How (Not) to Start an Orphanage

by Tara Winkler

  Sineit had more reason than most to have a fit of teenage angst but I was intent on finding out what had upset her. Sinet filled me in. It turned out Sineit had been badly upset by her boyfriend. She was a romantic soul despite all she’d been through, and dreamed of falling in love, getting married and having beautiful babies. Hearing this made me feel very sad. Being HIV positive with just a five-year life expectancy . . . it was heartbreaking.

  After we got Sineit patched up, I decided my bruised butt needed a rest, so I took the afternoon off and headed into town to write a few emails and catch up with friends and family. I went to an internet cafe and signed into MSN messenger. To my delight, Fiona Reynolds was online.

  Tara: Hey! Fee! How are you?

  Fiona: Hi Tara, great to hear from you. How are the kids?

  Tara: They’re really good. How are YOU?

  Fiona: I’ve had some bad news. The tumours have come back but they’re inoperable this time. The doctors say they can make the end as comfortable as possible.

  Tara: What?

  Tara: Fuck.

  Tara: No! Oh god. Fee!

  Fiona: I’m sorry, the doctor’s here. I gotta go. Talk soon. Love you x

  Tara: Love you too. So much. I’ll call x

  I cried and cried until I couldn’t breathe through my nose. People in the cafe started to look at me curiously.

  I sent an email off to Sal Reynolds, Fee’s little sister, asking for more information. Was it true? Was there any hope? If I flew back early, could I see her?

  Sal was in the year below Fee and me at NEGS but she was also a horsey girl who I’d come to know very well. Sal was a lot like Fee—a high achiever and a born leader. She and Fee were extremely close. It made me think of how I’d feel if I was ever faced with losing Noni. The thought was utterly unfathomable. I was always so impressed with how well Sal managed. She had been such an incredible support to Fee throughout the three years of operations and treatment.

  Sal wrote back the next day to confirm that Fee didn’t have long. It could be just a matter of days. ‘Don’t come back for her sake, Tara. She’s not really herself anymore. Only come back if you think it will help you,’ she said.

  My heart sank, but I knew I had to keep it together. I had to call Fee in case I didn’t get another chance to say goodbye.

  I bought a phone card and shut myself in the cafe’s phone booth, hands shaking as I dialled her number. Her mother answered.

  ‘Hi Binny, it’s Tara.’ I started to cry.

  ‘I’m so glad you called,’ she whispered gently.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Binny.’ I couldn’t imagine how she must be suffering right now.

  ‘Thanks, Tara,’ she said. There was a long, painful silence. ‘I’ll see if Fiona’s awake.’

  A few moments later, my friend came on the line.

  ‘Tara?’ Fee’s voice still sounded exactly the same.

  I had a lump in my throat the size of a bowling ball. ‘Yeah, Fee, it’s me . . . I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too!’ She sounded surprisingly normal. ‘How are the kids?’

  The kids?! For an instant, I’d forgotten where I was.

  ‘The kids are good, Fee. They’re doing much better now. But I’m leaving as soon as I can to come home and see you.’

  ‘That’d be really nice,’ she replied, a little fainter this time.

  There was a long silence on the line. The bowling ball grew in my throat.

  ‘How are the kids?’ Fiona said again, clearly forgetting she’d asked already.

  I cried as quietly as I could into the phone, thinking about what Sal had said.

  ‘The kids are good. They’re doing much better now,’ I said again.

  She must be so scared, I thought to myself. I wondered if she knew I was calling to say goodbye. I thought about what a traumatic experience that would be—a horrifying reminder of your imminent demise.

  I scrambled to find the right words. ‘Fee, you know you’re one of the most exceptional human beings I’ve ever met? I really mean that. You’ve been such a wonderful friend to me. You know, you always made every single person in our grade at NEGS feel like they were important and they mattered. I’m sure you’ve made every person you’ve ever met feel that way. I can’t tell you what an inspiration you are to me—the way you set your mind to things and then actually achieved them. I feel so incredibly lucky to know you and call you my friend. ’

  ‘Wow, Tara. Thanks. That means a lot. I can’t wait to see you.’

