After a journey of more than 24 hours, I arrived in Battambang on February 4, 2020 – albeit very tired. After a quick refreshment at the hotel, I was picked up by Patrik Roux and we drove straight to the Safe House, where I immediately started working with the tailors in the studio.
Our pearl, seamstress Dara, is heavily pregnant and her baby (a boy) is due to be born at the end of February.
We had a mammoth task ahead of us, as we had to translate Esther Enkelmann’s generous donation of fabric into models. We had already defined the production of an upcycled coat via Skype, so I was able to inspect the first finished model. We spontaneously decided to make a matching bag. My godchild Heidi immediately became the model for it.
Model Heidi 
Upcycled coat from the front 
Upcycled coat from behind
Patrik and Theavy had not yet told the children at the Safe House about our planned trip to Siam Reap. So it fell to me to tell the children after dinner at the Safe House. The children were absolutely thrilled and loudly expressed their unbridled joy at this very welcome change.
Theavy and I spent the next morning shopping at the various markets. We found two pretty green fabrics and vichy patterns in a variety of colors. Unfortunately, the availability of fabrics is still an unsolved problem. We’ll keep at it!
We also visited a girl from the Safe House who has successfully completed her tailoring training and now works for a tailor at the market, as well as another graduate of the tailoring training who runs her own business at the market. Her sister was sitting on the floor, heavily pregnant, ironing while the owner’s little son crawled around on the floor. I didn’t feel comfortable watching!
Kimlai 
Afterwards, we bought a few local specialties, such as water cockroaches and silkworms (!!), tamarind and fish cooked in banana leaves. We bought noodle soup to go from a woman with a mobile cookshop and then went to a grocery store specializing in foreign products, where we bought butter, flour, sugar and cocoa powder, as we wanted to bake cakes and cookies together for the children.
Noodle soup to go 
All kinds of creatures… 
Children love the creatures…
Our next to-do was to visit a stall selling sugar cane juice, as we needed this as inspiration for a project in Kenya.
Juicer 
Plastic orgy
The visit to Chrabcrosang Primary School was scheduled for the next morning. The hard-working assistants Soklida, Saya and Thida, together with the older girls, had already loaded the small truck with around 100 kg of rice, 600 soy bottles, 600 fish sauce bottles, 100 water bottles, 200 soaps, 100 uniforms, 100 packets of noodle soup, 100 bags and 100 packaged school materials. What is exciting is that the bags and uniforms are made by the Safe House workshop, whereby the children’s uniforms are made to measure, as the workshop has a file with the measurements of all the children. The decrepit and rickety small truck took us to Chrabcrosang Primary School, very close to the Safe House. This school looks after 100 children from the poorest backgrounds. The aim of these visits, which take place every two months, is to prevent children from being absent and to motivate parents and pupils to attend school. For this reason, a parent or relative must be present on the occasion. The children sit in neat rows on the floor, organized by class, with their relatives sitting next to them. Theavy checks the absentee lists and the pupils with the most days of absence have to step forward together with their relatives and explain their absence. A time-consuming but also very effective procedure. The aid supplies are then distributed. There are also school materials for the whole school and small gifts for the teachers.
avec Dream Team 
Rice for the parents 
Unloading 
I got an even better insight behind the scenes in the afternoon when we visited some of the families of the supported students at home. One mother had a completely swollen and green foot with discolored toes. The injury was already three weeks old and despite severe pain, she can no longer go to hospital as it is no longer considered an emergency and she cannot afford normal treatment. The woman does not know how to finance the education of her five daughters and it is therefore not unlikely that the eldest daughter will soon have to drop out of school to earn money for the family in Thailand.
Without exception, all the houses are in poor condition. The house of the great-grandmother, who looks after her granddaughter as both parents work in Thailand, is in a particularly poor state. But she makes a thoroughly contented impression. It was particularly moving to observe the silent understanding between great-grandmother and great-granddaughter. The puppies crawling around everywhere also contributed to the positive impression.
We then came to the forecourt of hell. Several families live on the property of a garbage company, which parks its large equipment there and also stores garbage. There is a fish hanging out to dry at the entrance gate and it smells strongly of garbage.
Patrik ventured a little further inside the dwellings and said that he had encountered an unbelievable smell that he couldn’t place, but could clearly identify as unhealthy – if not toxic. This visit left me speechless and very shocked, because the surroundings topped everything I had seen before. However, the children were playing happily and everyone posed happily for photos. People shouldn’t have to live like this!
