Cambodia's education system was destroyed during the war and genocide, and most of the damage occurred from 1975 through 1979. Nearly all schools and libraries were located in the Buddhist temples at the time the horrible events began. The Khmer Rouge were terrorists who invaded the temples, killed teachers and monks, and destroyed all the books. The damage done to Khmer culture by this atrocity is impossible to comprehend fully, and the effects continue today, August 13th, 2017, as I write this apology.
I believed that I could work toward improvement in this area and that is where I focused my humanitarian effort. I supported small village schools with books and computers, taught in public schools, most of which are still located in the temples called "wats." I worked as a teacher of statistics, physics, and English for pay to support my volunteer work. Unfortunately as of today I must resign from this work mostly because of corrosive and competing forces of corruption which defeat nearly all such effort in Cambodia.
The extraordinary tragedy of Cambodia is now matched by the equally widespread abuse and corruption of most aid resources. Bogus orphanage directors borrow children from their families on the promise to pay them a kickback from whatever they can squeeze from volunteers and donors. Nearly every person in Cambodia has participated in corruption of one form or another. Kids move from far flung villages to Siem Reap in the hope of meeting a foreign sponsor or landing an NGO staff job.
The result is a Cambodia that is now 100% dependent on foreign aid and corruption for survival. The various aid models applied here were absolute failures. In my statistics class I asked the question, "what do you want to do when you finish school?" The answer from most students was, "start an NGO and help my people." Sounds noble except for the underlying reason for this common goal: everyone knows that NGO jobs are the best in Cambodia. What they don't know is that the majority are unsustainable and based on temporary funding.
As for me personally, I have gone through many stages of learning and development. I learned to speak, read, and write Khmer language in order first to meet families of students and hopefully persuade encourage them to remain invested in school and education at least through high school. After several years this blended into an informal investigative work where I used the language skills to expose fake orphanages and other forms of corruption. As of today I am resigning because I am simply exhausted by the unrewarding prospects.
Behind my house the owner of a laundry persuaded a young woman to quit high school one year prior to completion and come to work in her laundry for $120 per month salary. So many Cambodian people are working against me that I am simply exhausted. I have done some good work here, but now I am tired. Hopefully a new wave of enthusiastic people will come here to continue this fight against corruption, greed, and sloth. To them I wish strength and good fortune.
Mark