Our project is completed

Thank you for your visit and we hope you have enjoyed reading about our experiences in Cambodia. For regular updates on Tabitha's activities, please visit http://tabithafoundation.wordpress.com/, the blog maintained by Tabitha Foundation Singapore.

Handover! Tuesday May 26, 2009

Finally - the moment all the families have been waiting for many, many years had come.

Tabitha's principles are all about self-sustainability and saving to reach middle class. By saving each week as little as 10 cents a week or as much as they could afford and collecting 10% interest after each 10 week cycle, each of the families had slowly but surely worked towards their house. The hard work of saving for the last 3 - 7 years was about to be rewarded.

While we were waiting for the rain to subside, the Tabitha staff gathered all 9 families - or about 30 people - plus many more "spectators" under the raised floor of the last house. One by one, each family came forward and as a sign of the handover, received a new Tabitha quilt from each of us. The emotion we all felt left us looking for the right words to say as we handed the houses over one by one. There was the young couple with two small kids. Two middle aged women (sisters?) with two kids each who could barely hold back their tears of joy. The father of nine who appearantly was without wife. All immensely proud and thankful towards what they were able to achieve with the help of Tabitha.

As the rain cleared, we posed for a final "family" picture in front of the last completed house and amongst many "Awkun's" and lots of smiles, we boarded our bus, leaving behind 30 incredibly happy people that are one step closer to stepping out of poverty.

Watch the Video of the Handover here:

Day 4 - All done. Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Although all of us felt "hammered" this morning, from hardly enough time to recover from the effort the previous day, we were all excited and eager to go to finish up the remaining four houses and hand them over to their new families. After the now familiar ride to the same village, we attacked house # 6 & 7 and managed to "nail them" all before lunch.

Luckily, today our Indian teammates had organized some Aloo Parata to keep us going - a welcoming change from the Peanutbutter/Sardines/Meat paste Sandwiches from the day before.

Again we were surrounded by curious villagers, many helpful hands and critical inspections by future owners to make sure all nails are where they were supposed to be. After lunch, we headed a bit up the road to finish the last couple houses - perfectly located to get the full exposure to the searing afternoon sun!

We attacked the last two houses, knowing that all families were impatiently waiting for us to finish and hand the houses over to them. Pulling all together as one team, we managed to put the final nails into the last house, just as a thundering rainstorm rolled across the village and provided welcoming cooling to all of us.

Day 3 - 5 Houses down, 4 more to go. Monday, May 25, 2009

Early rise this morning to catch the minibus at 7am to take us to our building site approximately 20 miles the south of Phnom Penh. After an hours drive, we stopped in a remote village of about 650 families bordering a small river.
View Larger Map.

The entire section of the village where we were about to work clearly expected us, with about 20 people lined up along the road as we approached the site of the first 6 houses down a muddy path from the dirt road.

After a lot of warm greetings and smiles from the "welcoming commitee", we unloaded all our food, materials (including bandaids and bandages) on a table in the middle of the village, grabbed our hammers and nails and were led by Heng and Tari from Tabitha to the first two houses - basic single room structures on concrete pillars. The frame and roof had been pre-constructed since previous houses built by volunteers proved to be too unstable - so it was up to us to nail the bamboo floorboards and tin walls to complete the houses.

Although basic in style, the houses are nevertheless a huge improvement over the current living conditions, which are on the ground (= muddy and wet) and consist of nothing more than a few bamboo branches barely holding together and a thatched roof. One wonders if these huts will survive the next storm. We were about to make 9 families VERY happy.

Easier said then done, given the humidity, heat and unfamiliarity of our group with hammer and nails. Added all together, it made for long, arduous work, nail after nail, trying to avoid hitting your thumb, splitting the bamboo or bending the nail in the hard wood. While working on bamboo flooring has its advantages (ie cheaper and often softer), it also meant that there were many more nails to hammer than with wider wooden floorboards....all in all on average about 2,080 per house for the floor alone, and another 250 for the walls

But as Janne had reminded us the day before, this was not about us, not about our sweat, not about us being hot and tired. It was about the people we "worked for", so there was nothing else for us to do than put our best smiles on our faces and carry on under the watchful and amused eyes of the villagers and particular attention by the future owners.

