Newsletter - Oct 09
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Fiona’s news
October 2009
Greetings one and all,
Hope this letter finds you well and suitably autumnal. Just getting in touch to let you know I’m off and away again, this time to Cambodia..............
Why Cambodia?? Well, in January 08 I went to visit some friends from World Horizons (the mission I used to work with back in the 90s) who’ve set up various projects and an orphanage in Phnom Pehn. Although I was only there a short time, something about the place captured my heart and imagination and I knew I’d return. Having kept in touch, I’ve now been invited to go for 6 months to live and work in the city and see if there’s something out there for me in the long-term. So, from October til March I’ll be helping with some creative arts projects my friends have recommended as well as finding out what other groups are doing and exploring more of the country.
A very brief history
“O city lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with precious stones...and great will be your children’s peace.”
Cambodia is a country that’s had more than its fair share of troubles. The civil war in the 70s was especially devastating, killing over 2 million through murder, overwork, disease or starvation. When Phnom Penh was invaded by the guerrilla army of the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, it was left like a ghost town as people were forced out to the countryside to work on the land pretty much as slaves. Only since the mid 90s has the country truly begun to stabilise and get back on its feet and now Phnom Penh is no longer a desolate, deserted place but one in the process of healing and restoration where signs of hope and new life are plenty.
A beauty-full story (taken from a diary entry on 28/1/08) “Went to the genocide museum on Weds. V chilling, especially when I realised the kids in the photographs would be my age now had they lived.......Walking up the road just outside the museum I came across a craft shop. Inside a girl was sitting on the floor making a silk bird. I sat with her for a bit and realised her legs were all bent up beneath her. The result of polio I think. It was her face that struck me most though. It was alive and vibrant and at peace. She was quite possibly the happiest person I’d met in Phnom Penh. So I bought a bird to remember her. And the hope of something pure and beautiful springing up alongside a place once full of violence and death. “
For those of you who don’t know, since January this year I’ve been living on the Isle of Wight. After 9 years of being in Hull, things came to a natural end with funding running out for jobs and a sense generally of my time there having run its course. I thought about moving to Liverpool at one point but in the end the Isle of Wight seemed the next obvious place, especially with Mum and Dad there and my brother and family just up the road. In spite of not getting any work (or maybe because of...) I’ve had a great time! It’s been very precious family-wise and I’ve spent more time with everyone, including wider family, than I ever have in my adult life.
It’s all change now though with Alec, Bex and the kids (Freya, Ferdy and Felix) having moved to Somerset at the end of August and me off now. Please think of Mum and Dad as they adjust to life after this strangely wonderful unexpected family-filled interlude! It’s been great and they’ve been very good to me, helping me navigate the turnaround from Hull to Cambodia. I’m very grateful to them and also to others (friends and family) who’ve really got behind me and shown their support for all things Cambodia. It’s been an important 9 months all in all and it feels good to be going from a place that, after such a short time, feels amazingly well lived-in.
love Fiona xx
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