AdlanKhalidi

Travelogue: My Community Service in Cambodia

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Welcome to the Kingdom of Cambodia. It took some time for me to write all of them. Since I’m going to publish this for the first time, this is the first post that I’ve sent to the editorial. Okay. Enjoy reading it! Warning! This is my longest post ever. Please take a deep breath before reading it. Thank you!

9th April – Wednesday

Everything is ready and prepared for the mission. I stayed at Faiz’s room for the night and spent the time watching just a few movies. I have to sleep early because we will be leaving UIA by 3.0 am and for sure I don’t want to be late. Thanks to Faiz for sending me to S-DEV office, the meeting and departure point for the group. After loading all our bagage into the bus, we left UIA as scheduled (3.0 am). Once we aboard the bus, everyone is fall asleep again and woke up when reaching LCCT about 5.40 am. We checked-in our bagage right away then performed the Subuh prayer before we checked-in at 6.30 am. Our fligt from Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap by AirAsia took off at 7.15 am as scheduled. Very lucky, there’s no flight delay.

On board, we are informed that the filght would take about two hours to reach Siem Reap. There’s nothing much to do in the aircraft, while watching the cabin staff carrying out their duties then I remembered about Aya Ueto’s “Attention Please” and Takuya Kimura’s “Good Luck”. We landed at Siem Reap International Airport at 9.15 am and was greeted by our host Imam Musa. We were then taken to D’Wau Restaurant to have our brunch where they served Malaysia’s cuisine, such as variety of Nasi Goreng. Oh yeah! Our tummies are not ready to accept the local food yet. The weather is hot and according to the weather forecast, it may reach up to 35° Celsius.
After taking the brunch, we proceed our journey to Dam Sbai, Battambang. According to Imam Musa, the journey would take about four hours because there’s so many road works on the way. However, we stopped at Sisophon Bus Station after 3 hours journey to have some refreshment and to relieve ourselves at the public toilet. My goodness! The toilet is beyond my expectation. It is indeed in a very poor condition. There was only a small kolah and gayung as well as WC. Now that’s what I call “Water Closet”. We continued our journey there on.

At 3.15pm, we arrived at Imam Musa’s house and started to unload our luggage. Female participants stayed in Imam’s house while male participants stayed in the Dhiyauddin Mosque. We had a very warm welcome and we enjoyed our meal from the host. I remembered what Dr. Dinon once said, “We can eat their meals but don’t look how the food is prepared. Otherwise we just cannot take it.” All I can say is that the level of hygiene and cleanliness awareness is quite poor among the villagers. You can see flies everywhere. There’s no proper dustbin and the kids are littering around the village.
Just to share an amusing story. There are some tablighs from France and Algeria staying at the mosque. Tabligh is an Islamic preaching group. After Maghrib prayer, as usual they do the tazkirah in Arabic, which most of us could not understand. However, Ustaz Shukri (the local) who sat beside them translated the tazkirah to Khmer language while another ustaz translated to Bahasa Melayu for our sake! Syukur!

After having dinner, we had our first coordination meeting. We were divided into three groups and my group was responsible on the ‘Special Task’.

10th April – Thursday

Today is our second day in Cambodia. We have a lot of work to do. Since I’m in the Special Task group, we are required to paint Muhammadi Mosque and prepare the numbering system for the medical team. Briefly, the medical team will be carrying out a circumcision ceremony. The Education team would entertain the kids with modules. Research & Development (R&D) team would conduct a survey and giving out donation to the poor villagers.

Muhammadi Mosque is located just across the river from the Dhiyauddin Mosque and can be reached either by roads which takes about ten minutes or by boat. The boat is operated by a lady to ferry people to cross the river. Our task is to clean and paint the exterior part of the mosque. Its tiring however we enjoyed doing the task.

