So, I’m just back from Cambodia as part of a team of women visiting Tearfund partner projects and looking at issues facing women in poverty. It has been a profound experience and one which will take me some time to process and think through. I’ve tried to write a wee snippet below.

Cambodia is a country which has deep scars and brokenness but an even deeper beauty. The people are remarkably resilient and their warmth and radiance is all the more brilliant when you discover what they suffered under the Khmer Rouge regime.

We visited all sorts of inspiring projects: a micro finance co-operative giving out loans to local women, training them up in their villages to generate income for their family and in doing so restoring their dignity, a children’s education programme that taught through songs and puppets, community groups for sufferers of HIV and AIDS that gave them hope, dispelled the myths surrounding their condition and provided them with a source for their ARV drugs, teenage education programmes encouraging safe sex, women’s groups who were visiting the sick in hospital and providing encouragement to women around Cambodia to have belief and confidence in themselves as leaders. Each project we visited seemed to take a holistic approach to their work.

As part of our experience we split into twos and spent the night with a family in one of the villages. We had to go by motorbike, the main form of transport out there. I was soooo in my element!! In these places there is little clean water and no sanitation. Diarrhoea is an everyday occurrence. There is no education unless you can afford it and these people are living hand to mouth. Despite that, we found the village to be a happy, peaceful place with a tremendous feeling of community and love. Ruth (my village buddy) and I helped to tether our family’s cows, we visited the paddy fields which was just out of this world and went to the fish market to choose our ‘dinner’ which we then scaled and gutted. We washed in the front ‘garden’ in full view of the neighbours in our very fetching sarongs (we were also supposed to pee using these garments of modesty!). It truly was a humbling and magical experience.

Overall, I’m amazed once again at how such small things can make a huge difference. I’m reminded that man’s inhumanity to man continues and that we never seem to learn. However, I’m also reminded of how resilient the human heart can be and how love can transform individuals and communities and hopefully one day, nations.