Day 10: New Hope Community Centre, Siem Reap

Another confronting day which began with a hospital visit to check up on the villager Sherry took there yesterday.  The condition of the hospital was pretty much as I’d expected.  Over-crowded and filthy with no sense of urgency.  ‘Our’ lady was in a shared room with three others, who were in varying stages of near-death.  I think it must have been an Emergency ward as it was supervised by hospital staff (a desk in the room servicing six or so people, all wearing masks, and clearly not doing much at all!).    The local hospitals have no nurses.  They provide the physical space for beds but the patients’ families are required bring the bedding, to nurse the patients, provide their meals.  The doctors monitor their medical needs and that’s about it.  They simply don’t have the funding or the trained staff to provide the care that we expect in the West.  The test results for our lady hadn’t come back yet but she was a little better, managed to sit up and thank Sherry, but she’ll be in there for at least a few days.  Lucky for her she will be as it means that her medical expenses will then be covered by another charity which works in line with New Hope. 

As we were walking to the car in the hospital grounds, a police jeep pulled up with three armed policemen in the back.  They brutally pulled a clearly unconscious man out of the back of the jeep and dumped his body on a stainless steel trolley which was then wheeled into ‘Emergency’.  The story was that he had stolen something from someone who in turn had sought vengeance by beating the life out of him.  I’m not actually sure whether the beating was conducted by the robbery victim or the police.  Guess I’ll never know.

At New Hope today I was greeted by a little girl with a bouquet of wild flowers (weeds).  It was the sweetest thing you could imagine.   These kids never cease to amaze me.  Their home lives are just terrible; filth, starvation, frequently abuse, yet they turn up at school each day with the biggest smiles and gifts such as these flowers.  It truly melted my heart.

Speaking of hardship at home, today I learned the story of one of my students, which made my blood boil, and brought tears to my eyes.  She is 17 years old and has only just started coming to school at New Hope.  Apparently one or both of her parents died several years ago and she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle.  Basically she became their domestic slave, cleaning the house and helping to raise their younger children who in turn were allowed to go to school when they turned five.  This girl is absolutely beautiful with the most gorgeous demeanor.  The New Hope staff are monitoring her closely as they don’t trust the motives of her aunt and uncle, believing that they will try to sell her into prostitution.  Her lack of power and absolute devastating luck in life is so unfair.  I pleaded with Dessa to monitor her family closely to prevent this from happening.  In the meantime, I’m going to tutor her a couple of times a week to try to bring her up to what is probably the level of a ten year old child.  At home she’d be getting ready to graduate and go to university.  Here she lives with the threat of being sold as a sex slave.