10.4 Surveyor Stories

The Cambodia National Level One Survey proved a rich source of interesting anecdotal information about the landmine and UXO problems of Cambodia specifically and about the daily lives of Cambodians generally. The following stories were written by Level One Surveyors and are illustrative of the kinds of additional information that emerged through the Level One Survey process. Such stories were told and discussed during regular debriefing and refresher training sessions throughout the survey and contributed to the ongoing refinement of survey-related information-gathering techniques and logistical practices throughout.

1. Difficulties Accessing Information

A Powerful Man

By Siv Sothea, Detachment 1, Translated by Chau Touch San

In this village, in Otdor Mean Chey Province, there is a shortage of land to satisfy the needs of all the people. A very powerful man, who does not live in the area owns much of the land of this village. He controls the use of the land and the money he makes from it through a group of subordinates who live in this area. He allows the lands he owns to be used by the community for some purposes such as gathering firewood, but they have no authority over these lands. The villagers were able to answer many of the questions in the survey until we came to the socio-economic section, at this point they got very careful about the answers and some of the powerful man's subordinates did not want to answer at all. In the end we persisted and we believe that we managed to get accurate information to answer all the questions.

All the Men in the Village Hide From the Surveyors

By Long Sophorn, Team Leader (T1), Translated by Mom Chan Komoth

The road to this particular is a long and terrible road and traveling was difficult in the rainy season. The road was very slippery and slick with mud and the villages are quite spread out in this district. While driving we would often fall down off the bikes twice and sometimes four times in one day, getting covered in mud each time. But there were 11 villages in the district so we had to get there. After all this effort, when we first arrived to do the survey and we asked for the village chief, he was not there. Instead we met his wife, but it was obvious that she was very scared of us. When we first talked with her she did not want to talk with us at all. Because of our uniforms she was very afraid of us and later told us, when she became used to us, that she thought we were going to arrest her husband. In the past there had been problems with men in uniforms harassing people in this area and so now the men in the village would run away and hide whenever uniformed men appeared in the villages. After we had patiently explained to her our reasons for coming to her village, she understood and made a secret signal to the men to come out from their hiding places. From then on she was very helpful and also told the other people in her village that they should tell us everything we wanted to know. We never did find out if her husband was a criminal.

The Joke is on Us!

By Tang Koeun, DT4, Translated by Im Sarun

Sometimes village people tried to make a joke on us. This is one of those occasions. On December 11 2000, Mr. Tang Koeun one of our surveyors, headed off to work in a village in Battambang province. But all the village people were at a funeral when he arrived. So he decided to go to the funeral and meet the village chief there. When he did meet the village chief at the funeral, Surveyor Koeun asked, "Are you the village chief"? The village leader answered yes he was the chief, and all the villagers nearby did not say anything different. With the answer "Yes", Koeun offered to give the Chief a lift on his motorbike so that they could go to the safe place and view the suspected minefield. When they arrived at the viewpoint looking over the minefield, Surveyor Koeun started asking the usual questions about suspected areas. After a while he asked, "starting from which points does that minefield begin and to where does it extend"? After a moment the man who claimed to be the village chief had to be honest and said, "I'm not the village head!?" Surveyor Koeun was at first very surprised, and then annoyed with himself, because the villagers at the funeral had made a fool of him. Surveyor Koeun said, "Oh! We are finished!!" Leaving in a great hurry he went back to the village, leaving that wrong village chief to find his own way back to the village were he lived, from the minefield. We hope he made it.

2. Information Gathering Strategies

The Gambler

By Ry Sarath, Team Leader T2

Detachment 11 went to survey in a village in Pursat province. Coming to the village chief 's house, the surveyor asked one of the village chief's children, "where is your father?" The youngest son answered, "my father has gone to play a game", meaning he was gambling, which is illegal in Cambodia even though everyone enjoys it. Hearing this response of his youngest brother, one of the other older brothers knew this might mean trouble for his father because we, the surveyors, were wearing our uniforms and he thought we must be from the government. Right away he said, "Don't be crazy, our father does not go to play a game-really he goes to play dice". He could not understand why both the surveyors were laughing so much. This situation reminded us that although adults do not always tell the truth, children rarely lie, and we can rely on them when cross checking responses from their parents.

