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Princeton couple assists Cambodian orphangeBy Joel Stottrup Approximately 50 orphans are now eating in a new sanitary kitchen at an orphanage in Cambodia, thanks in part to the help of a Princeton couple, Krissie and Chris Mason. The Masons have a couple of photo albums with pictures of the orphanage and kitchen. But they also have something much more striking than the photos to remind them of Cambodia and its many orphans - a 17-month-old Cambodian girl named Marit they recently adopted. The reason for so many orphans in Cambodia has much to do with the executions of thousands of civilians by the late strongman Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge force, said Krissie Mason at her home last week. Other reasons she listed are Cambodia's "tremendous poverty" and lack of family planning. A third factor is the many explosive land mines that the United States military had planted in Cambodia when the North Vietnamese were moving into Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Mason added. Mason gives most of the credit to the building of the new, nongovernment orphanage in Cambodia to Nancy Hendrie, M.D., of Maine. Hendrie heads the Sharing Foundation that built the new orphanage, completing it last December in the village of Roteang. What is so good about this privately-run orphanage is that it has a high staff ratio of one nanny for every two children, said Mason. The government praises the Roteang orphanage as having superior sanitation and overall quality compared to the government orphanages, Mason added. Mason called the conditions at Cambodia's government orphanages "horrendous," saying they are overcrowded and very primitive. There are open slats in the wooden floor that the children relieve themselves through and then someone washes down the slats with a hose, said Mason. Cambodia has 13 provinces and the government is hoping orphanages like the one at Roteang can be built in the rest of the provinces, Mason said. After the basic structure was completed for the orphanage at Roteang, Mason and Sandy Powers, also from the Princeton area, worked with the support of their husbands to assist Hendrie in raising $13,500 to build a kitchen there. They placed baby milk bottles decorated with colorful confetti at Princeton businesses and churches for people to contribute money toward the kitchen project. Trinity Lutheran Church and the Olga Chalstrom Foundation contributed $7,000 of the $13,500 when the kitchen fund-raising took place from mid-February to May this year. While some of the baby bottles just had change, others had much larger sums, including a check for $250. The kitchen was badly needed because the kitchen that had been used was a barn where animals were still kept, Mason said. The new kitchen was completed by the time the Masons arrived in Cambodia on June 13 to adopt. The Masons are also looking forward to running another fund-raiser to build another orphanage in Cambodia. This time it can involve more Princeton people, said Mason, adding that her husband, who is an investment banker in the Twin Cities, can use some of his contacts to help. "I'd like to see an entire orphanage built by the people of Princeton," Mason said. She suggested it could be a combined effort involving corporations, churches, businesses and individuals. Mason has already observed differences in the lives of Cambodians since Dr. Hendrie's Sharing Foundation went to work in that country. Twenty four families had been living in "extreme poverty" just outside the walls of the new orphanage and The Sharing Foundation leased nearby land as a farming project for those families. The project has had one member from each of the families work in the crops on the farm for $2 per day. Also, the money raised from the crops is put into the farming operation and into the families' "incredibly poor dwellings," Mason said. Noting that she grew up on a farm in rural Princeton, Mason said she has found a "sense of satisfaction" in seeing poor people learn to work on the land and provide for themselves. Princeton Union-Eagle |