Cambodia 2011 Peace Project Event (Part1 The Story)

PREVI HEAR JOURNAL 2011 ! The Peace Project
PREVI HEAR JOURNAL 2011 ! The Peace Project
forty rooms and is used by
the Cambodian military
to bring their prostitutes
for sex. Its not full and we
can check in. For us, it is a
luxurious home away from
home. The bags arrive. I
meet Candy, the Taiwanese
owner’s sister. She’s cute,
half-cosmopolitan and
the other-half shouldn’t
be here but in a place like
Australia. She’s not and
she’s got to deal with it. We
bond because she has an
iPhone. The owner looks
like a sleepy patron, who
has smoked too much
marijuana. He hardly
speaks Khmer and neither
does his sister. The work of
the hotel is done instead by
his wife, a Cambodian who
looks like she wears not
only the pants but the army
camouflage fatigues, does
all the hard labour and the
books! They always leave
it to the women to do the
work!
Then my friend Tith Mao
and So Pert arrive with
the equipment from Siem
Reap. They seem excited
but shy. The van is paid by
me and, after it leaves, we
unpack.
‘It is all beginning!’ I
think. ‘The feeling is one of
excitement. We are on the
way!’
I begin to walk around
the hotel and restaurant
to explore. There are
two areas to the Sok San
restaurant and it’s guest
rooms. Two passages lead
off the rooms which are all
one story. It took us a day
to got here and now it is
time to unwind and debrief,
discussing what we need to
do. Soon I go off to bed. The
were a lot of things in store
for me. One was that little
do I know, that that was
also the last day I would
ever see Aone.
DAY ONE
Thursday,
10th of
November
2011
Sra ‘Aem
The first day. I wake
up, staring at the ceiling,
thinking,
‘I'm in Sra’’Aem. Wow, I
can feel the coolness after
the humidity of the South.
I’m here!’
There are distant clatters
of dishes, laughter and a
radio somewhere in the
background. I roll over. The
next thought is,
‘It will take three or four
days of doing nothing
before we do something.
We need to reassess our
position, and look at what
we must do. The day is
going to start with setting
everything up.’
After coffee, I begin. The
idea is to bring a six meter
by two meter canvas image
of the Buddha floating in
the sky. Either side will be
two texts. One is in Khmer,
the other in Thai. One is on
the left- hand-side and or
the other one on the righthand-side.
Underneath
will be a picture of Previ-
Hear, the temple. We will
paint the the picture at
the summit of Previ-Hear
temple. Mao and Sopert this
morning are going to climb
the mountain and once up
there prepare the easels
with wood. So we have to
take the wooden easels that
I had built in Siem Reap up
to Previ-Hear temple.
I stumble across to the
breakfast area and shout,
‘Another five coffees.’
That’s my drug. They
don’t understand my
English and instead
look blankly at me. The
waitresses laugh because
I am foreign and cannot
speak Khmer. I’m a
stumbling, mumbling
foreigner! They are
flirtatious but shy. The
first one is called Nana,
the second Alin and third
is Jay jay, which mean
sister, I discover how to say,
“Another
coffee” which is “Moy
teta!” in Khmer. I sit down
at the white, oval
Formica tables and write
a series of lists for each
person. The boys also do
the lists of all the camera
equipment, which we have
to take.
Mao comes over to me
and says,
‘We need to transport the
easels but I’m not exactly
clear how we will get up the
mountain. ‘
Mao begins to looks at
rental of trucks. In Siem
Reap he had been given
the contact name of a
man called Bunthy who is
a former military driver.
He also has some motor
cycles and can rent a
truck from the military for
the day.
I say to Sambo and
Sokkheng that the
posters and lists need
to be written up in
the restaurant, while
equipment lists need to be
typed up by the two boys.
In between the coffees, I
am thinking,
‘I need to find a group
of assistants and riders
to organize and transport
crew. Mao can then begin
to move the equipment to
the mountain. Mao has to
be taught how to use the
sound equipment, which
is called an Ediroll. He also
needs to prepare how to
dump the tapes into hard
drives.’
We make a list of what
must be bought. I write
down:
“Buying plastic
tarpaulins, glass
containers for paint and
turpentine.’
Then I shout across the
breakfast table, ‘ Hats!
Yes, we need hats ‘cause
of the powerful glare
of the sun.’ Four hours
later, Mao triumphantly
returns and reports what