Rebuilding a Life
It only takes five kilograms of pressure to trigger an anti-personnel mine. The response is instantaneous as the small metal pin pierces the detonator. Hun Hay, a soldier with the Cambodia’s military, knew the risk he was taking with his assignment to locate landmines. It was December 1995, and the government was gaining ground in the bid to end Cambodia’s long-running civil war.
Hay, then 25, knew there was a landmine nearby, so he cautiously tried to locate it using his left hand, aided by a small shovel in his right.
Suddenly, without warning, it found him. In an instant he lost both eyes, his left arm just below the elbow and the index finger on his right hand, as well as sustaining shrapnel wounds all over his body. This particular landmine was not the usual type, and was connected to a device to set it off when lifted from the ground.
Every month 50-100 Cambodians are killed or maimed by landmines and other unexploded ordnance. Those disabled resort to begging as a way to generate income to support their families.
Hay, whose village is in a remote part of Siem Reap Province, chose to get on with his life in as productive a manner as his disability allowed. He had a wife and young son at the time of the accident, but he now has another son and daughter. They all live in his parent’s home.
In 2002 the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) began working with Hay and his family, with the installation of an open well in their community. The ADRA team also helped Hay develop a home garden and assisted him with animal-husbandry training.
Supported by a bamboo cane, Hay moves around his garden, draws water from the well and cares for his crops and animals, using the stub of his left arm and his good right arm and hand.
It’s an inspiration to watch Hay at work as he weeds his garden. He is easily able to identify by touch what is weed and what is crop. His happy disposition belies his disability, a trait not uncommon among Cambodians, despite years of suffering from war, atrocities and such forms of personal affliction.
Hay has accumulated savings from the sale of his excess produce and from a small government demobilisation income package. He has plans to build his family a new home in the next few years. Hay says he wants to improve his vegetable and animal production beyond his six piglets and small number of chickens, and with ADRA’s help this is a reality.
There are many ex-soldiers like Hay in Cambodia, but even more still who eek out an existence begging to support an alcohol addiction. ADRA aims to enable people reach their full potential, and works hard to empower people in need with new knowledge, new skills and new hope.
ADRA–Australia currently operates projects in Cambodia that include: food security, using improved agricultural techniques; adult literacy; small-enterprise development, generating improved family income; water and sanitation for better health; and nutrition education, targeting maternal and child health.
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