Three Rivers Dams (10)
The music wasn’t good enough. At least Kro Hom Kor, the red-necked spirit from the Sesan river wasn’t really satisfied with it. So he visited the body of the shamane only one time out of the three attempts. All the attire was ready though: the roasted pig’s head, the little bowls with rice, the jossticks, the thin candles pasted on small stones, the rice wine, the sabre with another candle pasted at its end, the red cloth around the torso of the shamane. Was it because the space between the shamane and the small shrine where people had left a pile of stones, each stone being a wish for fortune, was too crowded? Some say that if the spirit wasn’t very vocal this time it is because one of the musicians who plays for the yearly ceremony was replaced by another one.
But it seems this happened before. It is not that big a deal. What was more important was the fact that the whole Tampuon community from Sre Kor village was gathered under the bamboo stems growing near the rocky banks of the Sesan. They had demonstrated that morning on the main road of the village, carrying banners and shouting through bullhorns. They had paraded the banners in boats on the Sesan river. They then travelled the two hours long journey, having first been duly controlled and photographed by the police at the exit of the village. They were seated on the hard wood of a trailer hooked on a ‘koyun’ or two-wheeled tractor, uncomfortably shaken on the barely visible tracks through the trees, along the huge areas of forest that were cleared by roaring tractors from a rubber company. The heat of the fires burning the chopped down wood sent a column of dust twirling in the air.
The community was together, strengthened in its belief that defending the river is a good cause, aware of the threat caused by the building of the dams. Aware that the dams threaten their livelihood, the fish living in the Sesan, but also aware that the constructions threaten some essential parts of their lives.
