Darla's Blog Jan.10

Blog from Dr. Darla Shaw, Professor of Education, WCSU. Story of
Sophal, Director of the Sabbhana Day Care\Community Center in
Battambang, Cambodia.

While working at the Sobbhana Community and Day Care Center in
Battambang, the WCSU students met the director, Sophal. This 47 year
old woman has dedicated her life to books, learning, and her
community. Through her efforts and those of Chris Wagner of Hearts
and Hands for Cambodia, over 100 of the poorest preschoolers from five
different villages are receiving a better qualify of life. Without
the help of these two women these 100 children might not receive even
one meal a day. Instead they would be starving from mallnutrition or
out on the street begging and selling.

Sophal is not only amazing in her efforts to educate others, but is
also amazing in that she is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge Regime and
is still a productive citizen. Most of the survivors where so badly
damaged both physically and mentally they have not been able to get on
with their lives. They have been called the lost generation.

When Sophal was 10 years old her father moved the family from the
countryside to the city of Phnom Penh to get away from the Vietnam
bombings. Sophal was happy about this move as it meant that she could
get a better education. Sophal loved learning and wanted so much to
become an English teacher.

Sophal's dreams were abruptlly shattered, however, when she was 16 and
Pol Pat, the head of Khmer Rouge came into power in 1975. Pol Pat
wanted to rid the country of all educated people, artisians, and
professionals and start a new agricultural community. To do this he
would slaughter over 20,000 in the next four years.

For some reason Sophal and her mother and father were send out into
the country to work, while her brother and other immediate relatives
were sent to Taul Steno Prison for interrogation, torture and possible
death. If they did not commit suicide in the prison or were killed
there they were butchered in the killing fields outside of the city.
To save bullets, the people were bludgoned to death and thrown into
open graves.

Before being sent to the field to work at age 16, Sophal and her
family were told not to worry. They did not need to take provisions
and would be home soon. They only took a little bit of rice with them
and the clothing on their backs. They soon found out the lies they
had been told.

The families were immediately separated and sent to different work
camps. They were put in tiny cells with many people and slept on dirt
floors. They received one cup of rice a day and one change of
clothing. Sophal and the other field workers worked from dawn to dusk
with no rest periods in between.

At age 16, Sophal was less than 100 pounds but made to work 12 hours
daily harvesting rice, tilling the land behind water buffalo or carry
heavy heavy loads.
When it became dark at night Sophal became very fearful of what would
happen in the night. When the sun came up the next day, she knew that
she had possibly one more day to live.

During the day Sophal was also sent into the forest to gather various
types of foods. While in the forests she continually came upon the
remains of butchered bodies that had been left there to decay. These
visions are still very much with her today.

When the regime lost power in 1979, Sophal returned to her tiny
village to see if any of her relatives were still alive. She found
that her mother and father, who had gone to the fields with her were
alive, but that her brother and the rest of her immediate family had
been slaughtered and spent their last hours at the killing fields.

Sophal was now age 20 and wanted so badly to go back to Phnom Penh and
continue her education. Her father would not allow this. It was time
for her to marry and have a family. She followed her father's orders
and married and had three children. To help make money for the family
Sophal sold newspapers on the street. From listening to people on the
street Sophal also taught herself English.

One day a worker for Women's Rights in Cambodia spotted Sophal and saw
that there was something special about her. She took her aside and
had her meet with Princess Maria who was working to establish day care
center around the country. There was no pay for Sopal to work at one
of these centers but she was willing to volunteer for several years in
order to learn more and improve her English.

Along the way Sophal also found time to take English and French
classes. Taking English and French was still illegal in Cambodia at
this time, people were only supposed to speak Russian or Khmer.
Because Sophal was found taking classes illegally she was imprisoned.
She was eventually let out of prison and fined based on her weight, so
many kilos per pound.

Today Sophal is working harder than ever. She is running and
daycare/community center, paying to educate most of her relatives,
teaching English to other day care teachers in the evening and taking
classes on her own.
She believes that she survived the Khmer Rouge Regime for a reason and
is going to do more than stay at home and cook. She has a real reason
to live and inspires everyone all around her.

The Khmer Rouge has really taken it toll on the entire Cambodian
population, however. The best and brightest culturally have all been
lost, a generation of parents as role models is gone (parenting is
very poor at this point), and the health programs of the people who
were the survivors of the time are immense. Diabetes, hearts attacks,
high blood pressre, depression and numerous other diseases are rampant
in that age group. Here the age life span is early 50's and for this
group it is even younger.

I feel so very fortunate to have met Sophal. When you meet her she
just glows with love. You would never believe that this woman who is
so full of energy and humanity had gone through the life that she has
had. I hope this story is in a small way a tribute to a very great
lady of Cambodia.