2020-10-17_09-19-39
Each year, the Tonle Sap lake, fed by monsoon rains and the Mekong River system, spills onto a vast floodplain, that covers a number of provinces in Cambodia. Some of the villages close to the lake are permanently flooded, and are literally floating villages. Others further away from the lake's edge are flooded only seasonally, and houses are linked to the ground, but raised on stilts by as much as 5 meters, as is the case in this image. Here people are more fortunate than those who have been pushed off the land, since both fishing and dry season agriculture are possible. Yet, with diminishing fish stocks and small farm sizes (about half a hectare per family), most families survive on little more than a few dollars a day. The floods are both a blessing and an added problem. While it brings the fish closer to the villages, the declining fish stocks have halved the quantity of fish a household is able to catch if they do not use fishing methods prohibited by the government. Consequently, the amount of nutrition and income a family can get from the floods has declined by as mush as 50%, with no option to engage in agriculture as their fields lie under 4-5 meters of water. The water also transforms simple day to day activities. Something as simple as visiting one's neighbor involves getting into and out of a boat, even though the destination is only across what was the village road. On our first night in one of these villages, my colleague was woken in the night by a boatman from another village in search of a midwife, as his wife was giving birth on the boat. Hardly any services are available to these communities, as many government departments are understaffed in the first place, and in any case do not prioritize these villages. Despite this myriad of hardships and inconveniences that are the hallmarks of marginalization, these people have not forgotten that some joys need nothing but each other.
2020-10-17_09-19-39
Each year, the Tonle Sap lake, fed by monsoon rains and the Mekong River system, spills onto a vast floodplain, that covers a number of provinces in Cambodia. Some of the villages close to the lake are permanently flooded, and are literally floating villages. Others further away from the lake's edge are flooded only seasonally, and houses are linked to the ground, but raised on stilts by as much as 5 meters, as is the case in this image. Here people are more fortunate than those who have been pushed off the land, since both fishing and dry season agriculture are possible. Yet, with diminishing fish stocks and small farm sizes (about half a hectare per family), most families survive on little more than a few dollars a day. The floods are both a blessing and an added problem. While it brings the fish closer to the villages, the declining fish stocks have halved the quantity of fish a household is able to catch if they do not use fishing methods prohibited by the government. Consequently, the amount of nutrition and income a family can get from the floods has declined by as mush as 50%, with no option to engage in agriculture as their fields lie under 4-5 meters of water. The water also transforms simple day to day activities. Something as simple as visiting one's neighbor involves getting into and out of a boat, even though the destination is only across what was the village road. On our first night in one of these villages, my colleague was woken in the night by a boatman from another village in search of a midwife, as his wife was giving birth on the boat. Hardly any services are available to these communities, as many government departments are understaffed in the first place, and in any case do not prioritize these villages. Despite this myriad of hardships and inconveniences that are the hallmarks of marginalization, these people have not forgotten that some joys need nothing but each other.