a prospective photographer

Since I last wrote about the kids at Stung Meanchey dump, I’ve been out to see them several more times.  Each time, Eric and I discover new kids who have great interest in photography and who we consider to be excellent candidates for our photo project.  We always love to see the photos that they’ve come up with.  

Some of the children are regularly there to get food when we come, while other children that we’ve seen and photographed before have never reappeared since.  With each visit, we not only get to know the personalities of some of the “regulars,” but meet new children that we hadn’t previously encountered.  

My name, Beverly, is universally difficult for Asians (and many other nationalities) to say so I’ve often taken on different nick-names in each country I’ve visited.  In Cambodia, I’ve become Lee which seems to be the only syllable in my name that is easily pronounceable to non-English speakers. I was so attached to my Balinese name, Putu, I wish I had thought to give that name a test run before opting for Lee; but Lee it is now. 

The kids that are regulars at the dump and with whom I’ve interacted before start shouting “Lee! Lee!” when they see me.  There are so many of them and their names are as foreign to me as “Beverly” is to them that I’m only able to retain a few new names with each visit.  I find it strange to have formed such strong attachments to these kids, to feel so connected to them and have feelings of love for them, but not to have a name that I associate with each one of these special people.  Eventually, I hope I’ll be able to know and remember all of their names, but in the meantime, I just keep adding a few to my memory bank with each visit.

the chaotic clothes distribution process

The last time we went to the dump, the group that organizes feeding runs for the kids also brought second hand clothes in addition to food that we passed out to the children and some of the adults.  I was fascinated to observe that many of our cultural associations with color and clothing style don’t carry over here.  For example, boys had no problem snatching up pink clothes.  One was even happy to grab a skirt.  I honestly don’t know if this is due to cultural differences (Perhaps Cambodians don’t associate pink with girls and blue with boys the way Americans do. For that matter, I’m not sure if that association is purely American or if all Westerners recognize those particular color affiliations) or if it has more to do with the severity of the kids’ poverty. 

Eric's new brother

The clothing distribution process was a bit chaotic and some kids managed to end up with several articles of clothing while others got none.  After all the clothes had been distributed, one of the unlucky boys who got nothing approached me to plead his case. I had nothing more to give him, but spotted a boy of similar size who had three items of clothing.  The luckier boy spoke a little English and readily agreed to give a pair of jeans, in my opinion his best article, to the first boy.  “We must share,” he said, struggling to find the exact words in English.  

That afternoon, one little boy took quite a shine to Eric and followed him around for the duration of our visit while the one who got the jeans stuck closely to my side.  “Eric’s boy” told Eric that he wanted to be his brother and Eric agreed.  He didn’t let go of Eric’s hand for the rest of the afternoon.  “My boy” whose name I never did master started calling me mother in the last ten minutes before we left.  So many Cambodians, young and old, have proposed to Eric and I that we be their brother or sister that, were we to document them, our family tree would likely resemble those lovely African trees with branches spreading out in extreme horizontal patterns.  As a result, we also have numerous Khmer nieces and nephews, but this was the first time that my family tree roots started stretching in a vertical direction.  I apparently have a son now … and don’t even know his name.  

my "son"

After our second to last visit, we took two of the girls, Sopey and Sophy, to go get shoes.  According to one of the organizers, Sopey had a foot infection and the knee-high rubber boots which were her only footwear didn’t allow the infection to breathe and heal. Sophy initially went along for the ride and to help translate, but also got into the shopping spirit and requested new shoes as well.  At $6 a pair, we were happy to brighten both girls’ day.  They were ecstatic about their new shoes and, at first, did not want to wear them immediately. They preferred to save them for a special occasion because they didn’t want to get them dirty.  Unfortunately, part of life at the dump is that everything gets dirty so we encouraged them to go ahead and wear them now.  Saving them for a special occasion would likely mean they never got worn (and would likely be sold) which would defeat the purpose of buying them. 

