My 1st time to vote – 27th July 2008

Tomorrow will be the 27th July. It may be a normal day for many people but for us Cambodians, it is our fourth national election which takes place once every five year. The first national election was in 1993 with the help from the UN. The second election was in 1998 and the third election was in 2003.

It will be my first time to vote and I am really  looking forward to the feeling of being able to make decision on which political party I should vote for. I think eligible citizens should go to vote, they should use their rights. When we don’t have the right we ask for it, when we have it we must not not to use it.

Happy weekend,

National Election Campaign Season

Recently, Cambodia has started its journey to campaign for the up coming national election in July. On the street, we mostly saw five top known political campaign mini buses with logos at the front, then drivers and some people and campaigner at the middle to the back side. The four ranges from most handling power are:

• The Cambodian People Party or known as the ruling government
• Sam Rainsy party, opposition party which used to be a very strong party but has been weaken since last year.
• The Human Rights party, a newly formed political party derived from a famous former NGO president of the human rights sector. I think he should remain NGO human rights activist as you can always serve your society whichever sector you are as long as your have the commitment.
• FUNCINPEC, I don’t have much description to say about this because it is a long story.
• Norodom Ranarith party, presidented by a prince which was formerly the head of FUNCINPEC party. He was outsted from FUNCIPEC by the party meeting and following by two scandals of selling FUNCIPEC head quarter and adultery.

The campaign mini buses with microphone, amplifier, logo and related decoration drive to many roads in Phnom Penh and other provinces to announce about convincing people to vote for their parties. You can also hear about funny criticism that a political party speaks about other parties. Some parties offer to people Sarong, some money as well as gift in request for the people to vote for their party. I don’t think this is a good strategy because political parties should buy their votes by providing good living condition, employment opportunity, freedom of expression and better social development to their people.

Many people are worried when the national election is reaching, especially political stability and security. Middle men and business makers are taking also advantages of this period to increase prices of commodities like rice, vegetables, fruits, meat and other related.

So, from now on until around the 20s of July which is the election date, local media will feature national election campaign. I’ll take some pictures and post them here.

Enjoy your weekend,

Da

The Beauty of Happiness

More fragrance than any great perfume
Fill your heart with full of hope
Make you smile from the within
Everything is beautiful and sweet
Breath the moment of passion
Feeling enough of being
A peaceful and joyous sense
Lovely and lovable
Life is reaching its goals

Choice and Decision

Do you believe that we can choose how we want our life to be parallelly with other desires like happiness, sweet love and money? I think the answer is yes as long as we don’t give up easily or stop working for them.

How many times in your life that you have to make a tough decision, that changes your life career, change your perspective and change your capacity? I have made so far three choices when I had to choose a university to continue my education after high school graduation , when I had to choose between a non profit work and profit work sector, and what should I build for my capacity to respond to a next challenge of career in life.

Making a choice and decision will also depend on your personal situation, your life goal and the country that you live and you will live. I heard many people share that they will have to compromise in one thing in order to get another one.  Whatever it is, we should try to analyse the pros and cons of our choice and decision, be frank with what we want and the long effects that it may create, and how that choice and decision make you happy.

A turning point in life is so important, it’s best to remember why you take that point or not. As it will help you to confirm your decision when something might be not the way you want it.

We always have a choice and we shouldn’t give up easily. Happiness needs effort.

Da

One of my inspiration

Beautiful beaches and seas, white sand, gentle waving, lively waterfall, fresh air and green mountains are one of the major sources of my inspiration.

Very Unreal and Unreachable Dream But….

Recently something flashed my mind. When it did, I asked myself what should I do with this dream. I wish I could be a prime minister, , a very ambitious, unreal and unreachable dream but nothing is wrong of having this type of dream. At least, I can dream of something, still I just classify it into a category that will not bother me into unhappiness for not getting it.

Feeling this dream convinces me that with the highest power to have would allow me to exercise more justice for the majority poor. With this power to battle hopeless and frustration from our perspectives.

Da

Social Frustration: Illegal Construction

Some of my neighbors and myself are very frustrated because a newly moved-in family on the 3rd floor of our building constructed another floor above the existing old house.

At first, the three families from the ground, first and second floors were invited to Sangkat to sign a renovation agreement. The 3rd floor was asking for a renovation, we agreed to that with a condition of not building cement floor and that the renovation still maintain the original form of the house.

In the process of renovation, the 3rd floor not only renovated the house but also constructed illegally another story on top of the building with heavy metal, bricks and cement. We tried to stop them but they didn’t listen but acted aggressively with very rude response. In the middle of the construction, we went to Sangkat again with our concerns, finally a suspended letter was issued.

After that the legal department of Sangkat invited us to be at Sangkat for a re-conciliated meeting with the 3rd floor – requested by the third floor; because we managed to request to Sangkat to issue a suspense letter for the illegal and heavy construction. I was at that meeting to represent my mother who is the owner of the 2nd floor. The groundless arguments from the 3rd floor now begin.

