EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in an occasional series of stories about life in Put Sar, a typical rice-growing village about 30 km south of Phnom Penh. The stories have followed the course of a year’s rainy season rice crop. The village is home to 1,408 people in 350 families and is 6 km from the nearest market. We tried to show the importance of rice to Cambodia’s mostly rural population, to describe the hardships and rewards of village life, and to listen to voices not often heard.
put sar village, Takeo province – Last year, there was too much water. The rains and the floods came and filled almost half of the village’s rice fields, ruining harvests and sending some of the already poor families deeper into destitution.
For Marng Khon, the high water meant that her family harvested just 1200 kg of rice—about half of what they usually take from their fields.
It was an unlucky year for Marng Khon, and not just because of the lack of rice.
At Chinese New Year, her alcoholic husband finally died. She speculates that the duck he ate at a celebration poisoned his already weak liver. The funeral cost $200, but her brother and sister helped with contributions.
Later, all but one of her chickens died of unknown illnesses. A rooster still survives.
The one good thing that happened was the birth eight months ago of a baby cow, Ah-Chamroeun. But it will be three years before he is big enough to do any farm work.
Looking ahead to another year of rice harvests, of births and marriages, comings and goings, celebrations at the pagoda with the family and a first ever commune election, 55-year-old Marng Khon wishes for only one thing.
“More rain,” she says. “Then, more rice.”
This year, Put Sar village is worried about not having enough water. And while the floods damaged only the village’s eastern rice fields, a drought would hurt every family’s plot of farmland.
This is the month that farmers do the second phase of planting for the wet season rice crop. But with the lack of rain, the plants have not yet grown tall enough.
“The land is still dry,” says Mang Sambo. “By this time last year we had replanted the rice seedlings.”
But the work continues, and on Thursdays, Mang Sambo’s son stays home from school to help with plowing. The small 17-year-old says “Ha!” as he tries to control the two cows in a field at mid-morning.
Nearby, down a narrow, fence-lined path, 23-year-old Ieng Kanha talks about life as a newlywed. She had worked at Phnom Penh garment factories for five years, returning home on Sundays and holidays to visit family.
At Pchum Ben last year, she joined the traditional games played every September during the Buddhist festival, and there met the man who would soon become her husband.
“We talked and we talked,” she says. “Then he asked his mother to meet my mother.”
Her husband, Marng Khon’s son, has been going back and forth to Phnom Penh, doing odd jobs. If she doesn’t get pregnant, Ieng Kanha would also like to go to the city, resuming work at a garment factory.
A few houses away, Nuon Sao suffers with dignity. A healthy daughter—Nuon Sao’s first in five years of marriage—was born in February. Two months ago, the baby became ill, but the doctors in Siem Reap commune in Kandal province couldn’t figure out what to do. A month ago, the baby died.
“I feel very sorry, but I can’t do anything,” she says. “I want to have a baby again.”
Approaching midday, schoolchildren head home in groups as villagers walk or pull carts to the water pump near Wat Preah Ream. One schoolgirl rides her bicycle back and forth, empties a large container in the family water pot, then climbs back on her bicycle and rides again toward the chanting of monks.
The heat sends Mang Sopheak and the two cows home for a rest. Families gather in the shade under their houses, cooking and swinging in worn hammocks.
Chev Kim Sroun’s family is loud and happy. Married in February, the 19-year-old is too shy to say much. Her family teases her when she is asked about her husband. Right now, he’s out cutting wood for the fire, she says.
The talk turns to water and politics. Tonle Bati is only a few kilometers away, but the problem is how to get the water from there to Put Sar.
In previous years, government officials have brought pumping machines, says Chev Kim Sroun’s father.
Chea Keo interrupts to demand that the UN bring the village a water pump. A former soldier with white, close-cropped hair and dark sunglasses, he shoos his grandchildren away from his red plastic chair.
He says he fought for Khieu Samphan and then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, losing an eye fighting Lon Nol troops in 1971 and a leg from a bomb explosion in 1974. He later served as commune chief during the Pol Pot regime.
Now he lives alone, spending his days visiting family nearby. He says he’s not sure who should lead the village and the commune.
“I cannot make any conclusion about what the politicians are going to do,” he says. “But as you can see, the people have been poor for so long.”
Down the main road, a few houses away, Prak Chanty holds her year-old son and talks about last year’s floods.
It was difficult, she says. But the family pulled through, helped by her husband’s job as a taxi driver.
Next year, she wants to elect a new commune chief, someone who will help the people during hard times.
“I want to change to the new people,” she says. “I don’t like the old people working for us.”
(Additional reporting by Kay Kimsong)
