Three Rivers Dams (15)
To reach Phum Thmey village along the Srepok river it takes a car ride on the wide road being carved through hills and forests by the Chinese to connect Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri, a bumpy ride on a side road, a river crossing with a ferry and a walk through the forest. It is remote. It is quiet. There is a sandy path leading between the houses, not even a road. The announcement of the death of Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge leader being tried at the ECCC (and now absolved of any wrongdoing because of his death) was heard on the radio. Not on TV as the village is not connected to the electrical network.
The banks of the river are steep. The water flows 5 or 6 meters lower than their edge. And yet, during rainy season the river can overflow dramatically, filling those 6 meters and climbing even higher, up to the roof of the small school, flooding a vast area and forcing the villagers to move away from the river, cultivate rice fields higher up, towards the forest. That is until recently. Because a concession was granted to a company there. The village is not allowed to use that land anymore. The villagers are trapped. Squeezed on a thin stretch between an overflowing river and a land concession.
This is the season when the villagers, mostly Lao, are waiting for the rains wich will allow rice planting, with nothing else to be worked on than building houses. So they build houses, tie together the straws to make new roofs, as if the future will hold nothing new, as if life can go on like it did for the last couple of centuries. But then maybe the construction of the Srepok3 dam a few kilometers upstream will regulate the flow of the river and prevent flooding in the area?
