The So-Much-More Power of Education in Phnom Penh

"Em bao neu tuoi?" I clumsily asked the boy with the mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
"Sau tuoi," he answered as his grandmother beamed with the attention he was getting. Six years old.

It was a hot day. The blue Cambodian sky blazed as heat bore down without mercy. We sat on small stools in the entryway of the family's home. We were in search of their youngest daughter, a former student of Joni's. Armed with a gift of color markers for the girl, Joni suddenly became panicked and leaned over towards me. "The brother!   I forgot about him and didn't bring him anything."

"I have licorice," I said remembering the dozen or so bags I had divvied up after buying a barrel of licorice from Wal-Mart to give to kids.

"You do? Oh, that would be great!"

Moments later a beaming six-year old boy was dashing into the house to stash his score of American candy.
 Joni makes pleasant conversation with the grandmother as another family member rides off on a motor scooter in search of the student. She went out to buy something. Maybe she can be intercepted.  I sit quietly and smile at the boy. An old family portrait hangs high above on the wall. It is easy to distinguish the grandmother though the photo must be more than twenty years old. The grandmother makes little attempt to talk. She is squatting in a hammock that is nailed catty-corner of the entryway. The whirring fan above my head provides a bit of relief from the hot day. I ask Joni how to say hot and then declare, "Nong qua," which means It's so hot. The Vietnamese household nod their agreement and seem somewhat amused by the presence of a tattooed white woman who speaks Vietnamese like a toddler.

We had taken a tuk-tuk a short distance to get to this home. Joni has a long history with this family and it has not always been positive. "The grandmother must be in a good mood today," she said after we left. "She's given me dagger eyes many times and doesn't want to talk." Joni and her head teacher suspect that the grandmother runs a gambling den in the home. On previous visits they have encountered suspicious characters and obvious prostitutes. It is a dark home and Joni worries that her student is at risk for the sex trade. Her own mother had been a prostitute and died from AIDS. The student was born HIV positive and is very small for her age, even by Vietnamese standards. Thankfully she is on retro-viral drugs and seems to be doing well health wise.


This is one of the reasons Joni's school is more than a school. The presence of a stabilizing force such as a kindergarten gives Joni and her teachers access to families around the community. There are few opportunities for Vietnamese children living in Phnom Pehn to receive a Vietnamese language education. Most of them come from households and neighborhoods where Khmer language is scarcely learned. Thus, they remain somewhat insulated and add poverty and addiction to the mix and many kids live at risk of ending up in gangs, on heroin or becoming sex workers either by their own choice or worse, by choice of their families. 

Joni's school has helped educated hundreds of Vietnamese kids over the last five years. Some of them learn to read and therefore they qualify to attend a primary school that will continue their education in Vietnamese as well as include Khmer language study. If they stay on course with that, there are a few opportunities for high school. This kind of education is rare for most of the kids in the community and it is a powerful and sure way to break generational poverty. Education is so much more here.

"He's going to come to the art class next weekend," says Joni speaking of the six-year old impish boy. "I've asked the grandmother to tell his sister so hopefully they'll both come. I want to see her and I want you to meet her."


After a somewhat awkward waiting time we bid the household good-bye.  Once outside I realize how curious the neighbors have been seeing two foreign women on their ordinary street. Several people linger in their doorways watching us make our way.  It is a fact that Joni has grown used to over the years. She has many times been the only foreigner to trek to an area or a Vietnamese home and is well aware of how her very presence attracts all kinds of attention, both positive and negative. "It's like the circus has come to town," she says when I ask her how this has been for her. "You just filter it out," says Joni. I know in part what she means, as that is what I have been doing during our time in Phnom Pehn. Though there are many foreigners in the city the areas Joni takes me to are not so accustomed to seeing white women tromp about. We make an odd sight. 


Joni talks with me later about visiting an area the Vietnamese call, Saigon Bridge. She wants me to see the coffee shops which are actually brothels. But she is somewhat hesitant of us going there at night since it is a rough area. After a moment's thought is is decided. "Let's wait for Trang to come back. We'll take her with us. That way she can show us the way to some of the student's homes in that area." Trang, her head teacher and right arm in the school, has been in Viet Nam for the last week. Since Joni no longer lives full-time in Phnom Penh she has become more reliant upon Trang to keep things running. She has more than proved her capabilities and is one of Joni's most trusted friends in Cambodia. 


It is the end of the day. We have come back to the house and are too hot and tired to even think about dinner. Instead, I  pour us tall glasses of 7-up  then add some fresh lime. It refreshes both of us as we recline on my bed. We spend the next few hours talking about the provincial church planting that Joni had a hand in revving up when she first moved to Phnom Penh. We'll be leaving in a few days to travel there.

The church leaders are excited about Joni's visit. She'll be teaching and training and checking in on how everyone is doing. Some family members of one of the pastors is actually at the house now, having come in to the big city for medical care for one of their teenage daughters. It's getting a little dicey for Joni who tells me that their matriarch is trying to manipulate Joni into buying their return bus tickets as well as some other items for the family. Joni and I talk for hours about what it is like for her as a foreigner to tread that line of when to give and when not to give. "I can kill what God is doing if I throw too much money at them." She lives with the constant tension of when to be financially helpful and when to hold back so as not to create co-dependent relationships among the church people with herself. "They have to be self-sustaining," she says. There is much more to say about this that I will save for another post. 

Tomorrow is Sunday. At 9 a.m. Vietnamese youth will convey upon the household for bible study. Joni is looking forward to seeing old students as well as her friend, Anna, an American missionary who like Joni, speaks fluent Vietnamese. Trang asked Anna to help with the bible study while she is away. We'll invite them all to come to my art class next week. 

This is why I am here. Absorbing as much as I can of what Joni has been quietly doing in southeast Asia for nearly thirty years. Her dedication to Vietnamese people and especially Vietnamese children is staggering. I look forward to hearing more stories and meeting more students.