ON FLOOD SURVIVORS
Photostory By: GUECHLY HENG
Publication Year: 2018
Authorized By: Wonders of the Mekong Project
Photostory Workshop By: Suthep Kritsanavarin / USAID Wonders of the Mekong Project
People at Kompong klang live with flood all the time; therefore, they are used to life on the river and on land. These photos were taken during flooding time when adults go out for fishing, finding shrimp, and collecting wood, and the children are going to school in the morning and evening. In the afternoon they stay at their home working on the net fixing and producing fishing material. Everyone at that village is used to life during the flood by going to school by boat, going fishing, and spending their free time in the water.
1. Kompong Klang is an area along the Mekong River. This area is flooding during flooding season and on the land during dry season. The people on that village are used to the life of flooding and landing houses.
2. When the flood come, it also bring some benefit to people by providing them some more work to do in order to earn some money. The people there can working with the creation of the material and fixing the net for fishing.
3. The villager go out to the river to do the fishing. Normally, they can collect more fish during flooding season than dry season.
4. Recently, there are not much fish at the river, so people change to feed fish at the fish farm. They buy some small fish to feed, so that they can earn more benefit than fishing at the river.
5. When the water start to go down, some villagers who have corn farm, they start to collect the water hyacinth, which come with the flood, to put on the water above their farm for the soil compos when the water go down.
6. Since the area is normally flooding during rainy season, so the kids there all know how to swim, how to ride their boat and how to live their life on the water.
7. People have to use boat whenever they travel from one place to other. For example, travel to school, to the market, to their workplace, to sell their produce, to meet friend, ect.
8. We can see the school is also build very high from the water, so that students can still go to school even during flooding period. All the students are familiar with the flood, so there are many activities that they can do during their break time. They can play under the school and on the boat.
9. After school, children can enjoy their time at home even in the water. They are happy and used to the life with the water and the land. They still can have many pleasure activities to do even the flood is there.
10. Still house is another special thing in that village. People build their house high from the land and water, so their house is safe from the flood and it’s useful for them when the flood come, they still have some space under the house to do some trading and park their boat.
11. All the activities happened on the water even the boat coloring. They keep the boat as well as all the staff above the water, so during flooding season, they still can live their normal life without any doubt.
12. Even it’s flooding season, it’s good for the villagers to work on their dry shrimp. They can also make dry shrimp on the still place where they build high above the water to place their shrimp under the sun.