sponsored church in that village. The kids in the neighbourhood hangs around here to learn bible stories. The roof leaks really bad when it rains and floods the whole church. The wooden structure is falling apart. Good news is Pst David got a small fund from some kind sponsor and will be doing some upgrading soon.
Pst David sharing some stories with us...
He also shared the story of this mother who had two sons with eye infection that almost made them blind. Thank God that the young son (in her arms) was sent for medical help and managed to see. The elder son, however, wasn't able to get any help for his partial blindness.
These are the kids of the bloc. They are certainly poorer than the kids we visited in the past 2 schools. The boy on the extreme left is wearing a skirt. I suspect that it's becoz he did not have any other garments to wear.
It was much much harder to get these kids to smile...
Their clothings were tattered and very much used...
But I guess our presence there did bring them some joy....
Or perhaps it's the chocolates and toy cars that the BC team gave out that made them smile....
Boy in bicycle: One of my fav pic from Day 3's project.
When I was young, my mother always used to call me a dirty pig when I refused to take a bath. After seeing these two filthy guys, I know why people call pigs dirty.
"Yeah? You think I'm filth? Wait till you see how I roll in the mud just for fun!"
I also realised that the kids had to start working and getting their hands busy at a young age. I'm impressed how this young boy controls this herd. I also noticed many of the young girls played the role of "mummy" by cradling toddlers in their arms.
It's a common sight for cows to stroll by the roads after grazing. Well, it's definitely not very common where I live.
Here's a man with a prosthetic left leg. The results of the hidden land mines.
Bare feet is the key mode of transport in the village...
It was indeed a good trip for me, getting in touch with the real world. Sometimes living in an urban city, with rules and laws to guide us can cause us to live in an often too-beautified world to realise how the poverty-stricken world battles with legal unfairness and the struggle to meet daily neccessities.
