Salt in the Slums Jan 2007

From BPWiki

January 2007 Newsletter No 6

Dear Ken

Hi! Hope that you are well and had a lovely Christmas. We had a very enjoyable Christmas break with some friends who live in Battambong, (near the Thai border). It was great to come back into our local community and be greeted with shouts of "hello", "sua sdey" and smiles from the children! The floods have subsided by now, so the neighbourhood looks very different and it's easier to get around.

We are now back in the thick of learning the Cambodian language ("Khmer"), and are starting to be able to have some longer chats with people in our community, so that is encouraging. Being able to speak Khmer is of course central to our work here in Cambodia, so that is why we spend most of our first year in learning mode.

We are also learning more about the work that Servants / TASK do here in Cambodia and have seen first hand the love and compassion shown by the TASK staff/volunteers as they assist people such as those with HIV/AIDS, children with disabilities, children who are orphaned, and teenagers with drug issues, to live with dignity and hope.

An Amazing Place!

Coming back to our community you realise what an amazing place it is. Thousands of people, mainly young women, work in the garment factories that our slum area has grown up around. They earn $45-$50 per month, working 8 hours a day, 6 days per week. The factories are well guarded behind high walls and barbed wire fences, and there are harsh financial penalties for being late or missing a days work.

The young single women often share a tiny room with 4 or 5 others, and work overtime (up to 10.5 hours per day, when it's available) on the gruelling, mind-numbing production line, in order to be able to send $20 or so a month back to their family in the provinces. Young men also come from the provinces looking for work, but are generally unable to get work in the factory and often end up underemployed.

Some of our friends have recently been laid off from their jobs, which places more stress on the extended family networks, or means they need to return to their home province, where work is also very difficult to find.

People are incredibly industrious but that still doesn't take them above the poverty line. For example, many women and children spend hours making little 'envelopes' to put chopsticks into, which are sold to restaurants. They receive $2.50 for 10 kilograms of these. There are tailors, people with small shops selling vegetables and meat, people collecting bottles and cans for recycling, motorbike taxi drivers, and people raising pigs and chickens. So life is active and boisterous...starting about 5.30am when another neighbour cranks up his stereo as a community alarm clock service!

Meet our Neighbours!

Our neighbours, Thun and Ahgun, both work in the factory and their combined income is about $100 per week. After paying for rent of their 3 m x 2 m room ($15), milk powder ($15 - necessary as she works) and childcare costs for their baby David ($15), they have about $55 left for all other expenses: food, clothes, medical expenses, transport etc. We wonder how they manage to do it, as living on $1.80 a day for the three of them must be very difficult, especially when sickness strikes.

They are often exhausted after a days work, but are great neighbours to us, and are always ready with a smile and a helping hand. Despite struggling to make ends meet, they are some of the lucky ones as they have two jobs. Many other families have smaller incomes and greater number of mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, children who need money for school fees, and family members who need medical treatment when they are sick. Education for children is one of the first things to go because it is expensive, thus perpetuating the poverty cycle. Many garment factory workers have only completed a few years of primary schooling.

We still have much to learn about their situations and circumstances, but know that it is God's will that all people have enough resources to be able to meet their basic needs and live healthy, productive and fulfilling lives. We look forward to being able to share with them about this loving God and to see if there are ways that we can work together to bring about lasting improvements to their lives.

Thanks!!

We are so very grateful to you for your prayers, encouragement and support for us. We have much to be thankful for: good health (overall!), a real sense of love and unity growing within the Servants team, for our "home sweet home", for wonderful neighbours, for being welcomed into our new community, time to learn the Khmer language, for our loving family, a great home church in Adelaide and so much more.

We pray that 2007 will be full of love, peace and joy for you.

Love from Lisa and Bryan. --- Lisa and Bryan Hughes, Servants to Asia's Urban Poor: PO Box 538, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

hughes.cambodia@yahoo.com

"... They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune, but will be a people blessed by the Lord." (Isaiah 65:23).