Bangkok Post
By: PATSINEE KRANLERT
Sunshine and rainbows don't always follow a shower of rain, yet this man, laid low by a land mine almost two decades ago, has managed to piece together a new life for himself.
By: PATSINEE KRANLERT
Sunshine and rainbows don't always follow a shower of rain, yet this man, laid low by a land mine almost two decades ago, has managed to piece together a new life for himself.
A soldier in the Cambodian army until he lost both hands during a mine-clearing operation in 1990, Tok Vanna spent the next 12 years living in dire poverty.
In 2002 he moved to Siem Reap with his family in search of a job, but his disability proved a major obstacle and he only managed to eke out an existence by begging on the streets. The following year his luck finally turned when he was spotted by a staff member from ILO, the United Nations agency.
After finishing a vocational training course, during which he also learned basic English, he received a small sum in seed capital from the ILO, sufficient to buy a pushcart and some books and set himself up in business.
Today his streetside stall boasts a large and interesting selection including an impressive number of non-fiction titles on Cambodia, mostly dealing with the devastation wreaked on that country by decades of conflict and the depredations of the Khmer Rouge.
As I stood there flipping through books with harrowing names like Welcome to Hell, Stay Alive My Son and First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, he drew my attention to a tome with a red cover which he was holding against his chest with a truncated limb: "This is the best I have," he said in a gentle voice, "I recommend it to everybody."
I left carrying a copy of Survival in the Killing Fields, an account of life under the Khmer Rouge by Dr Haing Ngor, who later won an Oscar for his role in 1984's The Killing Fields.
In 2002 he moved to Siem Reap with his family in search of a job, but his disability proved a major obstacle and he only managed to eke out an existence by begging on the streets. The following year his luck finally turned when he was spotted by a staff member from ILO, the United Nations agency.
After finishing a vocational training course, during which he also learned basic English, he received a small sum in seed capital from the ILO, sufficient to buy a pushcart and some books and set himself up in business.
Today his streetside stall boasts a large and interesting selection including an impressive number of non-fiction titles on Cambodia, mostly dealing with the devastation wreaked on that country by decades of conflict and the depredations of the Khmer Rouge.
As I stood there flipping through books with harrowing names like Welcome to Hell, Stay Alive My Son and First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, he drew my attention to a tome with a red cover which he was holding against his chest with a truncated limb: "This is the best I have," he said in a gentle voice, "I recommend it to everybody."
I left carrying a copy of Survival in the Killing Fields, an account of life under the Khmer Rouge by Dr Haing Ngor, who later won an Oscar for his role in 1984's The Killing Fields.
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