• Why did you stop me from building my house while you already thump-printed your agreement? I replied, we thump-printed the agreement for your renovation request. What you were doing is not a renovation. Another constructed story on top of the building is a new story construction, so you violated the agreement.
• He then continued, but I had a permission letter from an authority to allow me to do the construction. I asked, could I see it? He showed it to me. The letter was just written by the house owner with her own thump-print, no one acknowledged that letter but herself. I, then, replied, this letter was created by herself and for herself,  no one officially recognizes it.
•   Mr. Ra who is from the justice department of Sangkat tried to facilitate the meeting in pursuing us to agree to the 3rd floor to continue the construction. They were saying that the construction is not heavy, the metal materials use are not heavy, metal nowadays is not solid inside, is not as robust as before, the wall is also thin. It won’t be anything serious. I said no, it’s a very old house, the materials use are heavy as you can see in the pictures. I showed them the pictures.
• They continued to pursue by saying that, it should be ok as the house owner could do a letter of guarantee saying that if there was any problem causing from the construction, she would be responsible for the compensation. Then I explained, the career of the house owner was a housewife, she couldn’t generate financial resource for her living, how could she have money to cover for the compensation. Wealth could be compensated but our lives would never be.

As of not being able to make us agree to continue the construction, we filed a report at Sangkat. I also requested to the 3rd floor to do whatever measure to stop water flowing from their floor because they purposely cause it. They used to say, at the building, that if you were not allowed me to construct the floor I will just make the water to flow down. They open the windows and when it was raining, the water already flew down to the house on the 2nd floor, mine and the ground. My request was negatively responded by the 3rd floor saying that their construction had been suspended so they couldn’t fix the water flowing problem. This point is really groundless and purposely causing annoying for our families. An unbiased and rational justice department of Sangkat should have intervened to stop such willingly wrong doing but the officer only responded their duties are to reconcile between the two parties nothing more than that, for more you will need to process to court. I really doubt if such case happened at the officer’s house would he still maintain this position or would he do whatever it take to tackle the problem.

The construction is now suspended. We are processing our complaints to land offices of Khan and Municipality. In between the time of the problem, we also submitted our request to the Municipality.

Now look at the pictures of the illegal construction, how heavy, strange and bad looking it is.

I have heard of injustice faced by other people, but this time I am experiencing it. Life always has something to challenge me.

Hope and Journey towards it

I often question myself what are sources of hope, how to maintain it to a level that gives at least enough motivation for a person to enjoy and feel happy about living – not just breathing as time goes on.

Living experience and meeting different people has lead me to understand that there are different needs, wants, energies in people’s lives. Some are able to determine a future that s/he wants, set action and work towards it. Some are seemingly lost and living only mainly to react to what society has asked for.

For me, hope is one among many key motivations that make me feel life is meaningful. Without hope, an encouraging proportion in life is missing. There are two types of hope that I classify: hope that makes me feel happy with my daily life, and hope to get a goal that I want to reach after a certain period of time and action to get that goal. In order to reach the second hope, I need full level of the first hope. Without the first hope, I might be able to move on with life normally but it’s like a responsibility of life to myself while a joy part is missing.

When hope is obtaining at some points, it levels off – whether lost or gain. Lost of hope comes from making a wrong decision in a tempered situation or hurting someone unintentionally and not being able to compensate it at a later stage after realizing the mistakes. Furthermore, it also causes from not achieving a set goal – but here is a bit difference because an analysis about action plan towards goal has to check. Lost of hope is also from loosing good connection with close/good friends one by one – silence in friendship communication.

Gaining hope is when things that have wanted in life reach their points, good enough to generate another path of life at a next level. Some parts of hope can also gain through career success. Stable emotion does help to maintain hope level not to drop.

I am still looking for power of hope, how to gain it once lost, how to maintain it at a satisfactory level and even how to increase it.

Hope is one part of a happiness in life.

Da

I love my work

I am very happy to be able to work for the Women Empowerment for Social Change and E-learning programs of the Open Institute.

Hearing different stories of women who have been abused, mistreated by their communities, families and relatives and society, how can they live with happiness? Is it a living just breathing until they die? Or is it just a living under oppression or living to please others what they think you should do or what you should do to make them happy but not about finding your true-self, happiness and freedom?

A short writing as I have to continue my work, .

Da

Is writing a leisure?

Since a very long time ago, I’ve thought of writing. I want to write something about Khmer women struggling in the journey of life, how strong is the pressure on them, what challenges they face and how can they over come them. Do we really have all energy to just facing the challenging and keep fighting against them hoping that one day there will be a better change not only for ourselves but also for the whole society.

One of the things that I want to do is finally taking off, writing and writing. Writing is an art and I’ll keep doing it .

From a bit cold weather in Sydney, a very multinational city I’ve ever experience. Feeling just like home and even better when surrounding things are organized in a good structure.

Da