Another big event in the late afternoon. Imam Musa informed us that there would be an aqiqah of a cow at the Muhammadi Mosque. So we all gathered at the mosque to see how the aqiqah is carried out. To my surprise, there was only three persons to slaughter the cow and everything was done within five minutes. Its really amazing, compared to Qurban during the Eid Adha at our places where many people involve in the activity. Tell you what, from today onwards we have beef served everyday for every meal, from breakfast till dinner.
Our next task was to assist the Medical Team to carry out the circumcision exercise for the boys. As we are told, many parents could not afford to circumcise their boys at the clinic. That was why they really appreciate our mission. We helped the Medical Team to organise the activity based on first come basis and control the situation. Our mission managed to circumcised 32 boys today, though there was some technical problem with the laser instrument and the doctors have to perform the circumcision manually. The scenario of this activity is very much different compared to our boys back home, where most everyone is excited to be circumcised. Here the boys are scared to be circumcised.

What a day ! full of activities. After dinner we had meeting to prepare the next day activity as well as post-mortem for today’s activity.

11th April – Friday

The Special Task of our group includes the R&D for the standard of living of the villagers. Our visit to Dam Sbai village was guided by Sister Filin. She took us to the Islamic Local Development Organisation (ILDO). It is a community centre to develop skills among the villagers such as sewing. The skill acquired would help them to improve their economy for the better living.

Today we managed to conduct the survey on eight families and visited six houses. The objective of the visit was to donate some telekung, kain pelikat and cash for the poor families. I felt very sorry to see them in such conditions.
I noticed that the traffic management is very poor. It seems as if there is no traffic law enforcement. Road accidents happen everyday. Even today we had a Jenazah prayer after Friday prayer. As commonly practice by most Muslim, each jemaah received R1000 (about RM0.80) from the family.
The next event is the officiating of our program at Dhiyauddin Mosque by Ustaz Hamidon, Deputy Rector of Students & Alumni Affairs Division IIUM. Due to poor setting up of PA system of the mosque, we could hardly concentrate on the speeches given by Ust Hamidon, Mufti and the local governor. Each of the speeches were being translated either from English to Khmer or Khmer to English.
At last, at almost 4pm, then we had our lunch. The medical team continued the circumcision activity and altogether the team manages to circumcise 36 boys today.

As for dinner tonight, we have ‘Lembu Naik Bukit’ which is beef fried with margarine. ‘Naik bukit’ means that when you eat, your stomach will get full. That’s why it is called ‘naik bukit’! As usual, after dinner, we carried out a post mortem for today’s activity and discussed the preparation for next day event. on preparation for the next day.

12th April – Saturday

Today, my group was assigned as the ‘Education’ team. Basically our job is to entertain the children with some simple educational modules while they were waiting for the circumcision. In the morning, we conducted a telematch of four interesting and fun games. Since communication is a problem for us, so we applied the sign language with some basic commands in Khmer to teach the children.

Next, we showed Ice Age 2 movie using the LCD projector. We also taught them nasyid. Thanks to Bro. Aswad as the only cultural unit member who came along with us to Cambodia. After lunch, we had colouring and flash card session with the children. I noticed that the children prefer doing the colouring than drawing. To end the day, we had another telematch and futsal later in the afternoon.

Bro Rozaidi challenged us if we could organise a telematch with the children. Well, we we took up the challenge and we organised the event successfully. Big clap to our team! It was a tough day and yet full of fun and joy. Honestly and sincerely, I’d like to thank AKHI Project because of the experience I gained in managing the children through such programmes. Even though there’s barrier in communication, I still could carry out the the programme lively and smoothly. If only they could understand a little bit English or Bahasa Melayu, it would be a lot of fun and better understanding.

The English language is not a free education in school, but parents have to pay extra fee. Since most of the villagers are of poor family, priority is given for food compared to circumcision or Engligh language.
Later in the afternoon, my friends and I took a boat ride along the river. I saw a lot of rubbish along the river bank. From my observation, there’s no environmental and hygiene awareness among the people.

