Only when you experience it

My room usually filled with noise and energy by my 20 years old sister and my 16 years old brother who play a lot. They created a lot of fun at home. I have been enjoying them. Tonight, I am sitting alone in my room filled with soft music, light off, computer on, while the air from the fan cooling down the room. My two noisy children are on their holiday in Sihanouk Ville with their friends. This is the first time that they are away over a night without me. They have asked for this kind of holiday since a few years ago but I never dare to let them go on their own till today.

My two energetic children who are on holiday far away without me for the first time

11 years ago which I was 14 years old; I started complaining about my parents not letting me out with friends. Not to mention far trip, I was never allowed to join class party, friend’s family wedding, ect. At the age of 17 after my high school, I so looked forward to living on my own which I did. I looked forward to having my freedom from their control which I did success. I never really understand why my parents were so strict.

5 years ago, I brought my two sisters and my brother to live with me in Phnom Penh. They have been studying in private school. These 5 years have explained me very well how and why my parents were so strict to me when I was younger. I now understand the feeling of being a mother, a parent. I cannot explain this feeling, but you will understand it very well when you become a parent yourself.

Is prostitution a job to look down for?

Linda is a fake name I refer to a 32 years old woman who has been a prostitute for 10 years. Through one of my work, I got the chance to interview her story shortly.

At the age of 22, she has decided by herself to become a prostitute instead of looking for other job because she didn’t have any education and she needed easy money which pay quickly, so that she could effort daily expense in her family of four siblings and a sick mother. Later, her siblings got married and they had moved on with their lives without taking any responsibility on the sick mother.

Linda has been a self-employed prostitute. She has been on her own looking for her customer which each time would pay her 5$ after having sex. Each day she could get 3 customers at most. She married once to a man whom she expected to be a helper, but turned out to be a drug addicted who would beat her when she couldn’t give him money. They broke up and leave her a son who is 10 years old now. When Linda left home for work, her son sometime asked her “Mum, what is your work?” she said “I work at Karaok” Linda never tells her son about her real work, and she has no idea when and how she would tell him.

When asked what the most difficult time she has been through as a prostitute was, she answered with tears. Sometime ago she was arrested together with other prostitutes into a police car. The car brought her and other girls to a re-education center but she wasn’t allowed to take off. Those four polices dropped other girls at the center and brought her with them. They all raped her. There was also times when customer forced her to eat a condom after sex.

I ran out of words to ask her after hearing these. What polices are for? Aren’t they supposed to protect their citizen? How would you tell your son if you were her? Is prostitution a job to look down for?

Story from my childhood

When I was in my secondary school, my father used to own a big motorbike. It was high and heavy. As I kid I was curious about how to drive it so I annoyed my dad about that. He told me how to drive it, gave me his helmet, and let me drove it around to test it. I drove it around our house, which was national road number 7, for a few minutes. As I was reaching my house, my mum and the neighbors told me to stop driving it because it was dangerous. But my dad said to me “daughter you don’t need to stop driving it, instead drive it more often so that you get used to it. Just remember to wear helmet, drive very slow, and stick to the side of road. If you are careful enough, you won’t fall down”

Hot Line? Emergency contact?

A few months ago, when my family was driving from Phnom Penh toward Kampong Cham province at about 11pm, we saw a man in his min 40 maybe beating a woman who looked like 30 years old or something. My father stopped the car and had a look on what really happening. My mum noticed that the woman whisper the world “Help”. I then search for polices numbers from other people who might have them. After about 5mn, I got two numbers which are hot line police for emergency cases. I was glad to get the number, but guess what? Nobody pick up both phones. I call and call and call many times, still no answer. That man walked to our car and told us “This is my family issue, just go.” My father decided to open the car window and told that man the he already called polices and polices are coming. That man picked her up from the ground, started his motorbike and quickly left that place. We followed while I keep trying to call that two hot line numbers. After about 2kilomaters, we realize that his motorbike was very very fast which could cause accident and the woman was behind him without the helmet, so we decided to stop following; otherwise, we would driver faster as we follow. I was sad that we couldn’t help much; but more importantly, that the hot line isn’t helpful. Polices were sleeping.

