The Cambodia Rural School Project
The Brian Murphy School
Ong Saroeun is the director of the Brian Murphy School.
| On himself
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I am fifty-two years old and I have five children. I have a niece attending this school. My wife is a farmer, and she farms corn and string beans. She sells her produce to buy rice. There is plenty of water here, so we can plant twice a year. She alternates between corn and string beans, growing only one at a time. I have been a teacher since 1985. I started teaching at Site II [refugee camp]. I am originally from Kampot but moved to Site II in 1979, when the Vietnamese invaded. I returned to Kampot in 1993. I tried farming, but only farmed for a year before I began teaching again. I became a director here when the new school was built.
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| On the new building:
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I am very pleased to have the new school building. It has made teaching a lot easier. Classes used to be held at a pagoda, underneath the monks’ living quarters. Sometimes there were problems with the monks, because they could forget that we were holding classes underneath their house. There were times when they would pour water on the floor, for example after finishing drinking tea, and the water would splash down onto the heads of the students. It was difficult for me to complain, because we were their guests after all.
Other great things with the new school are the computer and English classes. Computer and English are being taught every day, and the students seem very motivated.
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