Angelina's gems

Ratanakiri means gemstone mountain. It’s a province in the north-east of Cambodia where you can buy diamond earrings at the local market  that cost 3$ per diamond. Nickname of Cambodia is ‘Kingdom of Wonder’ but ‘Kingdom of Fakes’ comes second I think (Not to say that I don’t like my new best friends though, fake or not, if I can’t tell, I don’t care).

Ratanakiri is also home to many ethnic minority hill tribes. Their children go to the most remote and isolated schools in the country –if going to school at all- and I went there last week to learn more about them and about the Unicef supported programmes in this disadvantaged corner of the Kingdom. 

The trip to this beautiful gem of a province was utterly motivating to work hard. I saw a grade 6 student teaching the grade 1 students as no teacher in the school spoke the local language and otherwise the children couldn’t understand. I listened to mothers telling us about how there is no teacher in the village and teachers explaining how they did not get paid last year at all. And I met the brightest children. Many of them said that besides going to the rice paddies with their parents every day, they also want to study to be health workers and teachers. 

Adoption laws are very tight here. In fact, no westerner can adopt any child here anymore. If you look at these pictures below one can understand why this is probably a good thing. Against all Unicef-positions on this topic I would have ended up all Angelina otherwise. And yes, in case you are wondering about their empty desks and where their text books are; that’s something we all would like to know. Seems that some few government people get very rich selling them to those that can afford, rather then distributing them for free to the real gems of Ratanakiri.

King of career counceling

Sometimes I still wonder what I want to do when I grow up. And then it’s always comforting to hear that more people in their thirties face that issue and think they need a coach/retreat on top of mountain/shrink/phd/calling/brainwave to work out the next step.

The depressing thing is that some people seem to never really figure it out. Like Cambodia’s king Norodom Sihanouk who recently died. He was known as  "The King-Father of Cambodia" and held an impressive lists of positions. He was king twice, prince twice, president once and prime minister twice.  He was also a figurehead of the Communist revolution and leader in exile, befriending both the Chinese and Americans at some point. In addition he also gained an allegedly well-deserved reputation as  playboy, as gastronomic and, as if this all was not enough for one life, he even embarked on a film career, producing 19 movies for which he was director, producer, scriptwriter, composer and often leading man. Quite intimidating right? 

 

So I guess my options are still open then. It may be quite challenging to be crowned king, but surely there are different routes to a colourful life and exciting career. 

The King-Father died age 89. Death is viewed as the end of one life and as the beginning of another life here. And one hopes the next one will be better. I wonder what King Norodom wished he could do in his next life. Some people get all the luck though. With hundreds of thousands of people coming to the Royal Palace with flowers and incense and praying for his soul, if lucky, I think he may be able to come back as Obama next time around. 

Goodmorning Cambodia

Every morning I read the Cambodian Daily and often an uncomfortable itchy feeling creeps up on me.  Just a random impression of today’s topics: Cambodia accused of human rights abuses and politically motivated convictions of opposition leader as well as excessive force against protesters. Opposition leader deleted from voter list for upcoming election. Reporter who investigated corruption murdered. 400.000 families driven off their land because of state-licensed selling of land to foreign companies. Murder by security forces on environmental activist not investigated as the government insists that the murder was an ‘accident’. And so on and on and on.

Call me naïve but before I moved here I didn’t realise this at all. But now every morning over my cup of cappuccino I count my democratic blessings. And while I sip my coffee I am thankful for the low ranking of my country in the Transparency International corruption index. For those interested: in 2012 the Netherlands ranks #7 out of 182 countries where Cambodia barely beats places like the DRC, Chad and Somalia ranking a disgraceful and sad #164. 

Slowly the photogenic and appealing picture in my head of saffron coloured monks, lotus flowers and moonlight dances and rosy champagne disappears and brutal reality takes over.  The reality of a country where people can not actually speak out and criticise too loud. 

But fortunately there is also many moments where the profile-picture beauty of the country still proves stronger. Like this morning when my colleague casually told me that a monkey had stolen her remote control from her living room. Hands down that story beats any story I have ever heard standing by a coffee machine in a Dutch office.