Vineyard's generosity reaches a Cambodian school

At center, from left, Vineyard School administrator Chum Rathneary, Justin LaVigne, and Todd Alexander pose with students for a class photo. The school athletic director is to the right of Mr. Alexander. Photos courtesy of Todd Alexander.
Todd Alexander, right, and Roma Chhon, left, help Vineyard School administrator Chum Rathneary and students put books donated by Islanders on the library shelves.

March 27, 2008
By Janet Hefler
The Martha's Vineyard Times (Massachusetts, USA)

The Vineyard School in the Siem Reap region of Cambodia now has library shelves filled with books, supplies for students and teachers, access to the Internet, and a new computer teacher, thanks to the generosity of the Island community and the friends and family of Oak Bluffs harbormaster Todd Alexander.

Mr. Alexander recently returned from a 10-day trip to visit the school, built in 2005 with funds raised by him and his wife Karen Gelinas. In an article in The Times last month, Mr. Alexander made an appeal to the community for donations of books and money for the school. Collection boxes were set up at the Oak Bluffs School, West Tisbury School, the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School, ArtCliff Diner, and Mocha Mott's in Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs.

Before leaving for Cambodia on Feb. 23, Mr. Alexander said the publicity had resulted in an outpouring of donations, with enough books to fill seven boxes and about $5,000. Three laptop computers also were donated.

In a follow-up call on his return home, Mr. Alexander said he is very grateful to everyone that contributed, and to the many people who sent kind messages to him through the reader response feature on The Times website. He had a plaque inscribed with the names of the people who donated money, which he left at the school.

Mr. Alexander deemed the trip a success. Since his son is too young to travel so far, his wife stayed home to care for him, and Mr. Alexander's friend Justin LaVigne of Edgartown went on the trip with him.

"We got everything there, no problem," Mr. Alexander said. The two men each checked two boxes of books as luggage and used backpacks to carry their belongings on their flight.

Richard and Toni Cohen of West Tisbury, who had planned a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam around the time of Mr. Alexander's trip, offered to take two boxes of books and deliver them to the school. That left only one box that Mr. Alexander had to pay to check as extra luggage, which was still cheaper than shipping it.

When he arrived at the school, Mr. Alexander said he was relieved to see that there actually is a library, although many shelves were bare. The students know all about Harry Potter, though, he said.

Mr. Alexander spent monetary donations he received on dictionaries, reference books, a globe, and wall art, as well as notebooks, pens, and other supplies for students and teachers, which he purchased in Cambodia, since American dollars have more buying power there.

With almost 600 students attending the five-classroom school, desks are in short supply. Mr. Alexander and Mr. LaVigne visited the man who made the school's original desks, who lives a few miles away, and ordered 33 desks from him at a cost of $1,000.

Mr. Alexander also ordered a low-wattage computer through AAfC, which is compatible with the school's solar power, and set up a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Internet system. "There also was enough money to pay for a computer teacher for two years, to teach all the kids about it," he added.

His return visit to the school also gave Mr. Alexander the opportunity to spend some time with Roma Chhon, the young woman who provided the inspiration for building it. He and his wife met her in 2003 when she was 14, selling postcards and books outside Angkor Wat, a Buddhist Temple. When they learned Roma had dropped out of school because she had to work to help support her family, they offered to pay for her education.

After the couple returned home, they found out about the American Assistance for Cambodia's (AAfC) Rural Schools Project. They raised $13,000 through donations from friends, family, and the Island community, which the AAfC used to build the Vineyard School with matching funds from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

Although Roma visited the Island a few summers ago, Mr. Alexander said it has become very difficult since then to arrange another visit. She stays in touch via email, however.

Roma acted as an interpreter for Mr. Alexander and Mr. LaVigne during their stay in Cambodia. Now 19, she wants to focus on improving her English and attends the English School, for which Mr. Alexander and his wife continue to pay. "We're hoping she will be able to teach someday," he said.

Before going back to school last year, Roma's English-speaking skills landed her a job working for a hotel as a hostess.

"I saw her life before, and I saw it this time, and it was drastically different," Mr. Alexander said. "I really wasn't expecting that. Her family has a pump at their house now where they can get water, instead of having to go a couple of kilometers away for it, just to cook or do laundry. She's just much happier."

Mr. LaVigne became friends with Mr. Alexander while working at Mocha Mott's in Oak Bluffs several years ago and met Roma when she visited the Island.

"Todd and I had so many conversations about what he had done with the school over the years, and when the opportunity came up to go with him to see it in person, I was eager to experience it as well," he said.

The trip to Cambodia turned out to be a life-changing experience, Mr. LaVigne said. He especially was impressed by the children's obvious desire to be in school and their gratitude for an education. Mr. LaVigne said his visit to the school inspired him so much that he wants to start raising money to build another one, this time in a more rural area.

Although he already is busy starting a new business as a landscaper specializing in garden design and maintenance, Mr. LaVigne said he doesn't consider the fundraising an overwhelming hurdle.

Mr. Alexander has offered to help, although he said he is happy to let Mr. LaVigne take the lead. "To me, that's much more exciting, if you can get one more person down the line to build a school somewhere," he said.

