By: HG Guna Avatar Das
Chub Village is one of the villages in the Commune of Chub where devotees are active. The Commune are all together having five villages and Chub village is located in the centre and has public schools, Police office, Health centre and Commune office. Since we made our beginning from this area, we normally stay in this village. Our land is also located inside this village (8 hectares belongs to Chub village and the rest to Prasat villages).
We had started with a small basecamp in this village for devotees and guests to stay since the government allows the foreigners to stay only around the community and not in the forest area. So, we decided to own a plot and a small house for the basecamp.
Recently, we sold this property to one of our devotees and reinvested this Laksmi in securing a bigger plot at Prasat village. This plot is planned to be our new project, Vedic Culture and Education Center. The new plot is located in front of Prasat Pagoda (Prasat means ancient temple). It is so named because inside this Pagoda there was once a small ancient Vishnu temple. It is likely to be older than Angkor Wat. From the last two months, interesting developments have been taking place in this Pagoda. The monk decided to install two Vishnu vigrahas around the Pagoda because a spirit entered someone’s body and requested the monk to do this.
The owner of the basecamp wanted to upgrade some of the facilities in the house and start English class for the children in Chub Village by April. Bhakta Khear was invited for this teaching mission. He was to stay and start the project as he has past experience in working for NGO and he has already built schools in Bakong District and few other places. He has already been on the job and has been staying with us at the basecamp from a month. Construction of classroom is already in progress while bathroom, toilet and kitchen are also planned to be upgraded.
The plot extends another 10m in the east, taking the total area to 25×50 m2. There is space to make a garden and grow some fruit trees. We pushed the fencing further in the east and planted around 40 bananas trees. The very little vegetable was grown as devotees were busy with the construction, but hopefully, once it is over and especially when we have some students participate, we will be able to plant.
We need some chairs and tables for teaching. Once procured, Bhakta Khear will try to promote and engage some senior students to start the classes. We decided to take students aged around 13-18 years because they needed to understand Khmer first before learning English, in which they can help. Once everything stabilizes, we can enchant them with music and art classes according to the students interested.
Nowadays, because of COVID 19 pandemic, the government has ordered social distancing rules. We, therefore, cannot have big gatherings either in the class or in any of the village programs. We, however, continued with our regular Food for Life Program confined to a few village houses. Like house program with only 5-10 people, we cooked some vegetable curry and served with rice noodle. Fortunately, the situation in Cambodia is not as bad as in other countries. So far only 2 people have tested positive for corona. The government is taking strong measures to not to allow it to spread in the community. People may travel within the country, but the airports and international travels are completely closed. Pray Krishna protects the devotees from this danger of COVID 19.
Now it is the beginning of the rainy season, everyone in the village will be busy with growing rice, our neighbours are already busy with repairing their water sumps to harvest the rainwater, coming from the water streams from the hills. Our Yashodapura Eco Village families have also started to cultivate in partnership, around 6 families will grow rice in our wetland and the rest of the families will grow crops in the dry land. In the devotees’ plot also we have started cleaning and plan to grow millet. Most of the time during the day, the cows are left free without any rope to graze in the fields. Hopefully, by the monsoon, the green grass will be available for the cows. We have a very few devotees here, so we need to work with the local to runs these three projects in the village and one Ashram with the help of Kumudaksa Prabhu in the town. There is little land in Phnom Phen also, given by one devotee, but we can go there only once in a month or two months. It’s very challenging but we need to just keep doing whatever we can in the guidance of senior devotees, guru and Krishna.
We are thankful to HH R.P. Bhakti Raghava Swami Maharaja, who put his time and effort right from the beginning i.e. from 2004 despite his busy schedule. He, however, continued to encourage us and develop the Cambodia Project. It is because of his holiness that we have a few dedicated devotees like Vishnurata Prabhu and Yadava Hari Prabhu to help us all the time we need. Maharaj, may your glories be eternal!
I also wish to thank everyone who extended their support to the Cambodian Yatra like HG Kala Dasa Prabhu, Kisora Prabhu, Prasanatma Prabhu, Shuka Mataji, Jay Radhika Mataji, Bong Shopat and Jerry Prabhu, BRS family Group Indonesia and India, FFL Cambodia, Cambodia Yatra, etc.
Wish you all keep happy and healthy in Krishna Consciousness.
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