Six weeks later: Ruminations on the Cambodian Adventure.
Seattle has an Il Fornaio
restaurant located at 6th and Pine Streets, and a lovely restaurant
it is. I remember the first time I dined there with my wife. They poured olive
oil on a saucer, added some sweet balsamic vinegar, and provided the dipping
breads. A delightful gustatory start to the beginning of a great meal.
Cambodia’s Kanlaeng Phe has a
cement guest house on cement pillars for when the river floods. You reach it
by climbing a flight of stairs while keeping an eye out for the wasp nests.
Some non-government organization thought this would be a good idea for tourism
in a backwater Cambodian river stop that has no supporting amenities.
You get there by riding a few kilometers up the muddy-brown Tonlé Sap in a tippy canoe-like vessel called a “took.” You
know you’ve arrived when the took pulls up to a muddy landing at the bottom of
a bank which you carefully ascend to keep from tripping. When I was there in
March, the toilet was right over there, behind that bush. There were no linen
napkins.
An Il Fornaio dinner for two
with a beautiful woman can easily top $80, if you get wine and a dessert.
Pass up three Il Fornaio
dinners, and you’ve saved enough money to make an interest-free loan to the
fishing village of Kanlaeng Phe.
And, you know, that was great
entertainment. I was treated to the friendship of some genuine people who I
will probably never see again, and who are very, very grateful for the
loan.
I went on this trip with Jay
Hastings, a childhood friend and secretary-treasurer of Sustainable
Communities International (SCI). Jay has gone to Cambodia for several years
now to make no-interest loans to communities that have virtually no collateral
and no local bank. The communities are using these loans in savings groups
that re-loan the funds to their members. The members are using the loans to
buy the supplies they need to fish and farm. They are paying the loans back at
interest rates of 1-3 percent a month, allowing the communities to grow
capital. So far, only eight communities are involved; the program is being
kept small intentionally, so that it remains manageable. The practice of
having personal sponsors for the loans and the trust placed in the communities
has been matched by conservative management of the loans—and no defaults.
 |
| Jay, left, meets with representatives of Peam Popech to discuss the loan program. |
And it’s really the future
we’re talking about here. Those three dinners at Il Fornaio produce a salutary
effect until the wine is metabolized and the food digested and excreted.
But the $250 donation I make to
SCI will become revolving capital for the community of Kanlaeng Phe. Kanleang
Phe and other communities will eventually repay the loans to Sustainable
Communities International when they feel financially secure. SCI will then
loan that money to new communities.
The interest that these
communities earn on their community loans will become their own capital that will be used for community purposes or be recycled
repeatedly as future loans, helping community members who seem to be limited
only by their poverty. My donation will have become the seed for the creation
of that sustainable capital. Like the mythical phoenix that is consumed and
rises from its own ashes, that capital will replenish itself through a
community loan and repayment cycle that builds community, capital, and
trust.
Now THAT’S entertainment.
Love,
Robert
Love,
Robert
Author’s note: This blog is produced independently of Sustainable
Communities International. Observations, opinions, errors and omissions
are solely the responsibility of the writer. This is the final dispatch for this blog until further notice. I hope you have enjoyed the trip. Next adventure: Tijuana!