Insider Cambodia

The menu is clever and contemporary, with plenty of nods to the seasonal produce of the region. Picture: Susan Kurosawa

March 22, 2008
The Australian

TABLES: Susan Kurosawa discovers a surprising oasis in Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat

WE have come to Siem Reap with two objectives. The first is, of course, to thoroughly explore the temples of Angkor Wat. The second is to try Khmer cuisine; will it be as spicy and fragrant as Thai, as layered and minty-peppery as Vietnamese, as French-influenced as the meals we have enjoyed for the past week in Laos?

We ponder such matters as we sit eating an unlikely schnitzel and spaghetti in a dining room so groovy it could slip into a lifestyle magazine spread with no need for further dressing. Between the ruins, the walking, the calf-strengthening climbing, the downtown sorties by madly weaving tuktuk and a new addiction to holy basil, we are having a day at rest. I am feeling supremely guilty; at any second, my high school principal, the stout-shoed Miss Claridge, surely will appear, tut-tutting about my bare legs and insisting I stand very straight and recite, in perfect order, the kings of the Khmer empire.

We are at Hotel de la Paix in the centre of Siem Reap; the architecture is faux art deco, very white and blocky in a Miami South Beach kind of way. Outside there are tuktuks tooting and dust whirling, but here all is as peaceful as the property's name suggests. The drawcard restaurant is Meric, its name taken from the renowned pepper grown in Cambodia's southern province of Kampot. Tables and upholstered chairs are arranged under cover along a cool colonnade off a central courtyard and there is further seating inside.

Noon temperatures are at the pointy end of the 30s so we opt for the arctic-chilled interior with its chocolate and mustard stripey decor, leather banquettes, columns and voluptuous deco lights. On the white-clothed tables sit perfect furled lotuses in tiny stone pots.

MENU SAMPLER

• Sesame-crusted prawns, papaya and ginger relish with feta cheese tahini dressing ($US8)
• Foie gras terrine on roasted mango and walnut crumble ($US12)
• Spice-crusted Australian beef tenderloin with braised puy lentils and port glaze ($US24)
• Baked New Zealand salmon with roasted fennel sauce and salad, finished with gnocchi ($US22)
• Sabayon gratin with exotic fruits and pina colada ice cream ($US7)
• Pomelo and rambutan salad with lemon basil gratinee ($US6)

(Dinner menu)

Tasmanian-born executive chef Cassandra Zukauskas's credentials include Sydney's Rockpool, South Africa's Makanyane Safari Lodge and a host of Australian resorts. Her Meric menu is clever and contemporary, with plenty of nods to the seasonal produce of the region (pounded green mango, peanut sauce, salads tossed with dragonfruit and zesty pomelo) but includes lots to satisfy travellers who are hankering for, say, a comfort stop of mint-marinated lamb rump with mashed potatoes on the side.

I order spaghetti with blue swimmer crab, lemon, green onion and chilli, $US10 ($10.75). It's a sizeable, confetti-coloured portion of halved cherry tomatoes, diced red and yellow peppers, wilted basil and curls of green onion tossed through the al dente spaghetti (spaghettini, perhaps, given the very slender straps) with shreds of sweet crab, a good dousing of lemon and a polite hint of chilli. It is very good indeed.

My partner goes on an eccentric journey in the direction of Morocco with his choice of Middle Eastern beef schnitzel with coleslaw ($US12). There are red and yellow spices and a hint of nuttiness to the tender beef's thinnish covering and the coleslaw is continents removed from the over-mayonnaised Australian barbie variety. Amid the shredded red and green cabbage are roasted pine nuts, currants and finely chopped coriander. The dish wears a jaunty hat of crisped parma ham and a side plate of fresh green beans with almonds completes a bistro meal that is more Melbourne than Marrakech.

We wonder if we consider the meal so fabulous because it is such a change from the Asian food we have been eating for weeks. I realise I have been craving pasta; at home, I long for gallons of chilli and spice. I travel with a squeeze tube of Vegemite yet rarely eat it in Australia. This has been security blanket food; tonight it will be back to the heart of Siem Reap for green papaya salad, coconut-rich soups and dishes flavoured with the real bite of Cambodian meric.

The thing to do after dining at Hotel de la Paix is to head for a swing bed on the side colonnade, facing the big old ficus and pink frangipani of the courtyard. You could dine on these four-person swaying lounges, too (staff bring the food on trays), or just drop in for a martini (chamomile and honey or lemongrass and kaffir lime) or a Perfect in Pink fresh watermelon, papaya, lime and carrot juice. We kick off our Angkor-dusted shoes and drink the best coffee we've had in a fortnight.

Then we skulk guiltily back to our lovely little hotel, the Residence d'Angkor, as busloads of tourists roar past. We feel like truants but at least we are not coach potatoes.

All Tables visits are unannounced and meals paid for.

Checklist

• Meric, Hotel de la Paix, Sivutha Boulevard, Siem Reap, Cambodia. +855 63 966 000; www.hoteldelapaixangkor.com.
• Open: Lunch and dinner seven days.
• Cost: About $US80 for two for three-course dinner; about $US55 for lunch. Sides are $US3; meals come with a large bread basket.
• Drink: Perfectly palatable Sicilian house wine by the glass ($US5) or Asian-inspired martinis ($US6); mixed drinks, beer and full wine list also available.
• Reason to return: To try Zukauskas's seven-course Khmer seasonal degustation dinner menu ($US28).