July 2022: When It Rains…Flowers sing.

WHEN IT RAINS…FLOWERS SING

We have a group at Heartprint we call “Our Flowers”.  They are the newest and generally youngest members of our little community here in Siem Reap. And as with many things in life, sometimes the youngest among us are the wisest - or at least the most magical. 

The rains this year have been unrelenting and so thick you can barely see through them to your own hand. They come down in buckets, not drops.  Yes, they bring critical water for farmland; they also flood kitchens and bedrooms, vacant lots, and streets.  They force people to flee their homes and engulf too many who were never taught to swim. 

Just as we were set to begin to build a new home this month, after having removed the previous, about-to-collapse structure the family had been living in, there came a deluge.  The lot, already prone to flooding,  became a lake with no drainage options on land already leaking previous rains from the inside out.  The family was devastated but stoic, living under an open-air extension of a neighbor’s home while they waited for the water to drain and their new home to be built.

The Heartprint Build Crew, feeling dreadful about the circumstances, decided to start a new house for another family while the lake slowly evaporated from the first location. And then, more buckets. And more. The new site also flooded.  But with unwavering determination, they were able, on this lot, to create a “side reservoir” and pump the floodwaters from the building site into the reservoir.  They then did their magic with landfill and support slabs and began to build. 

Meanwhile, back at the Heartprint community center, Our Flowers sang, “Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day”, encouraging the weather to cooperate long enough for these two families to realize their new homes, high and dry and secure. And…there came a break. The Build team finished one house and then the original, flooded one after filling in the land and ensuring the foundations would hold firm. 

We can’t say for sure that “Our Flowers” convinced the rains to give us a bit of a break, but we also can’t say for sure they didn’t.  

We had a lot of help from a volunteer from Australia and expect we will have a lot more future help as we welcome small groups of volunteers back in August, September, and November.  Let us know if you’d like information on volunteering to help make heart prints in Siem Reap. 

Back onto the rains for a moment: We talk a lot about the swim lessons we give to as many of our young people as possible.  Yes, it’s recreational fun, and they love it, but it’s also a survival skill in an area where monsoon rains can turn your front yard into a swirling current and turn actual rivers and lakes into deadly forces for anyone, much less those who lack even the most basic swimming skills.  We are starting new lessons now for fifteen of our young people. You help us do this.  Thank you. 

And if you want to help a bit more, join us for Silent September.  We will be sharing more next month, but read about it here and give it some thought. Silence can hurt, and it can also do good.  Maybe you can spare us a few hours of silence come September. 

Finally, among many other activities, we held our first-ever Heartprint Family Open Day in July.  The young people wanted their families to see all they got up to here in our community center for the past year: the learning, laughing, dancing, art, poetry, computers - it was a good day.

Here’s to a good August!