Last night at about 11pm, I got a call from a friend who relative was missing since 6pm. The lost girl was 17 years old. History has shown that she cannot be running with someone else since she has never had a boyfriend or any issues within her family. Her family of course files a complaint to the police office in her village already. My friend asked if I know any numbers for emergency contact or any assistant to find her. My sister, my brother in law, my boyfriend, and I spend one hour looking for hot line numbers whom we hope might be able to do something. We found many hot line numbers included head of police in that village, child abuse hot line, child help line, human trafficking hot line, ministry, and a lot more NGOs. My friends called to all the number I gave her, and guess what? Nothing works. Most of the hot line numbers ring without anyone answering the phone, the police said he already told his team to work on it but he was at home sleeping, the ministry said please file a complaint tomorrow, some NGOs said it is outside of our coverage area. After mid night, we lose hope and stop trying to call. It is morning now. That little girl has lost for 15 hours already. If that was a human trafficking act, she might end up in prostitute already.  

Shame on hot line numbers! How do they dare to put their numbers in the Emergency Contact list and call themselves “Hot Line” if they don’t even pick up the phone? Where and who can we, poor people, reach for help in such cases?

A better country starts from each of us

Being a part of Initiatives of Change Association (ICA) for many years now has been one of the greatest moments in my life. What made me so proud isn’t the title of a president, but the opportunity which has been given by this association to witness the greatness, kindness, friendliness, and a lot of commitments by young people of Cambodian in seeking a better country starting from them. Last weekend, ICA Food Program committee had organized the 6^th annual food program at Cambodian-Russian Hospital. I usually cannot help much except I do test the food they cook and taking their pictures. It just a short periods of time, the committee have been working very hard and resulted in having enough contribution to cook food for about 300 patients in that hospital.

HIV Patients

The food itself wasn’t really the main point of this program. What matters most is that those patients were visited and served by young people who don’t even know them but sharing the same nationality – Khmer. Most of the patients are poor people who were affected by HIV and TB disease. Let me go back into history a little bit to show the connection of why offering food related to helping Cambodia.

I’m sure we all know the regimes of 1975-1979 – Pol Pot regime. We all acknowledge that Pol Pot and his crew were the major cause of such a terrible leadership, but how could several people managed to get support by millions and turned the country into a zero year? Several people cannot kill 2 million people….right?  In a radio drama which was produced base on true story by the Women Media Center called “The last road” and together with my reading of some history books plus my family experiences in that regime, I came to realize that the killing of 2 million people were possible because of the hatred of poor people against rich people. In that mentioned drama, the poor people joined revolution military to revenge the rich who, in the previous regimes, enjoyed their luxury and not caring at all for the poor. The gap between the rich and poor were very huge. Many people were poor and lots of young people were jobless.

Kids who comes to the hospital with their family

 ICA is just a small volunteer organization and the food program can only serve food for some hundreds people. It won’t help much to close down that gap between the rich and the poor, but isn’t it better than not doing anything at all? Offering food was only our tool, but offering love and care were our aim.

I deeply thank, on behalf of ICA, to all the contributors who have made this program possible for 6 years and more in the future. A very big thank to the organizing committee who have contributed their time and energy to organizing this. 

A better country starts from each of us!

Am I doing the right thing?

My career at the lovely night talk show is quite a success. People started to know my name, becoming fans on facebook, contacting me for different reasons; some have changed their attitude and becoming stronger. I’m so proud for that. However, I now starting to question myself if I am doing the right thing?

My fans are also starting to depend so much on me. They have tried to get my phone number from whoever they could ask. That includes my sisters, brother in law, boyfriend, sponsor, my staffs, and more. My family got called during work and late night for people needing help urgently. Who I am, to be able to help everybody? The purpose of my work at the show is to help people becoming an independent and strong person. In contrast, people are becoming weaker because they expect that I will be able to help them in whatever they need.

I now rethink and I need help to make decision. Shall I continue my work at the radio as a consultant? I have been an educator. Shall I be just an entertainer?

Programming

I have enrolled in World Philosophy class this term. Today I have learned something very interesting: Determination. It is a philosophy which explained that human being is just like a computer. You are able to use computer to type an article because this computer were programmed for typing.

Human being can never escape their shadow. Every things they do or decide are base on their past which including family, education, environment, and people they have met before. A lazy person cannot suddenly become a hard working person if she wasn’t influenced by the advice from her parents or maybe a good book she read. Determinism believes that we are always influenced by things around us. People are different from each other because they met different people, read different book, and live in different environment. Therefore, people do not have free-will. We are who we are depending on our past. We have been programmed by our past like a computer has been programmed by programmer. According to determinism, our past and environment is our programmer.

This theory teaches me that while we are programmed by others, we also program them. We help to shape people we meet and talk to. If you are a good person, you are influencing the person next to you to become a good person too. We all influence each other, so why not be a good responsible person? Doing good things help us become a good person, and it will also influence other people.