  ‘I’ll be home to see you really soon. I love you, Fee.’

  ‘I love you too, Tara.’

  ‘Bye,’ I whispered.

  ‘Bye, Tara.’

  The phone went dead. I held it to my ear and cried hard. There was so much more I wanted to say, but what words could ever be enough in the last conversation you have with someone you love?

  Sally and I decided to leave immediately, a few weeks earlier than we’d planned. I was twenty-one and had never lost a close friend before.

  Sally helped me arrange everything. We handed the pink villa back to the landlord and set up an account for CCT at the ANZ Royal Bank where Jedtha could receive funds from us. I had a couple of friends who were coming soon to volunteer, so I’d hear how things were going.

  I bade a sad farewell to Chan and Mina, promising to stay in touch and continue to help them if I could.

  I also said a really wrenching goodbye to the kids, promising to come back one day soon. They got very emotional, which meant I got emotional, too. It was awful.

  Sinet seemed to be particularly devastated that I was going so much sooner than expected. I felt terrible, like I was abandoning her. So I gave her my Cambodian phone, with some credit on it and my Australian number programmed into it. I hoped this would show her that the connection between us wasn’t being cut for good.

  Sally helped me pack and we both left Battambang late in the evening. Chan drove us through the night to Phnom Penh airport.

  My ex-boyfriend, Altiyan, picked me up from the airport in Sydney.

  My conversation with Fee was the last she ever had. She went to sleep after we spoke and never woke up again.

  Altiyan drove me to Orange, about three and a half hours west of Sydney, for the funeral. Fiona had asked if I could play a song I’d written for her at the service.

  The church hall was full of familiar faces from NEGS—girls from all different grades, boys from our brother school and many of the NEGS teachers.

  I couldn’t handle it when Fee’s mum, Binny, got up to speak. All the tears I’d been holding back came gushing out at once. And every time I looked over at Sal, I lost it again.

  Holding it together enough to perform that song was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my life. Luckily, Altiyan is a talented musician, and he supported me by playing guitar and singing a beautiful harmony line. I probably couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for him. He was a rock for me to lean on that day.

  Fee’s illness and death brought Sal Reynolds and me closer together and I’m thankful for the role she continues to play in my life.

  I still think of Fiona Reynolds all the time and try to imagine what amazing things she would have done with her life. I have no doubt that, whatever she chose to do, the world would have been a better place with her in it.

  For the next few months, I tried to reconnect with friends and family and work out what to do next. But I was in another downward spiral.

  It was partly the grief, of course. It put me in a bad place, made everyday life just bloody hard going. And when life is hard going, my eating disorder tends to take over. The unhealthy thoughts and feelings win.

  I did bits and pieces of work, none of which I particularly enjoyed. I worked at the racetrack, testing racehorses for drugs, which basically involved shoving saucepans under the horses when they’re taking a piss, after each race, to collect their urine. I taught horseriding and I did some voiceover work for my dad, Pet
er.

  But the dark clouds continued to engulf me.

  Through all of this, though, one thing that never wavered was my enthusiasm for SKO. I spent a lot of time talking with Sally Power about all things Cambodia.

  I’d never want to imply that running off to work in a ‘third world’ country is a solution to ‘first world’ problems. I generally find every part of that particular narrative reductive and potentially quite dangerous.

  But nevertheless, thoughts of going back to Cambodia did kind of keep me going.

  Sally and I spent hours trying to think up more ways to raise funds for CCT, so we could keep paying SKO’s nurse and keep supplementing the orphanage’s food budget. We managed to get CCT’s logos designed, business cards printed, and a website up and running, mostly with pro bono assistance.

  I occasionally received very short basic messages from Sinet—things like Hello sister! or I miss so mach. I missed her and the other kids too, and I found myself worrying about them a lot.

  I just hoped I could earn myself enough money to justify going back sometime in the not-too-distant future.

