We came to the floating village of Peak Kantel by boat at the very end of the dry season. Ben Sok, the village chief, whose 78 years made him older than most Cambodians, welcomed us in his boat house. He offered grilled eel and tea and a long story about his village’s struggle to be… a village.

Ben Sok suggested we stay the night in the village school, a blue floating wooden primary, with a wooden railing where we could hang our hammocks and mosquito nets at nightfall. Evidently, the school was his pride. Very soon he came to tell us of the incident over a year earlier when government officials, accompanied by armed police, gendarmerie and military, came to take the school away. It was planned as the first step of evicting Peak Kantel.

Continue reading ‘Fighting to stay afloat, Cambodia, 12-14 March 2006′