On the way to buy the shoes, Sopey, our “star photographer,” continued to photograph like a paparazzi from the tuk tuk as we drove.  She told us it was her third time to ever ride in a tuk tuk, yet she was far more fascinated with the camera in her hands.  The past few times we’ve gone to the dump to visit, Sopey has not been there.  We wonder what has happened to her and hope she’s okay.

a little girl and her mother emerging from a cloud of smoke from burning garbage

On another recent visit, I walked farther back into the dump with Josh Haner, a visiting reporter/photographer for the New York Times whom I met and befriended on a previous trip to the dump.  We trekked through the black smoke rising from the heaps of burning garbage back to the areas where the Stung Meanchey families live.  We came across a woman who was washing and drying hundreds of brightly colored plastic bags that she had salvaged from the refuse. En route to talk to and photograph this woman, I stepped on what looked like solid ground only to have my foot sink about 8 inches into some hot black liquid that was immediately absorbed by my sock and shoe as though they were a sponge. I’m not sure if it was my imagination or not, but I could have sworn acid was slowly eating at my foot until I got home and showered, vigorously scrubbing my foot about half a dozen times.  

Josh and I hiked up a mountain of refuse, carefully treading through an area Josh dubbed “the field of broken glass.”  We carried bags of apples with us to give to the kids; apples always seem to be their favorite.  In our excursion, we encountered more adults than children who were equally happy to receive an apple in the scorching heat.  We got back to the dump entrance just as a new garbage truck was dumping its contents.  The people, mostly adults but a few children as well, stood by waiting for the second the garbage had been dumped to start sifting to look for recyclables.  The area where the people were working and waiting was dangerous.  In addition to the big garbage trucks that pull in and out without much regard for who’s in the way, bulldozers work within feet of the garbage sifters, displacing and leveling the garbage.  I felt like I needed an extra pair of eyes in the back of my head just to keep from getting run over.  One woman saw my bag of apples and motioned a request I give her one as soon as she had finished searching the garbage.  The second I handed out one, I was surrounded by about twenty to thirty hands.  I jumped away as soon as I saw a break so that there would be some left for the children.  

"I have a cow." Something you're not likely to see taught at school in the US

After leaving the main work area, I headed up to the children’s school to see the conditions there.  Classes were not in session, yet about 7 kids hung out on the grounds.  They showed me the three classrooms which are open air.  Only a blackboard separates two classrooms which are both housed in the same building.  I imagine that being able to hear the other classes going on would be very distracting to the students.  The children eagerly demonstrated their English to me, showing me pictures of fruit and telling me the names in both Khmer and in English. 

During the time since we initially came up with the idea of putting cameras in the hands of the kids, Eric and I have been researching the situation at Stung Meanchey and have come to learn of other groups helping the families and children at the dump in a variety of ways.  We’ve set up a number of meetings to better educate ourselves about what’s currently being done and what is still needed in order to determine how best to effect our project and what to do with the funds raised from it.

In the course of one of these meetings, we learned that the land on which the dump is situated has become prime real estate and has been purchased by some Western developers.  Accordingly, the government has plans to relocate the dump.  The families living and working at the dump will be relocated too … but not to the new dump sight. They will be moved to an area called Udong where some will be provided houses via Habitat for Humanity.  The plan sounds great, but no one can answer how these families will earn their living.  

a trash sifter seeking shade and taking a break

With all of this going on in the background, Eric and I made the tough decision to temporarily continue with our travels in Vietnam for the next 5 weeks, using that time to brainstorm about the photo project.  We are tossing around many questions and ideas at the moment:  What’s the best way to involve the families and the school in the project? Over what time periods should the children keep the cameras? Should we provide the children with any photography instruction or just take a “natural is best/ see what happens” approach?  What are the best methods to minimize the risk of losing any cameras to theft or sale?  These are just the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, we figure that traveling now will provide time to sort out these and many other questions. 

In the meantime, the stories I’m writing in my blog are kind of “Cambodian flashbacks” so I can catch you up on the events that happened before Eric and I met the kids and experiences we’ve had since then.  As I write this story, we are on a bus on the way to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam.  We plan to travel the length of Vietnam by motorbike for five weeks before returning to Cambodia.  Upon our return, we will dive into the project with the kids for a month … and then I’ll be heading back home to the States to work on exhibiting their work.

If you would like to see a video of the children in their school as well as the trash sifters at work, click here.

So that’s the update.  Now on with the stories …

To see more photos of the kids and their living conditions, click here.