A study in contrasts.
Shortly after end-of-the year school exams were completed, I
got a call from Michael Horton, at ConCERT (an organization SSF partners with
in Siem Reap).
He said that there are several schools in the ConCERT network,
and that this year Spitler School was selected to receive a donation of 11
bicycles from the Hotel Victoria.
ConCERT collaborates with the Hotel Victoria to collect donations from
guests to buy bicycles for students throughout the Siem Reap Province. This was our year to be a recipient!
Okay then. So now we
have 11 bikes to ‘give away’…but in light of appropriate practices we are
trying to develop, we can’t just randomly select kids to receive a gift. There needs to be a valid reason for the
award. I knew all the grade 6 students
(at both schools) would be receiving bicycles as they venture into Middle
School in town. Spitler Foundation has
over the past few years received generous donations from the Hess Familiy and
recently from the Kenny King Foundation to fund the bicycle program for promoted grade 6 students.
So, back to the problem at hand… I also knew that in some years, when funds
were available, the top students in grades 3-6 would receive a bicycle. But, this year, we were a bit short on this
project budget. Being the top academic
student and receiving an award seemed to be a logical match and now we had a trove
of 11 bicycles to re-institute this project!
Great timing, indeed.
So, doing some math (the kind from the 50’s, not that new
fangled stuff), we looked at how many top students in grades 3,4, and 5 from
both Kurata and Spitler Schools would we need to make 11? After hours of white-boarding this difficult
calculation, we came up with the TOP TWO students in each class!
Let’s see, that’s three classes at Spitler School times 2,
making 6 recipients, and three more classes at Kurata School times 2, making 6
more recipients. There, done. Oh.
That’s 12, not eleven. What to
do? Solution: Sarin buys one bike. We’ve got a dozen deserving recipients and an
equivalent (that’s a new math term, sorry) number of bicycles (that’s 1 + 11 = 12). Tah dah!
The teachers name the students and in a few days we’ve
invited them and their parents to the 5-star Hotel Victoria for a mid-morning
reception and ceremony. It was a lovely
event in an outdoor garden. Many
uniformed staff were there to serve our children like little royalty. There were fruit drinks, tea sandwiches,
artfully prepared fruits and sweets galore.
The parents were shy and reluctant to participate, and hunkered down on
the lawn away from the activities. But,
the Victoria staff (mostly Khmer) respectfully invited them to be a part of the
event, encouraging them to partake in the feast, and they did. For most of these children and their
families, they had never experienced such generosity of this proportion. The bicycle presentations were quickly
dispatched (it was super hot that day!)…and the event came to a happy close.
I am certain the families still recount the event to friends
and relatives even today. One funny,
sort of, part of the experience came when the families were invited to take a
little tour of the spectacular lobby area of the hotel. In it is a series of koy pools, with bridges,
and even a couple of small crocodiles to be seen.
As we were passing the open passage leading to the magnificent pool area
our students, and their parents, were treated to the sight of a nice middle-aged
woman walking to the café, in her ever-so-stylish bikini! Oh my.
This was not exactly what these parents and kids bargained for, but
welcome to the Western world, a la Hotel Victoria! [FYI—The cultural norms of non-urban
Cambodians dictate a significant level of modesty at all time. . . A woman displaying
too much, eh, skin, is a ‘no no’ and quite shocking.] We quickly shuttled everyone out of the lobby
and hoped this particular story did not become the headliner at dinner that
night! Oh well, life in the big city!
It was a gratifying sight to see our 12 deserving recipients
riding away from the Hotel Victoria, along with their parents (many on bikes
too) heading back to their homes in Ang Chagn. These kids represent the best
possible future for these families to escape their poverty and find a better
life. They earned those bikes, and the
access those bikes provide to improve their condition.