3. Difficult Working Conditions

Floods, Floods and more Floods

By Ou Vann Kea, Detachment 2

On August 14, 2001 our team went to work in a village in O'Ya Dav district, Ratanakiri province. It was actually very scary and we were near to panic when we were in a small boat crossing a river with a very strong current, as it cut through high banks. We landed in an empty village where all the people had left due to the high waters. We walked through dense forest in the wet for quite along way, from one tribal village to the next mainly using our GPS as a guide.

Later this same detachment was in Kampong Speu Province and had this experience. With no roads and bridges because an area flood had swept away those bridges, we had to swim to work. We had to swim 50-100 meters or else we would not have been able to complete our assignment. Sometimes we almost drowned, and all our belongings got soaking wet.

Villagers Having More Fun at Our Expense

By: Long Sophorn, Team Leader T1, Translated by Keo Vuthy

In a village in Sre Ambil district, Koh Kong province when I went to conduct the survey, monks and villagers advised me to be alert as there was a real problem in this area with buffalos attacking. The animals in this area are especially aggressive when they see people in uniform, regardless of its colour, and are very likely to attack them as targets. Even, Buddhist monks have had to abandon their saffron robs, leaving their body with no clothes to cover it.

When we reached the mud field, sure enough we saw a lot of buffalos. These animals seemed to have their eyes looking straight in our faces. We were so scared of these animals because of what the villagers had told us that we imagined them chasing and attacking us. In fact we were not attacked by the buffalos. It must have been that those animals think that our faces (with all our long walks through muddy fields) are similar to theirs.

Not Another Sinking Boat!

By: Heng Santepheap, Team Leader (T5)

On August 15, 2001, I, Heng Santepheap was accompanied by two surveyors on our way to work in Ta Lao commune. We took a boat to travel along the Sesan River while it was flooding and it was running very fast. This river flows from highlands in Vietnam westwards to the Mekong River and is a very large river and dangerous when it floods. Along the sides of the river, there are a lot of rocks and after we had taken a trip of about 45 minutes by boat from An-Dong Meas district to the commune we encountered a large whirlpool. The swirling current took control of the boat and smashed into the rocks causing some sections of the wooden boat to be knocked out of the boat. At this point in time, Mr. Dim Say (Detachment #32) shouted out as he was afraid and thought he might drown and die. I, and the boat owner, took water containers and tried to bail the river water out of the boat while the other surveyors took care to protect our documents and keep them dry. We kept trying to bail out the water from the boat, but we failed.

Fortunately for us we came close to some trees growing on the riverbank and we were able to grab on to them. This allowed us to pull the boat onto the shore and get out, which we did quickly. But we would not get back into that boat, so we stopped for a while and then continued walking towards the commune leaving the boat owner to repair his boat alone. We were each of us so frightened by this experience that we said almost nothing as we walked.

4. Interesting Asides

Landmines Rot in Water??? Not Really!

We (surveyors) arrived at a village in Kompong Thom Province in order to carry out the survey and to investigate with the villagers about mine information for their village.

We asked them the survey questions and they answered to us that there used to be mines and ammunition in this village. In fact they told us it was still there but we did not have to report it because it was not at all dangerous. This village they told us was flooded every rainy season with deep floodwaters. They said just look at our own houses, after they have been soaked in the floodwater for a few years the wood is absolutely decomposed and completely decayed. These mines, they said, have been soaked in the water for even longer than our houses so they should be really rotten by now. So they said you just dip your hands in the water and lift up the mines and ammunition and you experts tell us how much it is decomposed. And then, we exclaimed, ' no! ..............no!............no! We explained the reasons to them clearly.

Get Your Landmines...Get Your Landmines...Only $2.50 US

By: Mao Vanna, Assistant Field Survey Manager

In one place in Battambang Province, our survey team came across several anti-tank mines that were on sale, along with meat from wild animals and deer. Each anti-tank mine costs 10,000 Riel or about $2.50 USD. Why you might wonder would anyone buy an anti-tank mine? The reason is simple; some people have a business selling rocks from the mountains for construction purposes and they need explosives to blast open the mountain side to make the rocks small enough for this purpose. These people used the anti-tank mine's gun powder to break the mountain stones into gravel.