by Tara Winkler
The other ‘crime’ I’d apparently committed was taking Sineit, Makara and various kids to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap for medical treatment. According to the emails Peter had received, Jedtha had said: ‘It is highly illegal in Cambodia for a foreigner to take Cambodian children anywhere on their own.’
According to the staff, they could have me arrested and jailed at Phnom Penh airport for either of these crimes.
The accusations were so ridiculous it was laughable—except this was no laughing matter. The staff were seriously pissed off, it seemed. It was hard to understand what was happening, but Davi was quoted as saying: ‘If I ever get fired, I will definitely tell the authorities about Tara.’ They’d completely convinced Chloe that they could have me sent to jail if they chose.
Apparently, while Sally Power was visiting, Chloe and Jedtha had gone to her with a litany of complaints about me. Sally, wondering if Chloe might have some kind of personal beef against me, asked Chloe to type it all up and email it to her so we could all try to sort it out.
Peter gave me a printout of the list of complaints that Chloe had sent to Sally. To give you a taste of what I was up against, here is the list (verbatim) of the things that Chloe said about me, followed by my responses to them. I have to preface this by saying that while none of these accusations would hold water in a court of law, they are admittedly examples of bad practice caused by a lack of staff, funds and professional expertise.
1. Tara is running CCT. She has taken all the staff ’s jobs and their files for herself. Apparently her taking all the documents and keeping them is illegal. For example, the medical files should be with the nurse et cetera.
2. For a foreigner to take kids to Phnom Penh is illegal. It isn’t her job, but the job of the employees.
3. She administers medicine, which the nurse should do. I’m so-so on this one as the nurse is bloody hopeless and I think Tara would do a better job.
4. She flat-out spoils the children. She is ruining them beyond belief. She gives the children anything they want. It doesn’t matter what it is. Money, food, movies on Sundays, video games which Rithy is highly addicted to. All the kids have too many clothes—they don’t need them. All the dorms have fans in them, which they don’t need. They’re extremely resentful of me because I don’t buy these for them. If I do it is much rarer than they’re used to. The kids don’t want to study or play outside at all now, just watch TV and play videos and games. Giving children phones, money, presents etc. is just not necessary. CCT could be running on a quarter of its costs and supporting four times as many kids if we cut this out.
5. The kids have been led to believe that the staff are now lower beings and if the children don’t like them, they’re fired. This has led to the children threatening staff, not listening to staff, being rude, all of this I have witnessed. The children are definitely running the show. I am so afraid they will not be able to reintegrate into society. The spoiling etc. is not exactly illegal but if DoSVY or any other NGOs found out they would give Tara and CCT a really hard time and most likely take the children away.
6. The dogs full stop are a disgusting waste of money. I know she loves them but no money should be taken from CCT to pay for them as I could support probably two children for every one dog that she has. They are better-fed and taken care of than the children.
7. The obsession with medicine and doctors is also a waste of money. I think they should most definitely be looked after in this department but the staff are telling me she is forever taking blood, going to Phnom Penh buying medical supplies etc. Also taking Sovanni to Phnom Penh for her vaccinations is costing around $600. And Jedtha said Battambang has way cheaper alternatives to this.
I’m not going to launch into a huge diatribe defending myself. The most important thing to take away from this disaster is that Chloe did actually make some salient points . . .
I wanted to give the kids the same upbringing that I had been lucky enough to have, but Chloe’s remark about reintegration was spot on. These days I understand that I was setting up an unrealistic standard of living that would create problems when it was time for them to move on to independent living.
And the issue raised about foreigners taking children to Phnom Penh is, more than anything, an indication of my failings as a leader. My team should have felt able to communicate their concerns with me—this would have been in the best interests of both CCT and me. Because, although it’s not illegal for foreigners to take unaccompanied minors on excursions, it’s certainly not best practice. Even as the managing director of CCT, I would not do this today—our current child protection policy states that children must be accompanied by the child’s guardian as well as a CCT social worker or nurse.
The one thing I will defend is the points raised about my dogs. Those dogs were and still are a very crucial element to my overall safety in Cambodia. On a trip to Phnom Penh in late 2014, without the dogs with me, three men grabbed me on the street one evening, strangled me and attempted to rape me. Luckily I got away and managed to actually help catch and arrest one of the three men. Safety is an issue to take seriously in Cambodia. Cambodians keep dogs as a means of protection because it’s effective. Almost every expat I know who’s lived in Cambodia long term has experienced house burglaries and robberies. In the nine years I’ve been living in Cambodia I haven’t been broken into once because of the protection my three beautiful dogs provide.
The other issue—and it’s just as important—is that in those early days in Cambodia I was very isolated and those dogs brought, and still bring, immeasurable happiness to my life. They contribute significantly to my overall wellbeing in Cambodia. Before I was receiving a salary, I relied on a bare minimum of funds from CCT to feed myself and my dogs, and I used to feel bad for how little they had to eat. As soon as I began receiving a modest salary, I of course began to cover my dogs’ costs myself, and this has been the case ever since.
