ORIGINAL
ESSAY
Stung Meachy…Finding Hope in an Earthly Hell
Written
by: Jordan Wente
Note -- Jordan, who is a member of the Triton High School
Speech Team, is using an adaptation of his as his "Creative
Expression" Entry in the Minnesota State High School
League Speech Competitions. He is able to share this story
with numerous speech team members from a number of MN schools
each Saturday.
The smoke rises…rising…and lazily drifts to the
east. I look out the smudged window of the moving van and
see the looming horizon, and wonder what is happening…suddenly,
the methane gas invades my lungs, clinging to the back of
my throat, making it difficult to breathe or even swallow.
I choke. As the van makes its way up the hills of the rough
garbage dump located at the outskirts of PP, the stench intensifies
even further—a horrid reek that seems to have a life
of its own makes my eyes water. We turn the corner there “it”
was.
I was told that our group, a contingent of students from Rochester
Community and Technical College (RCTC) to study Intercultural
Communication and perform various service learning projects,
would be traveling to a place called Stung Meachy, located
on the outskirts of Phnom Phen, the capital of Cambodia. I
had heard that Stung Meachy was one of the poorest areas in
Cambodia. Throughout my experience in Cambodia, I had seen
many scenes of poverty—people forced to live lifestyles
that filled my heart with sorrow because I could not believe
that human beings should ever live in such a degrading situation.
But none of my previous experience could have prepared me
for my encounter with the conditions and the people at Stung
Meachy.
I learned that Cambodia remains one of the poorest nations
in the world today for many reasons. During the Pol Pot regime,
from 1975-1979, nearly 1.7 million people were systematically
killed or allowed to starve to death by Pol Pot’s followers,
the Khmer Rouge. The first to be killed were the educated
classes, such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.
Families were separated, taken from their small farms and
forced into communes located throughout Cambodia. The city
of Phnom Penh was immediately evacuated of almost all of its
inhabitants. The economic situation of Cambodia was completely
obliterated. Once the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese
in 1979 (the Vietnamese ruled for 10 years), many Cambodian
people were eventually able to return to their farms and homes.
However, some had nothing to come back to when they retuned
from the forced labor camps. Finally, when some order was
restored by the UN in the early 1990’s and sovereignty
returned to the Cambodian people, the country was still ravaged
by war. Over the years, some families lost their farms and
moved to the city to find employment. Unfortunately, because
of illness or governmental corruption, many of them ended
up in Stung Meachy. Right now, about 70 families currently
live at the dump.
My extraordinary experience came on our 3rd day of my second
trip to Cambodia. A long day of digging wells and planting
trees was about to come to a close. We were about to head
back to the hotel, when I was informed that there was one
more site that we would visit. We stopped to buy food and
canned milk, and with these supplies, I realized that we would
be going to a very poor region, if we needed to bring food.
With our vans loaded we made our way through Phnom Phen, swimming
through the flowing river of motos and wagons, until the paved
roads crumbled away to dirt, and the buildings deteriated
to small shanties. As if it were a rip tide, the garbage and
filth on the sidewalks and roads hastily increased. We turned
a few more corners and there it was; the garbage dump of Phnom
Phen. The smoke was the first of many notices; it was black
as oil and profusely burning and rising blacking the sky that
was once a majestic blue. Our van drove through the plains
of sorrow and filth. I looked up and beheld the monstrous
Mt. Everest of garbage which on the crags and peaks stood
people…people…. The ground was smoking, I knew
at once the fire was underground, a dantes hell, perpetually
burning under their soles of their feet and under their lives.
The van door slid open and I trudged through the crowded van
and stepped down. I was standing on garbage; I was walking
on a landfill. Then the swarms of people came. We had brought
food and some of the members wanted to hand them out. So we
made a line so we wouldn’t get hoarded by the mob. As
I passed out bread and Ramen Noodles, I thought in the back
of my head “why are these people here,” in such
a dangerous environment. Then I overheard a conversation and
learned that they were mostly outcasts trying to feed there
stomachs by harvesting the recyclable garbage. Many these
beautiful faces I learned were HIV/AIDS victims and had lost
there lives and future when they had contracted the diabolical
virus. I walked away from the vans to think and then looking
up from my troubling stare at the ground I saw more workers
bent down and digging in the internal filth, the filth that
has clutched there lives, bodies, minds and souls; the black
waste and oil that ran along my feet, was ever flowing through
their veins, and is apart of them. I walked on to follow a
group that was going to secretly drop of boxes of milk at
the homes that were to east and at the base of the dump. I
walked on and encountered children playing, their skin charred
black from the toxic waste that they were rolling in. Yet,
these children with naught but skin for clothes were smiling................they
were smiling.
I walked past them as my white skin and long hair was becoming
an attraction from the little children running around me.
I stride with confidence towards the small village of shacks,
but homes to these people. I walked down a slope and gazed
across a plain, which separated the Garbage Mountains and
the homes to the east. There was a lot of bags and Styrofoam
boxes and they all were compacted into what, from my point
of view looked like a plain. I stepped down onto the garbage,
off the little knoll, and everything shook, “what the…”
and then I fell… WHOOSH my left foot sank into to what
I couldn’t explain and then oily black toxic waste squirted
and sloshed around my ankles and shins. I put my right foot
down for support to try to pull out. WHOOSHHH my right foot
splashed right in to the mess. My heart was racing as I began
sinking and sinking up to my knees. Cold black toxic waste
was overrunning me, dragging my under, and grasping to my
flesh. Then Slender but amazingly strong arms grabbed me and
I was hoisted from above to safety. I looked up and there
was a middle-aged, very slim woman looking sympathetically
down at me. Sweat and dirt covered her face, but I could see
a great sense of beauty, and grace hidden beneath the filth
and by her apprehensive and distant approach on life caused
by all her boundaries and limitations for a better future.
This woman, whom I have nothing in any way to relate to, was
pulling my arm and dragging me to an unknown place. We swiftly
moved along the plain and crossed the toxic marsh on large
floating bags. Thankful, that I made it to the other side,
all I could say and think was “oh well too bad.”
I was embarrassed as these people obviously knew not to step
on that plain. This thought of modesty quickly changed, when
I caught a glimpse of her worried face and inferred that I
had fallen in some very nasty waste. She was pulling me past
some homes and arrived to her own…a small open room
shed more than anything, but this was all she and her family
owned and thus, love radiated around it. She placed me at
the side of a house near a water basin and I knew at once
what she was going to do. She was to wash my feet and legs.
She got to her knees along with what looked like the village
elder and matriarch and began to scrub and wash my legs. I
couldn’t believe what was happening, this family was
cleansing me. I knew that there were no wells, and that they
had to buy their water from the city. Some of the poorest
people in the world were wasting there valuable water to wash
my gap cargo pants (clothing that was probably sewn down the
road at the garment factory). Soon the children joined in,
and before you knew it the entire family was scrubbing and
washing me. I was overwhelmed with their kindness and simple
human compassion. They didn’t expect nor think of any
merit or profit. They clearly wanted to help me. I found it
ironic that she had nothing and yet was more than willing
to give me everything. She and her family were diplomats,
on a mission to help me. They didn’t ask for me to give
them money, or lobby them, all they wanted was to help to
make our world better by helping me and connecting our peoples
through compassion and love, this diplomacy is diplomacy for
peace and diplomacy for love….The diplomacy that our
world is in need of great abundance, diplomacy to change the
world.
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