INCAMBODIA
ALISTAIRCRAIG
A patchwork of reflections on life, death and hope in a Cambodian slum.
Foreword If you want to find God, He is usually to be found in the most unexpected places. Jesus visited the temple, but he didn’t live there. Inspite of the theological knowledge of the omnipresent nature of God, I still seem to experience something more tangible of His being amongst us when with those whom society generally deems as the “poor”. We think because we possess things we are well off - but it’s no different today than when Jesus spoke to the wealthy in the Book of Revelations “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:”1 It was Jesus who said “you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free”2 - “I am the way, the truth and the life”3 Jesus is the “wonderful counsellor”4 prophesied by Isaiah, we should take note of what he has to say as it cuts to the core of our human existence. He shines a true light into the darkness of the human heart and exposes us for what we are. When he said that “it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”5 - He was speaking the truth. The poor are not “blessed” by their poverty but they do have the advantage of
recognizing their need for help, which is surely the starting point to finding God. If you offered me a holiday in some gilded palace of the well to do or alternatively to spend it in a slum somewhere - I would choose the slum. Possibly I am mad and beyond hope, those closest to me suspect this to be the case, but when it comes down to it - I just like to be where I know Jesus is. This book is a personal one. A record of some “snapshots” from four weeks I was privileged to spend in a Cambodian community of the “poor”. It contains the threads of a personnel discourse - it’s not intended, nor do I pretend for it to be anything else. The theology is likely to be as dodgy as my memory and many of the photos have been “slightly tweaked” in photoshop to enhance the feel - but by and large they are what they are. The poetry (if you can call it that) is semi-tied to the image. I placed an image and then wrote the poem to coalesce my thoughts on what it’s memory evoked for me. May the God of all light shine His face upon you.
1
Revelation 3:17; 2John 8:32; 3John 14:6; 3Isaiah 9:6; 6Mark 10:25
Index 1
Home
3
I spy
5
Alms
7
Upwardly Mobile
9
Child
11
Monsoon
13
Iron
15
Teul Slang
17
The Narrow Way
19
Genocide Survivor
21
Recycle
23
V.I.P. Club
25
My Window
27
Mekong
29
Chew The Fat
31
Wet
33
The Beautiful Game
35
Today
37
Hosts
Home Home sweet home ever so humble is my home, ... it is my castle. Home for eight people, home for lizards and bugs, home for rats to visit and roam in at night. Home to the neighbors, port of call for the prostitutes, the drug addicts, and the sellers of survival commerce. Air conditioned - whatever the weather. Aromatic with the fragrances of: the sewer, the rubbish, the cooking. It’s home, not as you know it, but we love and laugh all the same. My home, my castle, where Jesus dwells. Together we watch the football on my little TV, my electric window on the world.
1
2
I spy I spy with my living eyes food in a shop I cannot buy I don’t understand why I spy with my dark little eye something beginning with die It is my world I don’t understand why I spy My mum with aids Dad has gone I have my toys plastic wire and a stick it dosent rhyme why should it.
3
4
Alms
The color of faith provides little color in a desaturated cityscape.
A pale imitation of the available spectrum in God’s grand creation.
Pay me for a blessing! Why not, Have I not paid for the curse.
5
6
Upwardly Mobile
From the killing fields of despots to the killing arterials of the daily commute, we all struggle in this upward aspiration, to better our lives, to climb the ladder, to attain, an obtain, that very thing we all once did disdain.
7
8
Child All I want for Christmas is for you to say hello, smile, maybe a sweet. I don’t need a Wii or a laptop or an iphone. A box of crayons would be nice. What do you want? I could give you a shy smile but I have to go now, I have to look after my baby brother, He was born in a mangy hut below a flickering neon star.
9
10
Monsoon Can tropic rain wash away the pain? Even heavy rain, heavier than the burdens we carry. Thunder rattles the pieces. Lightning illuminates, flashes on terror in the darkest places. Strobes grotesque on demons work. Syncopated with rivulets of human tears, coagulating fears run down to pool in the blood brown puddles where God drained his life out, to cleanse us deeper than the rain.