  Several weeks into this dark patch a family friend, Dave Hibbard, invited me out to a gig at Tatler, a bar in Darlinghurst. Dave is a well-known drummer in Sydney and had been one of the volunteers to visit SKO after Sally and I left. I really had to push myself to go, but I knew it would be nice to see him, and I looked forward to talking with him about SKO and Cambodia.

  It turned out to be a good night—the music was great and it was fun to catch up with Dave and other friends who turned up. Towards the end of the night another familiar face dropped in: Carolyn Shine, the keyboard player who had given me piano lessons the year before.

  There was something very different about meeting her out at night. I was all dressed up, being a twenty-something girl in Sydney, but she was dressed more casually. With her long, dark wavy hair and piercing blue eyes, she could get away with anything. I suddenly felt self-conscious and overdressed.

  But she seemed surprised and happy to see me, and we were soon chatting easily. She’d spent a few years living in Hanoi, and could speak quite fluent Vietnamese. With an interest in South-East Asia in common, we had a lot to talk about.

  After the night ended and I’d made my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking how cool it was to bump into Carolyn. She seemed like a lot of fun and genuinely interested in my stories from Cambodia. I texted Dave and asked him for her number.

  In time, the grief and the bad feelings started to ease a bit. I decided to be proactive—I bought a bicycle and started riding around the streets of Sydney in an effort to make my life feel more South-East Asian. I longed for the flat Cambodian roads but still enjoyed the pace of life and the inadvertent exercise that comes from getting around on a bike.

  Then, one afternoon, I was going way too fast around a bend like an idiot, had a crash and fractured both my wrists. Which is actually exactly what life in South-East Asia can be like sometimes!

  So I was in a cast the next time I caught up with Carolyn.

  We went for a walk around Centennial Park together, chatting about our travels at first, then skipping on to linguistics, music, science and scepticism. She was a bit older than me, but it didn’t seem that way when we were together. She was such a fun, passionate and free-spirited person. We seemed to meet in the middle and I was over the moon about our wonderful new friendship.

  By early May 2007, I was feeling good enough to get back to focusing on my career. Maybe I should go and study something IT-related—computer science or graphic design or maybe even a science degree?

  I was still pondering this and talking over options with Sue and Peter when my grandmother Joan sat me down with the most exciting, unexpected news. She had decided to donate an unbelievable $25,000 to CCT!

  ‘I’m impressed with the work you’re doing in Cambodia, Tara,’ she said. ‘I’m very proud of you and I’m looking forward to coming over to Cambodia to see what you do with this money.’

  ‘Oh my goodness, Joan!’ I gasped. ‘Really? Are you serious?! Oh my god! Thank you so much!’ I flung my arms around her and gave her a huge hug. It was probably the greatest gift I’d ever received.

  The money was for the kids, of course, but I was thrilled to have been given the opportunity to continue what I had started. But the real gift to me was knowing how much Joan believed in me.

  It took a while for the enormity of what she’d done to sink in. This was even more money than we’d raised last time! I wrote to Jedtha immediately to let him know the good news and tell him that I’d be back in Cambodia before the end of the year.

  It turned out the donation came not a moment too soon. A couple of weeks later, I got the following email from Jedtha:

  Dear Tara,

  I would like to inform you about news from sko.

  Yesterday, Rath warned to fire Reaksmey and social worker from sko.

  Could we start new organisation soon? I think if we delay longer, the staff will receive more and more pressures, especially the nurse from Rath! And the big problems could come out.

  I look forward to hearing your reply soon.

  What the hell? Start a new NGO! Where on earth had this come from?

  I wasn’t even sure what he meant, let alone what to make of it. It sounded very worrying though.

  I’d spent enough time in Cambodia by now to know that getting to the bottom of all this by email was going to be pretty much impossible, so I booked my flight for early August.

  I let Jedtha know that I would be back in Cambodia soon, so we could discuss this all in person. I tried to offer the only real reassurance I could by adding: Don’t worry, we will all sit down together and work out why Rath is upset and work to resolve the problem.

