It was a repressively hot day in the Cambodian jungle to the North of Battambang where I found her crumpled on a wood platform suspended above the ground.
Four days ago my wife and I had begun our journey up river from Siem Reap. The long, thin boat was filled with locals as it squeezed and scraped its way through the mangrove filled water. Eight hours on a wooden bench mixed with languidly hanging out on the roof of the vessel was as uncomfortable as it sounds. Still, the feeling we were hunting Colonel Kurtz as we sliced through the morning mist was worth it. Besides, $10 is a cheap day anywhere.
Battambang is a living reference to the Pol Pot regime’s three year stint randomly killing 1.75 million of its own citizens. This was a morally bankrupt time that left in its wake a population with an enormous scar between its young and old. An entire generation of the countries brightest now gone for ever: teachers, artists, businessmen, politicians, academics. A degree of sadness invades an otherwise perfect screenshot world. Thousands of landmines rest just below the earth all around here. They wait for playing children to suddenly wake them from a 40 year slumber, taking legs and lives with it.
We take a ride on the Bamboo Train with a blind man and his helper. We are soon joined along the way by women, children and farmers carrying sacks of grain. Our appearance in this far flung destination seemed a delight to our fellow passengers and was a highlight of the trip for us.
We are here specifically to find and then ride the bamboo train, a local solution to transport issues to its poorest. Built by hand for each use, it consists of a repurposed boat engine nailed to a pallet made of bamboo and assorted wood scraps, then strapped to mine cart axles and run on unmatched and rusty train tracks. It is both light and fast when riding it giving one the feeling of falling from the sky in a lawnchair. Two trains run either way in constant motion ferrying cross-legged people, livestock and foodstuffs. When they meet, one is dismantled by hand and lifted past the other for reassembly. The tracks clunk and knock as the speed of the beast muscles towards its destination 3 kilometres away.
Mr. Phillie had his own stories of his three years in captivity. He spoke of the rains, stealing tiny handfuls of rice, hunting insects and hiding them in his clothes. He would sneak away at night to build a small fire to cook this occasional meal. He talked of starvation and death by farming implements and other atrocities. All the while he kept this smile and almost a kind of relief. He is king in my eyes.
In the process of finding what we had searched for, we arrived at a tiny, little known village of no particular interest. The houses are make-shift: old wood boards, rotting bamboo and Elephant Grass thatch. Dirt paths polished from bare feet wind through to each house, the smell of fires burning trash, dogs sleeping in the shade in preparation for night - green meets brown meets ochre. Our guide, a local tuk tuk driver named Mr. Phillie followed patiently explaining at our every pause in our step.
This is the image of a 101 years old woman seeing a picture of herself for the very first time in her long life. This will always be one of my fondest memories.
It was here that I met this old woman. She was 101 years old she told me. A near impossible age spanning histories, technologies and culture shifts in a place where little of that matters. She was the poorest of the village and she existed on the kindness of neighbours for food scraps and health concerns. She was in the middle of eating from a small bowl of rice when we arrived. All at once, I realized the semblance of wood slats was kitchen, living room and bedroom. She crawled over to meet my outstretched hand. In that touch was a story that was transported to me. A woman who had lost 4 children, her husband and every member of her family to the regime, hunger or other forces both natural or otherwise. She had defied reason for her survival. A life of poverty past what conventional imagination might conjure. More than a moment was spent and a connection of sorts made - I took her picture for my memory.
Over the next two days the woman came to my mind often, like a song lodged in the brain, I couldn’t get rid of her. Over coffee one day, I decided to print a copy of the captured image of the woman. That day we went back to that village with Mr. Phillie , this time with purpose. I made my way to the woman again. She sat there as if she had never moved at all. I handed her the picture and she slowly grasped it with wet dish-water hands. She stared at the picture of herself trying to stitch the experience together with reality, her frail body folded and head between her knees. The woman leans into the photo as if to enter it. Mr. Phillie explains that this is the first time she has seen a picture of herself. She looks back at me, then makes her way back into the photograph. A smile of acknowledgement that momentarily blankets an unimaginable life of crushing poverty, loss and an uncertain future.
Photography can be more than capturing a moment. It can bring connectivity - bridging barriers of language, circumstance and even time. New photographers often complain that lifting the camera always brings a strain to the subject and changes a perfect moment into a snapshot. It is my opinion that the practise is not in composition and technique, but in the human engagement. The heart steps ahead of the lens.