Tonight, after the Isyak prayer, we visited Imam Musa’s brother in-law who had an accident that day and stayed about 100 meters away. Since we are doing the social visit, Imam Musa also took us to another villager’s house nearby who has been ill for sometime. Road accidents are something that is very common happened and the locals do not take heed for it. Cambodians apply left hand drive, like the Americans.

As usual, after the dinner, we carried out a post mortem and decide on preparation for the last day of the official mission.

13th April – Sunday

My group was assigned for R&D task again and I’m considered lucky to be in this group. The reason is that, my group is the only group has the chance to be in R&D team TWICE. I went to Cambodia with the objective to study and learn about their culture and society. Since I’m a designer, I also consider about designs an indigenous architecture from the visit.

This time, we went further into the rural areas as it took an hour journey from our station. More donations were handed over as we visited more houses. Its very tiring because of the hot weather. But since this is what I want from this program, I determined to finish it. Just wanna share something about the house design in that village, the ground floor has a massive height but the second floor looks standard. Besides that, most houses in Cambodia have at least a hammock. It’s a common sight seeing hammock either outside or inside their house. Is hammock ergonomic to our body? I don’t think so.

After that, we went to another village which is located about two kilometres away from our hotel. The village is located along a riverbank. During raining season, the water level will rise and they will have to stay on the second floor of their houses. I wish I could come again during the raining season because I want to see how they live in that condition.

Today is the last day for our mission in Dam Sbai. Our group has finished the R&D task for the day. The medical team managed to circumcise a total of 174 boys for the whole four days and that was a record. Even the doctors said that they love their job and would missed it once they returned home. It’s such a good experience for everyone that involved with the surgery. Even my friend who is an ICT student helped the doctors and became a nurse for that day. I’m sure he’ll remember it for all his life.

Some of us visited a crocodile farm which is situated about 500 metres away. I was awed by the number of the crocodiles down there. I presumed there are about more than a hundred crocodiles in a small farm. It’s a private farm and hence no safety measures for any visitors. Its dangerous indeed and rather scary to look at those reptiles.

That night, our last night in Battambang, we went city sight-seeing by night I forgot to mention that it was a New Khmer Year which falls on 12th April. To mark the celebration, the Cambodians decorated their houses. We loitered around the central park and its quite dark because not enough of garden lightings. We had some pop corns and sugar cane juice by the road side. Eventually, there’s nothing to see that night as most shops had closed early because of Khmer New Year celebration.

After four hot and sunny days, finally the rain pours down with some strong winds and we had to rush and moved our bags and stuff inside the mosque. Otherwise they’ll get wet and we don’t have place to sleep. Because of that I caught a cold and a slight fever while the rest of my friends enjoy the activities in the evening.

14th April – Monday

Today I feel better but I still have diarrhea or we called it cirit-birit (CB) and I still going to toilet many times of the day. Today is our last day in Dam Sbai and sadly is that most of us had food poisoning I guess. So everyone is rushing to the toilet. It could be the unhygienic food preparation or our body system could not take anymore the local food. Its only Bro. Abu from S-DEV who did not suffer any CB throughout the trip.

Since we have accomplished our mission, its time for free and easy activity and the group decided to roam about the Battambang town in the morning. I did not want to worsen my condition, so I stayed behind and finished up my packing because we would be leaving Dam Sbai after Solat Zohor.
After lunch, we left Dam Sbai to spend a night at Siem Reap. The journey took four hours and there’s something to be remembered that one had to put on the mask even in the air-conditioned bas. Its so dusty outside and inside the bus too.

Finally, we arrived at Siem Reap and we stayed at Villa Coconut Lodge right in the city. At last after five exhaustive days, we have the chance to have clean hot bath because at Dam Sbai the water smells like kerosene. I stayed with Qadir and Jadulhaq in a big room.