  Then, just a few weeks before I was due to leave, I received a very strange text message from Sinet.

  Hello Tara. Don’t worry me. I be brave.

  Here was another cryptic message that I didn’t quite know how to interpret. I knew she must have trawled the dictionary to find those words. Why did she need to be brave? What was going on over there? I replied, asking her what she meant, but didn’t hear from her again. There was no point in calling—neither of us had the language skills to have a proper conversation. I crossed my fingers, hoping it was nothing serious.

  But getting back to Cambodia felt all the more urgent now.

  ‘The big problems could come out . . .’ Those words of Jedtha’s kept rolling around in my head. At the time, I had no idea what Jedtha meant. I came to learn just how cautiously he chose those words, which is no surprise given his history.

  In 1976, the Khmer Rouge was in power and Year Zero had ticked over to Year One. Thousands of Cambodians had been murdered. Money was outlawed, along with religion, music, private ownership, family relationships, western medicine and personal freedom. Cambodia was renamed Democratic Kampuchea and was ruled by the Angkar, the anonymous leadership.

  Into this state of chaos, a boy was born in a field. His mother was working the land for the Khmer Rouge, far from her village. She named her baby Jedtha: Pon Jedtha.

  When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979, three-year-old Jedtha and his family returned to their old village in Prey Veng province. They began rebuilding their lives, doing the job that had allowed them to survive the regime—working the land.

  In the years that followed, when most of Cambodia was in the grip of a terrible famine, the Pon family’s farming skills stood them in good stead. They grew rice on their five hectares of land. This meant they could expand their business into breeding livestock such as cattle, buffalos, chickens and ducks. They were well off compared to most of their countryfolk in the early eighties.

  The eldest child of four, Jedtha soon had responsibilities well beyond his years. By the time he was six, his mother and father already relied heavily on him to help with farm work and look after his younger siblings. There was no time for games, or rest, or f
un. Working meant the difference between eating and going hungry, between life and death. Jedtha knew of other kids his age who didn’t have work to do, who had died of hunger.

  In 1989, when the Vietnamese troops finally withdrew, the country was renamed the State of Cambodia and Buddhism was re-established as the country’s official religion. Cambodian people were hopeful that there were good times to come. But for the Pon family, 1989 was the year everything started to go wrong.

  Jedtha’s father started having an affair and abandoned his family. The night before he left, he beat Jedtha badly and threatened to kill him with a knife. Jedtha’s parents couldn’t legally divorce because at that time Cambodia had no laws, but Jedtha’s father never spoke to his wife or children again.

  Jedtha’s mother struggled to recover emotionally, work the farm on her own and look after her four children. One by one, she had to sell off the animals, and soon the rice fields were bare for lack of sowing. She fell into a deep depression and started drinking. All responsibility for the family fell on the shoulders of Jedtha, now thirteen.

  Jedtha and his siblings bore the brunt of their mother’s rages. Jedtha once kept aside a little of the family’s rice to give to his aunt, who was starving. When his mother found out, she flew into a rage and accused him of stealing. Jedtha was often nursing wounds and bruises from her beatings while he worked to carry water, gather firewood and cook.

  Despite his responsibilities, Jedtha did do his best to attend school, which was six kilometres from home. Even though he only managed to attend one or two days a week, he made above-average grades.

  In 1991, when Jedtha turned fifteen, a peace agreement was signed in Paris, and Prince Sihanouk was again crowned king of Cambodia in 1993.

  Jedtha’s paternal grandmother, Toing, loved her kind and sensitive grandson fiercely. She could see how smart he was, and often told him so. She knew times were changing in Cambodia and that Jedtha had to seize the chance to make something of himself. She suggested he join the local pagoda as a novice monk so he could continue his studies. There is a long tradition in Cambodia of ‘temporary ordination’. Young men like Jedtha spend months or years as monks, learning Buddhist teachings before disrobing, marrying and making a life out in the world.