The School Was Torn Down!

(pictures of the new school, insice and out, as well as staff members Sreang, Sokim, and Sokchea)

There have been plans to evict the community around Aziza Schoolhouse since before I arrived, and the process has been underway for over 1.5 years. Sometimes in clusters, but often one-by-one, houses disappear as the owners negotiate to take a house outside the city, or a cash settlement. The land is very prime real estate for Cambodia, and is worth as much as land in many American city centers. Prices have skyrocketed since the initial agreement was made between the village chiefs and the developer, fueling the rage between home owners and the developer, with the remaining residents feeling they are being offered compensation well below market value. I have witnessed multiple riots that have included a lot of stone throwing, injuries, a few Molotov cocktails, and a truck being lit on fire.
Last fall the community amazed me, and made a contingent plan for the school. There is a run-down apartment building that borders the slum that is also part of the community, which likely won’t have to move for a few years. One day a small girl walked me over to this dark, dungy, apartment where a woman in a wheel chair lived with her family. Her great uncle owned it, and she was able to tell me that “Aziza move here.” It was tough to navigate over the 4 foot high pile of garbage that had built up from upstairs residents dropping their trash out their windows, mosquitoes were rampant in the stagnant water, and there was a cluster of outhouses directly in front. I tried to show gratitude to her great uncle, Pim Prin, but it was difficult to know how to react to an offer that didn’t seem too appealing when looking at it in its current condition. Someone else was able to explain to me that they had plans to fix it up and blow out a wall.
After a major 6 weeks renovation including removing the massive pile of garbage, a bathroom installed, walls and floor re-cemented, painted, new electric, all at the expense of “Uncle.” We’ve made a documentary about this, which I look forward to showing you. You can hear him telling me that he doesn’t care if we don’t always pay the below-market [$30] rent, he just wants to have a place for his grand-nieces and nephews to go to school. He had accumulated multiple shacks which he’d sold, and showed awesome generosity. He lived in the slum for 25 years.
We turned the new school into a computer lab as construction was wrapping up, but knew we’d need it for a classroom in time. We named it Aziza School (dropped the ‘house’).
Aziza Schoolhouse was owned by the brother of the neighbor, our cleaner, who is a close friend (‘Moch’ is also the mother and aunt of 2 of our students). She had said that her brother was not allowed to sell the school until the end, so we thought we’d be there for a while yet. All that changed one Friday, and I wrote an email to my local community to share what was happening on that day last November:

>I just found out today that we have to be out of the building where Aziza is by this Sunday, when they will come and demolish the building. We will move into a better room about 70 meters away in the apartment building, which has been renovated for us, and everything is fine. It will be cooler and look nicer, but I will miss our little wooden shack where there are so many good memories.>

> I feel it is a special place, and I know I am not the only one. I had an appreciation for the simplicity and roughness that is the schoolhouse. I loved it the moment I laid eyes on it. I like how it blended into the neighborhood, and it's flaws grew on me over time to where it seemed it was meant to be just the way it was. I think the kids found it easy to be comfortable there, though they can likely have a good time just about anywhere. The rats navigating the ceiling beams nightly were always a thrill. It's been the greatest place on earth for me, and I am emotional about the change.>

> Many of the good memories happened outside the school as well, and the specialness of the school was what we created, not the building. And that was part it as well I guess; the school sucks, the desks suck, it sucks having rats walking around.., but the kids always made the best of it, and all their laughter more than made up for what was missing in the small room. The schoolhouse was a microcosm of Cambodia in many ways.>

> This weekend will have a series of events starting with parties on Saturday, where we'll show the new documentary and reflect back, then move everything on Sunday morning, ending with a bon fire on Sunday night, possibly with a pig roast (using wood scraps from the school). I plan to sleep there on Saturday night - yikes!>

> Peace,> Drew

I did sleep there and it was pretty cool. The move happened quickly in the morning, and men came with crow bars to salvage the valuable wood (the men with crow bars arrived early, and I lost my cool for a few minutes when we were encouraged to hurry, and emotionally proclaimed that we weren’t going to be told what to do anymore).
In the afternoon we had a ceremony where a procession of monks chanted and blessed our new home. The evening was a great party with 2 pigs and dancing.
The students and I adapted to the new building, but it was not without some sentimental conversations and longing for our old building. I was especially emotional around this time. We had numerous conversations with the students so we could try to capture what they liked about the old school into the new school.
One student said he missed the smells of the old school, and the neighbor’s cooking. Another said she liked hearing the rain on the tin roof. Minor details about the random decorating of the school were brought up. They loved their old school as much as I did!
How could they have grown up in such tough conditions, yet think these sweet thoughts and have these memories for little insignificant pieces of life? The new school is better. It has a fresh paint job, spotlights on the white board, and no rats. Why do the students hold on to their affinity for the old school? This is the thought that has made me cry more than anything since I have been here - their innocence! They have made it through years of living in a community with rampant violence, witnessed god only knows what, and yet have an attachment to the smells and sounds of our old school. They are so precious.
In time I have come to love the new school – it really is better. We have a nice bathroom and sink, and a loft for some of the students to sleep (in addition to sleeping on top of the desks). We also had some art students from Long Beach come to help make it our home.