11
12
Iron Iron out your soul in hotel Phnom Penh. Financed by the fashion dollar from the factory next door. Rust will eat her homes heart out, all in due course. As will the monotony of factory hours rust upon her own. Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. The choice to be clad with iron was never our option, the offer of work was never iron clad.
13
14
Teul Slang
There are no words
15
16
The Narrow Way
Take the narrow road. The path that leads to life. It veers right off the broad way. Takes you through some unsavory places where you might just find yourself.
17
18
Genocide Survivor
What I saw God saw. He found me afterwards. He never explained why. Just asked me to forgive atrocities. To forgive as He forgave those who hung Him on the cross. He looked after me, an orphan, so I look after an orphan too. It’s the least I can do.
19
20
Recycle Recycle!, the mantra of the west, for us its life or death. Sacks of trash delivered to our door. School is stripping copper wire, smashing electrical components with a piece of scrap steel, an improvised hammer and cleaning out used tin cans. School pays! - a few baht, and maybe a lollie or a packet of crisps. Recycle! Other peoples discards will pay our way today.
21
22
V.I.P. Club
Filtered pool.
on exchange rates
Aqua full.
decline.
Via the path
Poor are the poor,
of beggars hands,
encaged, enraged,
Lexus altar
their place -
stands.
next door.
Abraham admits us in,
A coke,
greenback god,
a swim,
sees, hears, speaks no sin.
a sleep.
Tiled temple serene,
I choke on squalor,
shades vaunted vip’s
its cheap.
obscene.
Filtered pool,
We tanned
chlorined fool,
Roman demi-gods
self -
recline.
our god
Small talk
still.
23
24
My Window
Can I imagine a green world, a house with a fridge, snow, what its like to fly in a plane, food in a restaurant, to own a computer? I can only imagine. I don’t have to imagine what I see out my pane-less window.
25
26
Mekong Mekong brown precipitant runs downhill to gather her strength under tropic heat. Provides life for the feeding chain of flora, fish, crustaceans and birds that fill the markets lining her banks. Conveys sewage downstream, inundates the poor and sucks the clay into her belly. Forever running from evaporation in an endless cycle of give and take.
27
28
Chew the fat Unemployment saps away the dreams as we sit and wait and chew the fat, but there is no fat and so we sit. The city offered high hopes but delivered hopeless highs, where drugs are cheaper than food and girls are cheaper than both. I took a gamble, where all we do is gamble and cling to the dream that saps itself away under this tropic boredom.
29
30
Wet
Oxygen one Hydrogen two Fun for some For some it’s new
31
For some its wet, a free car wash. For others I bet it’s not so posh.
32
The Beautiful Game
The pitch is a little soggy today. The uniforms state of the art. The dreams are bigger than real, but the ref is blind and biased. how can he call it out! when there is no out-line. Still why argue, we can’t complain, after all its a beautiful game.
33
34
Today
Salvaged a gem! A real inflatable swimming pool, a treasure worthy of a communities attention. Task one: Find, fix or make a pump. Some improvisation, a little ingenuity and it can be done, NASA would be proud. Hmmm... Task two: Repair the leaks. A bandage? some sellotape? All tried and ultimately failed - NASA stumped. Pool deemed non-repairable. Families status downgraded. Better luck next Christmas.
35
36
Hosts
A homestay like no other. Thankyou for sharing your spirit, your lives, struggles, pride and humility. Something no 5 star hotel could ever offer. Thank you for feeding me, doing my washing and for giving me the best floormat in the house. May the “Lord of Hosts� prepare for you a place.
37
38
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.� Matthew 19:21
Four weeks in a Cambodian slum is not a long time. Yet one day in any slum can seem like an eternity. These are some reflections on my short stay with a local family near the Monivong bridge on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. It is a combination of images and poetic musings that I hope gives you food for thought, personal reflection and a sense of gratitude for all you have. My gratitude goes out to the community that accepted my presence and to the Christian missions group “Servants� that facilitated my stay. Service under the Carpenter
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