With the benefit of time (and perhaps a little more wisdom), I can see what important lessons these accusations held for me.
But back in 2008, having them fired at me from afar felt like a knife in my back. CCT was not operating in line with best practices on a number of issues, but I felt that those shortcomings weren’t a result of only my wrongdoing. We were a team, and the mistakes we made, we made as a team. And threatening me with jail was outrageously cruel. I was deeply hurt and felt very betrayed.
Chloe went on to explain that she’d withheld the ‘evidence’ that she’d found in my room in an effort to protect me. But the staff told her it didn’t matter. If they told the authorities I owned ‘pornography’, the authorities would believe them.
Despite the absurdity of these charges, there was enough darkness in that threat to scare me half to death. The thought of not being able to go back to Cambodia, of not seeing the kids again and of leaving things on this horrific and humiliating note made me sick to my stomach.
There were a lot of other bullet points about Sinet, too, which were too outrageous and cruel to repeat here. As Chloe put it: ‘The staff have really got it in for Sinet, so I’m not sure what is and isn’t true.’
My friendship with Sinet was, apparently, a great source of angst for the staff. Their biggest beef seemed to be around a welcome sign I’d asked Sinet to make when my grandfather, Michael, had visited Cambodia several months earlier. According to the staff, she’d disrupted the afternoon’s activities to get it done, without first asking them for permission. I was mortified that asking her to do something that seemed so small to me had created so much conflict.
But it seemed that, in the staff ’s eyes, Sinet couldn’t do anything right. When she got good marks in school, it was because she was ‘bribing the teachers’. When I asked her to go grab my bag for me, she was ‘seen stealing from Tara’s wallet’. When we set up a bank account for her so she could get a visa for Australia, they immediately accused her of corruption.
The way they’d turned on her left me bristling with anger. How coul
d they do this to a young girl like Sinet, who’d been through so much already?
Young unmarried girls certainly are quite put upon in Cambodia—they’re expected to be meek and submissive and virginal, to work hard and look after their families and to disregard their own needs and ambitions. (The Cambodian youth of today are slowly changing this, though.)
Although Sinet was a typical good, meek little Khmer schoolgirl in many ways, she had a confidence about her that had helped her to survive everything she’d been through, and to be ‘mother’ to all the kids through the tough days at SKO. She was a natural leader with a great talent for just getting on and doing what needed to be done. Although perhaps not an ideal situation, she was the heart of CCT and the kids trusted her above everyone else. Sometimes she was the only one they listened to and the only one they talked to. So, by default, she’d become the voice of the kids. She’d come and talk to me when there was a problem because she trusted me. She had been hurt by too many Cambodian adults in positions of power and had learned not to trust them. And, at that time, the staff still hadn’t managed to earn her trust.
Perhaps I didn’t help much in that regard because the staff hadn’t done a great job of winning my trust either. I had never been in a position before where I had to be a leader. It was all brand new to me, I was still very young and had a lot to learn.
Feelings of disbelief, confusion, hurt, anger, sadness and despair flooded over me in waves as I tried to process it all.
‘I can’t believe Chloe and Jedtha are involved in all of this,’ I said to Peter through bitter tears. ‘They know what Sinet’s been through—and what she’s still going through with the court case. And look at everything she’s done on this trip. She’s done so much for CCT.’
Sinet was always talking about how much CCT had changed her life—how it was the best onga in the world. And now our team were being unthinkably horrible to her.
‘I’m not sure Jedtha is on board with these accusations,’ Peter said. ‘He doesn’t seem to agree with everything the staff have said. There are a lot of different angles to this whole mess. I think he can’t cope with conflict and he doesn’t know how to react. And as for Chloe—her head seems to have been completely turned by the staff. Does she have a history of this kind of behaviour?’
‘This is not the Chloe I know,’ I said bleakly.
I moved from the couch to the kitchen table, feeling like I was going to vomit. ‘So do you really think they can arrest me at the airport?’
Peter looked worried. ‘Let’s find the best legal advice we can get before we make any decisions,’ he said.
I dropped my head into my hands, shattered. I agreed that we couldn’t make any decisions just yet, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax until we did.
I heard Sue’s key turn in the front door—she was arriving home from my grandmother’s place.
Whenever anything bad happens in my life, Peter and Sue take on quite stereotypical roles—Peter gets angry and protective and kind of: ‘Oh no! You’ve messed with the wrong family!’ And Sue turns very warm and gentle and motherly.
‘Aw, sweetheart,’ Sue said, stroking my hair away from my face. ‘I’m so sorry this has happened. It’s just not fair.’
She evoked such a deep feeling of childhood comfort in me that I just dissolved into tears again. I’d never been on the receiving end of anything like this before. I’d never been so betrayed by people I liked and who I thought liked me. And the fear that I might not see the kids again . . .
If ever the universe could somehow conspire to bring about the Worst. Hangover. Ever. This had to be it. I staggered to the bathroom, locked the door, vomited, and then lay on the bathroom floor for a long time.
