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.