We finished the first house quite quickly, with all of us energized and excited, but as the day wore on, the hammer felt heavier and heavier. The nails seemed to bend more frequently and the wood seemed to be harder. We forced ourselves to take frequent waterbreaks, and after finishing almost 3 houses, broke for a lunch of sandwiches (sardines, peanut butter and chocolate spread), gatorade and water.

The afternoon wore on much the same, boards to nail, walls to carry, ladders to move, water to drink, sweat to wipe and pain to suppress (another of Janne's do's: "When you hit your thumb, put it in your mouth, it will keep you quiet and ease the pain".) And just as we were about to finish the last house, a heavy thunderstorm transformed the entire workplace into one big, wet, slippery, muddy area. Luckily we were almost done and after a few last nails, we were happy to have completed our first 5 houses.

Day 2 - History of Cambodia. Sunday, May 24, 2009

Today - the team spent time to get the background on the most recent history of Cambodia and particularly the legacy of the tragic Khmer Rouge period, which left more than 20% of the population dead and brought devastation and widespread poverty to the country.

First the team members who had never been to Cambodia before retraced some of the last steps of the may millions killed during the Khmer Rouge regime, first visiting the the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also known as S-21), followed by the Choeng Ek Killing Fields. For all of us, it was a chilling reminder of the ruthlessness of the Khmer Rouge as they applied their motto of: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss."

In the evening, we all gathered at the rooftop of the our Hotel, where Janne Ritskes, Founder of Tabitha gave us a one hour, often chilling, description of the last 60 years of Cambodia and the impact on its people. All of Janne's Tabitha staff have their very sad stories to tell, often being the sole survivors of large families. And as Janne shared these personal survival stories with us, most of us at one point or the other had a hard time fighting back our tears.

Janne sent us off with her do's and dont's while we are in the community building houses (Do: "Smile"; Don't: "Tell any mother her child is beautiful") and off we went, tucking into our beds early for another 6am start.

Day 1 - Sok Sabay & Little Sprouts

Early start for the 9 of us, catching our 6:40am plane to Phnom Penh with about 100kg of donated clothes, books and toys in our luggage. Luckily some of us travel light and Jetstar Asia was very understanding. Today was all about settling into our Hotel, taking in the sights and sounds of Phnom Penh, running errands for the housbuilding (including 63 liters of water) and we were amazed about the progress in the city since our last visit 3 years ago – new shops, more modern apartment buildings, more cars…and more traffic. Progress has come!

In the afternoon, after sorting through the 7 large bags of donations, we went to our first stop - Sok Sabay, the center for the protection of mistreated children. We had visited Sok Sabay the last time three years ago and are always amazed what Marie Camal manages to do with the limited funds available to her. The center is now temporary home to 64 kids, all being prepared for a bright future. Most of the kids were in school so we played with the smallest ones for a while before Marie, with her usual energy, dragged us off to show us Sok Sabay’s new home – a beautiful house with great grounds, in a better and safer location. Marie and her 64 “helping hands” will be moving next week and are very excited. Next, we went to visit Little Sprouts, a program established by Maryknoll. The little sprouts program was established to provide shelter for children who are either orphaned or displaced, with their parents often too sick to care for them. Close to all of the children are HIV positive and as the administrator later explained, thanks to new 4-times-a-day antiviral doses, the live expectancy of these children has dramatically improved in the last few months.

It was the first time for us to come to Little Sprouts which is located in the suburbs of Phnom Phen.

Even before we could get out of the van, we were surrounded by a mob of very, very excited children, who wanted nothing more than being taken in their arms and played with. All of us, including Chiara and Luca – our kids - took only a few minutes before being deep into ball games, tag and being dragged around the courtyard by the smiling and laughing children. Seeing 40+ energized children running around like mad all made us almost forget the difficult circumstances they are in.




















A tiring but rewarding first day, with many images which will remain in our minds for a long time

Off to Cambodia!

This is it - we are off to Cambodia with a team of 10 enthusiastic housbuilders. We have a tightly packed program, visiting 2 orphanages on Saturday and Sunday, meeting up with Jeanne Ritskes on Sunday and building 9 houses on Monday and Tuesday (usually it takes 16 to build 9 houses but who doesn't love a challenge....) Follow us as we give you daily updates on our progress and achievements over the next days.