Our next project was then called “We bake cookies and cakes”. Naively, I assumed that this would be a simple matter. Far from it! I hadn’t reckoned with the Cambodian oven. It was an older gas oven, and you could tell by looking at it. Of course, the oven didn’t have a temperature display and so we simply set it to high. We had already bought the missing ingredients the day before, so I set to work bright and early. Another big challenge, especially when working with ingredients such as butter and chocolate, is the temperature of well over 30°C. Within a very short time, the butter melted and the chocolate soon became as soft as butter. After Theavy and I had prepared the cookies for baking, the moment of truth arrived: normally, i.e. in my Swiss oven, the cookies take 15 minutes to bake. Well, in Cambodia it was 45 minutes…. The almond ring that followed was partly a victim of the oven, as I had set it to the lowest level and left it in for twice as long as in Switzerland, but had nevertheless refrained from turning the tin…. This led to a partially charred result. We then cut it out and Patrik even claimed that it was still edible….
With the second cake, I knew better, positioned the cake in the middle of the gas oven and turned it several times. The result was more visually appealing and, above all, completely edible.
Theavy and Patrik had decided to make educational use of the weekend trip to Siam Reap and announced that the names of those who would be allowed to go to Siam Reap would be published on Friday evening. The children had already spent the whole week wondering whether they would be allowed to go or not, and some of them had even packed their things. S. and M., 6 and 8 years old, had even expressed their doubts at the table every day as to whether we would take them with us, as they don’t always brush their teeth. Theavy had drawn up a list of names of children at risk that she was willing to take with her, but she expressed her dissatisfaction with certain behaviors and announced that she would have individual conversations with the children concerned the following week. In the end, one boy fell through the cracks: unfortunately, his aggressive behavior was always conspicuous and he had already hurt other children. I felt sorry for the little boy and tried to put in a good word for him – to no avail. Patrik and Theavy insisted on the need to make an example of him, especially to the other children and not because they are convinced that this would lead to a change in the boy’s behavior. In view of the fact that they are bringing up 35 children, I had to agree with them with a heavy heart.
The excitement the next morning could not have been greater: The bus was already waiting at the safe house. Most of the children traveled by bus and those who felt nauseous when driving had to find space in the back of the pickup truck. Cambodian pragmatism!
After a three-hour drive, we reached Siam Reap, where we went to a simple but clean restaurant for lunch. The children spent the afternoon at the hotel pool. In the evening we went to a so-called Apsara restaurant, i.e. a huge restaurant for tourists where there are Apsara dance performances and a buffet. The restaurant was almost completely empty, as Siam Reap also lacks the large number of Chinese tour groups who are not allowed to travel due to the pandemic. One man’s sorrow is another man’s joy… Theavy was able to negotiate a very good price… especially for the youngest children. Patrik said with a grin that they had no idea how much the small children in particular could eat. This prophecy came true and resulted in the smallest girls breaking the biggest ice cream eating records: 10, 7 and 6 popsicles!!!
I was already aware that you have to maintain a different form of discipline with 35 children than with two. And yet I was speechless at the good and exemplary behavior of the children: not only was the noise level in the hotel kept to a minimum, the children thanked after every meal and the older children looked after the younger ones in an exemplary manner. For example, a small child was always assigned to an older child on walks and sightseeing tours. The two then held hands and there was not the slightest problem.
The next morning we first went to Angkor Wat and then to the Bayon Temple. Once again, I was struck by the incredible discipline of the children.
As I had several pieces from the Femmes des Rizières collection with me, we decided to combine the Sunday trip to the Ta Phrom temple with a photo shoot for Femmes des Rizières. I had given out the dresses the night before. It was so great to see how engaged and eager the girls and young women were to style the photos and pose and take pictures!
Unfortunately, it was already time to say goodbye. It was wonderful! We all had a wonderful time together and it’s not just the children who have fond memories – I do too!
Note: We had discussed beforehand whether it would make more sense to go on this outing or, for example, to buy a small moped for one of the older girls. In the end, I decided to go ahead with the outing because these children all have a terrible history and we were creating positive childhood memories. Of course, there was also a touch of selfishness on my part. In any case, the memories of this trip will stay with everyone for a long time. The expenses for the trip were covered privately!
