Lessons from a Schoolhouse on Stilts: What Cambodian Children Taught Me About Resilience

 

Assignment Cambodia

In 2003, I spent several months in Asia on assignment as a photojournalist, documenting stories that mainstream media often overlooked. Cambodia drew me with its complex tapestry of tragedy and resilience—a country still healing from the horrific reign of the Khmer Rouge decades earlier.

My assignments took me through stark contrasts: landmine victims struggling with disabilities from undetonated explosives that still littered the countryside, impoverished schoolchildren trying to learn in impossible conditions, the failing public education system, and the dark underbelly of sex tourism that preyed on the country's desperation.

But amid the difficult stories and heartbreaking realities, the most memorable experiences came from the children I met throughout my travels—from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. Their infectious smiles and perfect kindness simultaneously warmed my heart and broke it. They possessed a joy that seemed impossible given their circumstances, a resilience that put my own complaints about life into humbling perspective.

The Incomprehensible Poverty

The abject poverty these families lived in was incomprehensible by Western standards. Fathers who worked as local police officers—positions that should have provided stability—would often sell their uniforms, badges, and even weapons just to make enough money to feed their families. I learned that the monthly salary for a police officer was less than $30.

Several Cambodian cops offered to sell me badges and even an AK-47 for $300 during my time there. It wasn't corruption in the traditional sense—it was desperation. When feeding your children depends on selling the tools of your trade, morality becomes a luxury you can't afford.

The weight of these realities pressed on me as I traveled deeper into the countryside, documenting the ongoing tragedy of landmine victims—farmers who had lost limbs to explosives buried decades ago, children maimed while playing in fields, families destroyed by devices planted during a war that had supposedly ended.

The Schoolhouse in the Rice Paddies

One afternoon, while traveling deep into the countryside outside Phnom Penh for a story on landmine victims, I happened upon a small thatch schoolhouse on stilts rising from the rice paddies. The structure was impossibly modest—bamboo walls, a thatched roof, elevated on wooden posts to protect against seasonal flooding.

Something compelled me to stop. I asked my driver to pull over so I could approach the building. As I climbed the rickety wooden steps, I could hear children's voices—the universal sound of a classroom anywhere in the world, yet somehow distinctly different here.

Meeting Chenda

The teacher greeted me at the entrance. Her name was Chenda, and she was in her late thirties—close to my age—but looked much older. It was a telling sign. In my travels through Asia, I'd noticed that women typically looked younger than their actual age—it was a common observation, almost stereotypical, but more often than not it proved true. When an Asian woman looked older than her years, it usually meant she'd lived through extraordinary hardship. Life had been cruel enough to leave visible marks that even youth couldn't mask.

Chenda's weathered face told a story before her words did.

In her best English—which was far superior to my nonexistent Cambodian—she welcomed me and began sharing her story. The conversation was more pantomime than deep dialogue, but I understood her every gesture and hung on her every word.

She had been a teacher for nearly twenty years. As a child, she had grown up during the ruthless rule of the Khmer Rouge. Her father was kidnapped in the middle of the night by these brutal militants and killed—one of the estimated 1.7 million people murdered during that genocidal regime.

The loss forced her older sister to turn to prostitution to help support the family. Chenda had many brothers and sisters, and her mother, grief-stricken and constantly ill with fits of depression, couldn't support them all alone. The family had survived, but the cost was measured in dignity, innocence, and dreams deferred or destroyed.

Yet here was Chenda, teaching children in a schoolhouse she'd built from almost nothing, carrying forward despite everything she'd endured.

Twenty-Five Reasons for Hope

Chenda explained that the small school had about twenty-five children. Sometimes she had a helper, but on that day she was alone with the kids. She invited me to meet them, and I had the privilege of being introduced to every single one.

They were truly lovely. Big booming smiles erupted from their faces. Wild laughter filled the small space whenever I did just about anything—wave, make a silly face, attempt to pronounce their names. Their joy was uncontainable, despite circumstances that should have crushed their spirits.

Chenda explained that parents had to fund their children's education themselves—the local jurisdiction provided no support for schools. As a result, very few children in rural areas received any education at all. These twenty-five represented the fortunate few whose families could scrape together enough to send them here.

Looking around, I noticed most of the children weren't wearing shoes. They had notebooks, but many were nearly filled, with no replacements in sight. Pencils were precious commodities, sharpened down to nearly nothing before being discarded.

I felt a tug at my heartstrings.

A Small Gesture

I asked Chenda how I could help. Could I buy sandals for the children? Pencils and paper for their studies?

Her face reddened with emotion as she accepted my offer. The gratitude in her eyes was overwhelming—disproportionate, I thought, to the small gesture I was proposing. But I was thinking like a Westerner. For her and these children, this wasn't small at all.

The next day, I returned with arms full of supplies. I was met by two dozen gleeful children and the lovely Chenda, who presented me with hand-drawn notes, pictures, and origami flowers made from scrap paper. The care they'd taken to create these gifts—using materials they could barely afford to spare—humbled me completely.

I distributed sandals to each child, watching their faces light up as they slipped them on their feet for perhaps the first time in their lives. I gave Chenda a box of pencils, several packages of notebook paper, and a bunch of flowers I'd picked up just for her.

Inside the card that accompanied the flowers was some money and a thank-you note. She opened it privately, but when she looked up at me, tears were streaming down her face. She tried to refuse—insisted it was too much—but I pressed her to accept it. She'd given me far more than I could ever give her.

Lessons No School Could Teach

I left that afternoon with a full heart and profound sadness. I knew I would never see Chenda or those children again. I knew that many of them would likely never reach adulthood—victims of poverty, disease, unexploded ordnance, or the countless other dangers that plagued rural Cambodia.

But I was so grateful to have met them and shared a moment in time where our lives intersected. In that brief encounter, they became my teachers, offering lessons on life that no school ever could:

That joy is not dependent on circumstances. That resilience can bloom in the harshest soil. That dignity persists even when everything else has been stripped away. That kindness costs nothing and means everything. That education matters not because of what it can get you, but because it represents hope itself—the belief that tomorrow might be better than today.

I traveled to Cambodia to document their stories. But the truth is, they documented something in me—a reminder of what truly matters, what genuine hardship looks like, and what real courage means.

Chenda and those twenty-five children on stilts in the rice paddies taught me more about humanity in two days than I'd learned in a lifetime of comfort and privilege. And for that lesson, I remain forever grateful.