We had dinner at Mama Angkor Malaysian Food which is situated about two kilometres from the lodge. Finally it feels like home because the televisions both in our room and at the restaurant can accept the transmission of RTM1 and TV3 channel from Malaysia. I love the TV programmes because it has more than 50 channels. Its like watching the whole Astro and we still can pick any channel we wanted to watch. Its been five days without any news from Malaysia and surprisingly the political news back home seem very ‘HOT’ . Its about the urge of some groups demanding the present PM to resign!

15th April – Tuesday

No more community social programs. We had completed the special program. It’s time to explore Siem Reap especially the historical Angkor Wat and the largest Tonle Sap Lake in Asia.After taking breakfast at Imam Musa’s restaurant, we proceed to Angkor Wat which about five kilometers away from the city.
We have to pay to enter the Angkor Wat and something amused me because I had never experienced it back home. May be for security measures, each of the visitors photo is printed on the admission ticket.
Through my observation, Angkor Wat was a township full of buildings and structures. The famous one is the Angkor Thom which is embedded in Cambodian national flag. Trust me when I said that its tiring walking from the main entrance to the main structure which is around 500 metres. We visited three popular monuments, Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple and another one. The final one is famous because Angelina Jolie has been there for her shooting in one of the Tomb Raiders movie.

Outside the Angkor Wat, as seen everywhere, one would be surrounded by the locals who are selling souvenirs such as postcards, bracelet and even bottled drinks (mineral water). Here in Cambodia, the business is done by little girls who are surprisingly can speak and understand English sufficient for selling their goods to foreigners and tourists. However, their sweetness made me to buy something at last, and even one of the girl gave me a ‘love letter’ as a token of appreciation. Yeah! Am I the lucky one, no one knows.

After that, we went to Mama Angkor for lunch and returned to our lodge to have some quick bath and prepare ourselves for the Tonle Sap Lake visit. Since it was hot and dry season, one could see the difference of the water level and the river was murky while the road was dusty. There was a village along the streets to Tonle Sap. Most of the houses are wooden houses and in poor condition. It took 30 minutes of boat ride to the floating village. Most of the villagers are Muslim and poor people who could not afford to live on land.

We visited the floating mosque and donated some cash to the Imam. This one is a real floating mosque unlike the one in Terengganu. After that, we visited one of Imam Musa’s relative who lives in a floating house. Can you imagine, living on a lake, totally depending on the natural water source, the lake itself? How about totally depending on them for your daily chores and activities from bathing, cleaning, ablution and many more?

After visiting the floating village, we went to Kandal Market in Siem Reap city. It was like a Pasar Seni in Kuala Lumpur. It was also known as the shopping haven for tourists. It was 7.15pm and everyone was totally excited to shop. After shopping, we had dinner at Mama Angkor again.

Before returning to the lodge, we gathered to share some experience among the group. Everyone was expressing their gratitude and sharing their sweet memories and experience with the rest.
We had a very good sleep since it was such an exhaustive day.

16th April – Wednesday

Today will be the last day in Cambodia. Nothing much to say. We checked-out from the lodge at 7.30 am and arrived at the airport about 8am. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 9.15am with AirAsia. Since we don’t have any breakfast yet, the officers allocated RM20 per pax to have their own meal in the flight. Do remember that AirAsia applies the free seating for all passengers. I sat at the rear seat with my friends. Unfortunately, the stewardess served the meal from the front to therear. So when I requested for 1901 Hotdog, it was already sold out. Poor me. Here’s what I bought.
• Nasi Lemak – RM8
• Sandwiches- RM6
• Milo - RM4
• Bun - RM2
• I also bought AirAsia souvenir pen which cost RM5.

Finally we arrived at LCCT by 11.15 am. Alhamdulillah and praise to Allah for the safety throughout the journey. It was a remarkable journey of my lifetime yet. UIA bus already waited outside the terminal and drove us back to UIA . We reached campus by 1pm.

The End. Thank you for reading.

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