Libraries of Snuol

Back in April 2010, Shirley and I travelled to Snuol in Kratie Province, close to the border with Vietnam. Some time back, one of our OMF colleagues set up a library project there, and the main purpose of the trip was for Shirley to look over the libraries and see if, in discussion with our host, she could come up with some suggestions for improvement. It was also a good opportunity to visit with our OMF colleagues in the town - both the one who oversaw the library project and her husband, but also the other OMF family who lived in Snuol. It was also a chance to expand the number of up-country locations we had experienced for ourselves, always a good idea when the majority of one's time is spent in Phnom Penh. Lacking Shirley's professional library training and experience, my role in the visit was just as 'bodyguard' and photographer!

The project consisted of eight middle school libraries and two commune libraries, and over our few days there, Shirley visited them all, sometimes travelling 40km by motorbike to reach the more outlying ones. In the end, I accompanied her to some, but not all. (Those trips seemed a long way to us, but our host, who overseas the library project, visits all of the libraries most weeks in order to encorage and guide the library staff.) OMF provides the funding for the librarians' salaries, and has also covered the costs of some of the books, with the set-up costs of the libraries and additional book donations coming from elsewhere. Such library work is important in Cambodia, where many books were deliberately destroyed during the Khmer Rouge period (1975-9), and even today there is limited literacy (77%, UNDP, 2010) and little recognition of the library profession or availability of training for librarians.

The photos above shows a slogan from one of the middle school liraries, proudly displayed on the classroom wall: "Read a Lot to Understand a Lot", and some children at a commune library, demonstrating that libraries can be fun. The photos below show Shirley and our host talking to one of the OMF librarians, and an outside view of another commune library.

Deadly Stampede at the Water Festival

It has been some time since I wrote a post here, due in part to our being out of Cambodia, but it seemed time to start writing again. However, before composing anything about the Sinclairs again, mention must be made of the deadly stampede at the end of the Water Festival in November last year. Although the story only seemed to feature in the headlines for a day or so in the UK, I imagine most people will nevertheless have heard something of the terrible events, so I will just briefly summarise them here.

Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, is at the confluence of four rivers, two branches of the Mekong, the Bassac, and the Tonle Sap. The Tonle Sap connects the Mekong to a large lake, and is very unusual in that, although a natural waterway, it flows in different directions at different times of the year. When the Mekong is high, the water flows into the lake, helping to limit the rise in the level of the larger river. When the Mekong is low, the lake flows back out into the Mekong. The Tonle Sap Lake is a vital source of water for agriculture, as well as fish, and the reversal of the river in November is celebrated by the Water Festival. This includes fiercely competitive boat racing, fun fares and concerts, and nightly display of beautiful ornamental barges on the river accompanied by fireworks. The Water Festival attracts a large number of visitors to the city, swelling the population from perhaps 1.5 million to 2.5 million during the week.

Sadly, on 22 Nov at the height of last year's festival, a late-night concert was being held on Diamond Island, which is connected to the waterfront by two narrow vehicular bridges. The whole area of the waterfront and Diamond Island were cordoned off for pedestrians, but a large number of people tried to enter the island across one bridge, whilst a large crowd on the island tried to leave by the same bridge. In the centre of the bridge, people started to be crushed by the crowd pressure and fainted, panic increased, and some people tried to escape by climbing over the bridge parapets. It is reported that some of these were then electrocuted by unshielded power cables slung across the bridge, and then the stampede began. Some 350 people were killed and perhaps 750 injured. Cambodia has limited medical facilities, though any city would be stretched to cope with a disaster of this magnitude. Whilst grieving relatives searched the hospitals for their loved ones, Cambodia declared a national day of mourning on 25 Nov for this terrible tragedy.

As far as Shirley and I are aware, no-one we know was killed or injured in the stampede, but a lot of people said they had planned to go to Diamond Island that night, and changed their mind, or couldn't get through the crowd ... Several either knew victims, or the families of those killed and injured. Even though so far away, we were greatly saddened by what happened, and Shirley, with her counselling skills, particularly wished that we might have been there to try and help those coming to terms with individual and national tragedy.

I have included below links to some of the news reports from the BBC:

• Hundreds killed in Cambodian festival stampede
• In pictures: Cambodia's deadly stampede
• Cambodia holds day of mourning for stampede victims
• In pictures: Cambodia mourns stampede victims
• Cambodia PM says no one responsible for stampede