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IN THE CIRCLE OF WOMEN

Three in the morning:

I can't sleep!

My time zone and cultural viewpoint is still all Cambodia. This nightly ritual of waking at odd times is normal after just coming back from the other side of the world. My cats eye my restlessness and then sleep soundly on our bed.

Like a friendly apparition something appears and then dissolves into time and space at this vacuous hour.

I see the face of Chea Sokhym. Here's why:

When our little team arrived in Prek Por village, a day before leaving Phnom Penh for the US, Sokhym was not on our mind. We were vigilant and focused in interviewing our sixteen students. Kitty and Dary were sitting on a raised bamboo platform while visiting one student at a time. Lisa was carrying on a conversation with a student while Dany translated.

In the hustle of games, laughter and bowls of noodle soup, we moved slowly and thoughtfully in the shadows of this hut. Miniature horses with a bob of red crowning their heads dashed by our meeting place. Dogs wandered around our feet. Monsoon rains rutted the dirt road.

At first I gave only passing notice of a girl sitting just inside the door. She never lost eye contact. Her hands were folded in her lap. She bent slightly forward as if she strained to ask a question. Sokhym, I was told, was one of five girls who were looking to be accepted into our program.

I slumped into my chair while enjoying bits of pork, cabbage and white rice noodles floating in a bowl of chicken broth. In between sips, I looked up to see Sokhym. Sokhym's face expressed the look of a mother pleading a case on behalf of a child. Her yearning to say something important without appearing impolite was evident in the strain around her eyes. Her lips were drawn tight like a violin bow.

I could not recall anything in my past to match the gravitational pull of this moment. There was a non-verbal field of communication that defied translation. I invited Dany to translate what was possible from Khmer to English:

Slightly above a whisper, Sokhym explained, she filled out an application in January. She was one of seven sisters and one brother of a very poor family. Only three children could afford to attend school. She was a senior in high school and # 5 in her class standing.

In Sokhym words, " I dream of going to university to be an accountant or study management in Phnom Penh."

Kitty took over the interview after which we had a meeting lasting one-minute.

Kitty, Dary, Dany, Lisa and I concluded if she passed the university exam in August, the light will turn green and we would find a way to support her through university - tuition, medical care, housing and food allowance. Sokhym would do the work. CASF would give her the resources.

"Sokhym, pass the exam in August and you may go to university - we'll help you do that!"

At first she sensed only a glimmer of truth in the translation through Dary. She nervously tucked strands of black hair behind her ear.

Her brown eyes grew wider. She dropped her hands by her side as if some invisible weight she had been carrying was finally too much. The women gathered instinctively around her. They were drawn there, a foot away from Sokhym, standing in a circle. A healing ring. They knew something was about to happen. It was a birthing moment women understand, and I was about to witness.

The young woman accepted these virtual strangers as interpreters for this atavistic yearning. Without asking, four women each in their way, with or without words, reassured Sokhym, the opportunity for university was now hers.

Sokhym muttered something. Her eyes filled with tears. She was holding back the flood of supreme joy as if five months of waiting was finally too much.

What began as a spontaneous, reassuring hug from Kitty, dissolved into many arms lending support - all at the same time. I witnessed an ancient dance that required no rehearsal or direction. An enfolding energy like trees touching limbs in the forest was everywhere apparent. Sokhym collapsed into the arms of those who lovingly held her. She sobbed big tears through a smile that never left her. This sustaining time lasted minutes, but the radiance appeared infinite.

Mary Oliver was in this circle somewhere else when she wrote:

 You do not have to be good.

 You do not have to walk on your knees

 For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

 You only have to let the soft animal of your body

 love what it loves.

This, my friends is the kind of person-to-person work we do at CASF. Please join us in the circle in any way you know that may help educate poor, at-risk girls and young women in Cambodia. Please spread the word and help change the world one student at a time.

Signing off with love at 5:30am, on 30 July 2006,

- Frederick Lipp