"Oh, that's nice" - reflections from Grant

8 of us crawled into the van this morning heading out to Svay Pak because both Paul and Kelvin were not well – certainly not well enough to deal with the heat and pain of Svay Pak. I was dubbed construction leader and when we arrived we got to work. Most of the heavy lifting was done on Tuesday but much of the kitchen still had to come out. We also wanted to get scraping the walls and prep them for paint – Toph expressed the experience of scraping far better than I can.

By the end of the day – which arrived early – the kitchen was out, many of the walls were scrapped, the stubs of the walls were chipped off of the floors and we are one more step forward in the transformation of Rahab’s House – from horror to hope. By 1 pm two of the 8 of us were down with heat exhaustion or just regular exhaustion. We called it a day and headed “home.”

No walls came down today – that work is done. There was no huge sign of progress because we are now in the finicky stage where the work doesn’t show as much. So I’m not going to talk so much about the job today rather I want to reflect on the village and its people as some of the others have done.

I’ve seen villages in Cambodia that “look” very much like Svay Pak. My experience in those villages is how the children come running out to look at and touch the white people. I’ve been in villages where soon after arriving I have a child sitting on each foot having to lift one of them with each step forward. I’ve been greeted by open bright faces and even though these children live in poverty there is a joy in just being a child. Not so in Svay Pak. The children, boys and girls are much more guarded. In fact, the first couple of days there weren’t that many children who stayed to watch and it was only on the second day that some of them began to open up to some of the team members. Yesterday (Tuesday) some of the pimps were out to check us out – 17 year old thugs who look as hard as stone and walk with an arrogant swagger.

Today more little girls seemed to be around. One of them was blowing kisses to some of the men on the team, including me. In another context it might be considered cute – but not here. There is nothing cute about Svay Pak. It is ugly in its poverty and it is even uglier in its trade in children. Clay told us that the prettier the girl and the more they are made up – blonde streaked hair, earrings etc – the more likely they are victims of the child sex-trade in Svay Pak. It was so hard to look at these little girls and think about what likely happened to them last night and what will likely happen to them tonight – even as I am writing this message.

Marty and Jeff and I walked around part of the village today. We’ve been here long enough that most people know we are at Rahab’s House; they’ve seen what we are doing and some of them have profited from the bricks we discarded. It is hard to gage what the people thought of us – white Westerners who were not there to abuse the children.

When we got back to the hotel we were again covered in grime and paint scrapings and dust. The team headed to the rooms for the much needed showers. I stayed in the lobby just a couple of minutes longer than the others. A young man at the counter of the hotel asked what we were building. How do I answer this? What is he in Cambodia for? I said, “We are demolishing a kiddy-brothel and turning it into a school in Svay Pak.” Pause. He responded, “Oh that’s nice.”