I didn’t want to go back out to the living room or my bedroom, because I knew Sinet was having a lovely time in the front room watching YouTube videos, oblivious to everything that was happening. I wanted to keep it that way. I wanted to protect her from as much of this as I could.
My phone buzzed. It was a text message from Carolyn. How are you feeling? Up for dinner tonight at mine?
Not so good, I texted back. I followed with a short novella outlining what had just happened.
The phone immediately buzzed with her reply: I’m on my way.
Fifteen minutes later, she texted to say she was parked outside our house with a bottle of red wine. I went straight outside and sat in the passenger seat for several hours, drinking straight from the bottle until I was numb. I hate red wine, but I adored Carolyn. In that moment, she felt like the only good thing left in my life.
Over the next few days, Sally got in touch. She’d been burned by the whole thing, too. She felt that the problem with the staff was fundamentally a clash of cultures. I didn’t disagree with that assessment, but it didn’t make it feel any less personal, less hurtful.
It was good to have the support of the people around me. As always, when I really needed help, my family were 100 per cent behind me. And because they cared about the kids as much as I did by now, the kids were our main concern.
We got in touch with a Khmer friend who worked for an NGO in Phnom Penh to ask if he could recommend a good lawyer. He put us in touch with a Khmer lawyer whom he said was one of Phnom Penh’s best and most respected.
We emailed the whole story to the lawyer and waited anxiously for his response. He wrote back assuring us that no, I wouldn’t be arrested at the airport, so we arranged to meet in Phnom Penh.
Peter decided, like the hero he is, to book a ticket and come back to Cambodia with Sinet and me. I can’t overstate my relief at hearing this.
‘We’ll get through this together, sweetie-pops. They should’ve thought twice before deciding to fuck with the Winklers,’ he said with a cheeky grin.
We were hoping we could also talk to Chloe when we arrived back in Cambodia, but we got an email from Jedtha saying that she’d packed up her stuff and left.
Chloe and I didn’t speak to each other for many years after she left Battambang, but recently we got in touch and talked about what had happened. She gave me an honest and generous apology and said she’ll always feel guilty about the part she played in it all. If it’s her punishment to have the whole episode put in this book, she’d cop it on the chin. (I appreciate the offer, but I’ve changed her name here anyway. I don’t want to punish Chloe, or anyone actually. I’ve only included this whole thing because the lessons learned by me are too important to leave out.)
Chloe explained that she’d been robbed shortly after she arrived in South-East Asia and she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress after she returned to Australia. She said it’s no excuse, but she’d have been thinking more clearly if she hadn’t been suffering from that background stress. And then the staff came to her with all their concerns and they were incredibly convincing.
Matters like this are never black and white. Chloe and I are now on good terms again.
16
I was filled with dread as we set off for Sydney airport. The triumphant return I’d been imagining a few days earlier was such a long way from my current reality. Despite having all these new donations, new supporters and an Australian Story documentary on the horizon, going back to CCT now felt like the last thing in the world I wanted to do.
We had an extra forty kilos worth of donated items that friends and donors had begged me to take back for the kids. Carolyn and I had sat up into the night parcelling them up. It should have been fun, but with all the fear and uncertainty and hurt and anger I was feeling, it had just felt like a chore.
We begged the guy at the check-in counter in Sydney to let us take the excess luggage—and as soon as he heard about CCT, he said: ‘That’s fine, guys, no worries. It must be pretty crazy over there.’ We all looked at each other and said: ‘That’s truer than you know.’
I turned away from the counter to see that Sally Reynolds had come to see me off. I had a few minutes to sit down and tell her about everything that was happening.
When the time came to go through immigration, we were both in tears. She pulled out a little pouch of worry dolls that Fiona had given her. ‘I think you need them more than I do now,’ she said.
That made me cry even more. Leaving Sally and my mum and the safety and security of Sydney—and people who actually liked me . . . that was very hard.
The flight to Phnom Penh seemed to take even longer than usual, thanks to the heavy waves of dread that kept crashing over me.
Nobody jumped out of the crowd to arrest me at Phnom Penh, so we went straight to a hotel and settled in. Peter and I then had yet another passionate bitch session about Chloe and the staff. My temper got the better of me and let’s just say I got a little carried away . . .
It takes quite a lot for me to lose my temper, but when it happens, I do so rather spectacularly. I think I inherited this tendency from Peter. He can be as fiery as me. But in Phnom Penh that day, when I started to really lose it, he sat me down with his serious face on and gave me a little talking-to.
He said: ‘Tara, I’m very happy to be here in Cambodia with you and I’m very happy to help you through this. But there are some things I need from you. I need you to turn down the intensity, and I need you to stay calm. No more histrionics. If we’re going to get through this, we have to hose it down—not fan the flames.’
I thought back guiltily to all of my venomous outbursts of the last few days. Peter was right: it was time to leave all that behind now. I promised him—and myself—that I’d keep a cool head. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was make things any worse. And my dad would kill me if I didn’t!
This was the point in my life where I realised that the less drama you have in your life, the better. And while I haven’t exactly rewired my fundamental nature, I always do aim to stay calm and professional under stress.