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By: HG. Gunavatar das
Cambodia, officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is one of the largest tourist attraction place in the world because of the presence of Angkor Wat Park. Siem Reap is the place for which everybody comes. In its ancient archeological park, hundreds of big and small temples are situated.
Inspired by the instructions of Lord Chaitanya and our Acharyas, we have been running a pioneering project in Siem Reap at about 50 kms from Angkor Wat. For reaching our project one has to pass through beautiful forest of Angkor Park, Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple, etc. As that gets over, sight of traditional Cambodian villages with their rice fields, traditional houses, agricultural land and rich flora and fauna welcome the onlooker’s sight. Now it is rainy season, so all looks greener when we reach our base in the Chub Village, in Angkor Thon district. Gush of fresh air and tall trees connect our mind closely to the Lord’s nature.
September is the month where the villagers are busy with rice plantation. One can see everyone going to the farm along with their whole family.
At our main land Yasodapura Eco Village, we have about 8 hectares wet land and 3 hectares of ready rice field. According to the prevailing system we have, we let one family take care of one hectare and 20 percent of the harvest goes to the Ashram.
Bong Ngun (Bong means “elder brother” in Khmer language) and his family is one of the families who grow rice in our field. He has been with us since few years and taken to chanting. Now he chants the Hare Krishna Mahamantra every day on the beads. He also knows the basic philosophy of Krishna Consciousness. He knows that Krishna is the Supreme Lord and that only by practicing Krishna Consciousness, people can break the vicious cycles of birth and death. He also knows the four regulative principles and that we don’t eat meat and we worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead Vishnu/Krishna. In his young age he was a monk in a Pagoda inside Angkor wat, so he knows a little about Lord Vishnu.
Bong Ngun and other farmers have been instructed not to use chemical fertilizers for growing rice, which they follow. Our land is naturally fertile by cow dung as during summer, everybody lets their cows graze in the fields.
We also have two cows and two calves. They go grazing daily in our field and also the neighboring field. The heavy rainy season has begun, so we need one shed for our cows to protect them from the heavy rain.
On the main land, we are also erecting boundary around the project. Last year we did fencing for the Ashram with all the fruit trees inside. This month we put some more wooden poles all around the land as a boundary.
The land rate in this area is increasing very rapidly, by 300%, with road construction taking place. But this ‘development’ is actually pronouncing misfortune for the local villagers because big companies and land sharks have started coming to purchase all the agriculture land.
These villagers, who have grown up in nature, practising traditional farming, are suddenly endangered. Modernization of farming has attracted all the rich companies to swallow the whole land. I am personally aware of one case, wherein one big family survives only on half hectare of land, and just beside their land lies 300 hectare empty land owned by a rich man. This is the situational irony in Cambodia.
Hopefully, the government will solve this unfortunate situation, and also at the same time more devotees will join to help our mission in the land of Cambodia. Now, we still don’t have sufficient fund. Although we have plans to open one traditional school, but this is almost impossible in the absence of manpower and some consistent inflow of fund.
Because of these conditions, we have decided to let some local families use our land and we take some percentage of production or in the form of money from them for the ashram. Though we prefer in kind, but somehow we have to accept money because we need to spend money on petrol and other such expenditures for devotees.
Other than this farming, we also do regular Food for Life in the villages. There is not a single village where they have not tasted prasadam and they have also become used to hear Hare Krishna Mahamantra, and every time we meet them we greet them with “Hare Krishna” and they also reply us in the same way.
It’s very challenging to start a farm community without the help of devotees, without man power or money power. Now we just have a small cottage at the farm, we have some plan to have one building in the village as a temple.
I don’t know for how much longer this project will be a dream, but we continue with what we can and hope one day these villagers will become serious devotees. Who knows, with Krishna’s blessings, maybe some of them will always sing Hare Krishna with us during Food for Life? Or maybe those farmers who work with us and who most of the times get prasadam will one day become sincere devotees? We have to do these two services at the same time grow our food while continuing to spread Krishna Consciousness in the locals.
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