Feeding the hungry with food for the dead

Every Pchum Ben, a small group of Battambang people always spend their priceless time to ask rice cakes from buddhist pagodas offering the prisoners.

Here is the article about rice cake collecting program by Phnom Penh Post:

By Roth Meas, Thursday, 24 September 2009 15:00
THE morning sunshine splays over Pok Chhma primary school in Battambang, giving the orange robes of the monks who work there an especially vivid sheen. The festival of Pchum Ben has only just finished, but there will be no rest for these holy men.

The monks, along with many other volunteers, tend giant grills set up to dry thousands of rice cakes left over from the festival of the dead. These savoury treats will ultimately be distributed to prisons all over Battambang, where they will feed famished inmates.

Battambang’s Dhammayietra centre runs the initiative, which is the brainchild of one of its workers, 30-year-old Sek Sarom. She conceived the idea in 2000, while working as a volunteer language tutor in Battambang’s prisons.

“We taught languages to the prisoners, and in that time I observed that people did not have enough food in the prison. I know that after every Bonn Pchum Ben, there is a great deal of waste in terms of food at the pagodas, so we decided to begin collecting rice cakes for prisoners,” she said.

Sek Sarom felt there was not enough understanding from the wider community when it came to the inmates. This manifested itself in a great deal of hostility when she first floated the idea almost a decade ago – something for which she was not prepared.

A labour of empathy
“When I first sent letters to ask for rice cakes, even some monks complained and asked why we should help them. Prisoners are the bad guys; they attack, rape and even kill people, they said.

Some monks even cursed me before handing over the rice cakes,” she said.
Yet Sek Sarom was determined to get her idea off the ground, with much of her resolve emanating from an empathy she was able to build for the inmates while teaching them.

“I think prisoners are human beings, just like me. I noticed that most of the prisoners are from poor backgrounds, and many of them fell into crime because of poverty and a lack of education,” she said.

Racing against time

With all of the good will in the world, though, Sek Sarom admits she would not be able to carry out the initiative without the help of the monks and other volunteers. It is a huge operation, with bamboo for the grills supplied by local villagers and small groups of volunteers speeding to pagodas on motorcycle, in order to meet the relatively tight time frame between the end of Pchum Ben at around midday and a 2pm deadline when many of the temples close.

“Collecting the rice cakes allows many people to get involved. Not only monks, but also members of Dhammayietra, as well as the local community,” Sek Sarom explained.

“After I finish sending them to the prisons, I do have moments where I think I don’t want to do it next year because it’s so tiring. But I know I will because I feel so much empathy for the people we are helping.”

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Khet Battambang, the province of rice

This province is at the west of Cambodia, and it benefits to many kinds of plants because of rich fertilizers.

Rice is the main crop which exported into many markets in Cambodia. if you go to many markets in Phnom Penh, you will probably see notes indicating "rice from Battambang." Actually, the rice from this province tastes very good.

Besides rice, there're countless crop which can raise people from starvation. Corns and peanuts are grown everywhere in the province.

Another famous fruit is orange. It is grown mostly at Odam Bang and Banan.

Recently, grape is grown firstly in Cambodia's Battambang

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Battambang Province or Khet Battambang

Battambang actually means losing stick in Khmer, and this province has has its own story as mention below:

Once upon a time, Kampuchea (Cambodia) faces wars with neighboring countries. Many enemies invade the villages at the west of Kampuchea. One day, enemies kill many people, even women and children. There’s a pregnant woman whose belly is stabbed can escape from those enemies. When she delivers a birth, her son's legs become disable because of stabbing. Where he goes, he has to crawl because he can not use his feet as the usual person.

When he grows up, he hears there’s a holy man who has stick (Dambang Kronhoung). Many people call him Ta Dambang Kronhoung.

Ta Dambang Kronhoung one day visits a community at the west of Kampuchea where the disable man has lived since he was born. Many people come to appreciate him. The disable man also wants to see Ta Dambang Kronhoung, but his handicap does not offer him any convenience. However, he tries his best by moving one by one crossing the quiet forest to see the holy man, or he can lost chance to see him in his whole life.

While the disable is taking a rest, an angel pretends to be a normal person and brings a horse and clothe to the disable. He tells the disable man that he wants to keep house and clothes with the disable. The disable man hopes the property owner comes to get his horse and clothe back, so he decides to keep for him.

The sun almost sets, but the property owner does not come back to get his horse and clothe yet. The disable can not wait any more because he’s afraid he can not see the holy man. So he decides to take the clothes on and get on the horse. After the disable can get on his back, the magic horse forwards very fast to the crowd of the people.

As soon as the magic house sees the crowd, he flies over those people, even Ta Dambang Kronhoung. People change their attention to the disable who is on the horse and scream; "there’s another holy man!"

Ta Dambang Kronhoung is very angry while his popularity gets lost after the appearance of the disable. He picks up his Dambang Kronhoung and throws to the horse in order to shoot the disable down.

Ta Dambang Kronhoung's intention can not succeed because his Dambang Kronhoung can not hit the disable. Unfortunately, he loses his Dambang Kronhoung. He orders many people to find his Dambang Kronhoung, but nobody can find it. People have called the place where Ta Dambang Kronhoung loses his stick Battambang or Losing stick. Now it becomes a name of a western province of Kampuchea. Ta Dambang Kronhoung is later on created as as statue representing the man who names Battambang province.

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