Sr. Luise at the Royal University of Phnom Penh

Our tour began when we arrived by tuk-tuk at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP). The place was a university before 1975, when the Khmer Rouge devastated the educational system, relocating everyone to provinces and killing almost all of the teachers and students. When the university started back up in 1979, there were 3 professors and 36 students. Having suffered through years of war and a recent regime of terror and anti-bourgeoisie, this was worse than starting over from scratch. The Cambodians were building on a shaky foundation and a haunting past. Teachers taught what they knew, even if that meant teaching from a high-school education. Because the US had imposed an embargo against Cambodia that lasted until 1992, most of the aid to Cambodia came from the Soviet block. Nevertheless, the university made progress, a testament to the resiliency of the university staff and their faith in the value of education.

When the small Maryknoll team arrived in 1991, the university had one classroom serving as a library, which was locked. Knowing the trauma the country had suffered so recently, I was impressed to see how the university leaders, faculty, students, and visitors like Sr. Luise had transformed this skeleton of a school into a serious place of study.

"It looks like it's a serious university," I said, as Aunt Luise whipped us through the bustling campus.
"I know, isn't that funny!" she quipped, "The website looks like a real university website too! People e-mail me wanting to study here. I have to e-mail back and say, 'you don't want to study here!'" She chuckled, but she's modest. While the school has a long way to go, everywhere were signs of the work she and the other leaders put into it. There was an English department whose staff got its masters abroad. Funding from the World Bank, the University administration, the Ministry of Education, RUPP filled a real library full of books in French, English and Khmer, along with a fleet of used computers. In crevices were biological tables and journals that no one in the university knew how to use...yet.

Uniform students swarmed the library entrance, where they had to check bags so they couldn't steal the books. The door woman is illiterate, but keeps count of the library's patrons by having the boys put a marble in one basket and the girls put a marble in the other upon entry.

"You see, the students use the books. They love the books. The professors don't use the books, but this will change as the students become professors," she explained. But the books weren't the only draw to the library. The internet had a parental blocker, but the students found sites that leaked through. How did she know? "We find pornographic sites bookmarked at the end of the day," Luise said.
"They bookmark them?" I said.
"I know, aren't they stupid? They're kids!"

On the second floor of the library we saw the offices, with stacks of books yet to be shelved. Asia Foundation--Books for Asia Program has a deal with the customs agents that allows them to bring in boxes of books untaxed. Without this, the library would never be possible because the books would be taxed thousands of dollars at the border, or simply stolen. The library workers are paid so little that Luise has to supplement the salary so they can afford to stay a full day. Otherwise the library would only be open half the day. In fact, this same arrangement works for the entire administrative staff and professors. Teachers are not paid a living wage in Cambodia.

I was proud to be introduced as Luise's niece. Every person we met glowed with their respect for her, which she had gained even though she wasn't the person in power, she was a newcomer, and a woman. She knew what to do, and she brought an attitude that no one could stop, or that no one wanted to stop. I saw that she had gained their full trust and I could see why. She has a clear vision of what needs money and attention - books, world-class education abroad for future professors - and what can wait: - restoring the campus pool. She understands that even what looks hopeless now can change direction in just a generation or two, and she has the decisive attitude needed to push it forward. Above all, she has tremendous respect for the people who work their, their struggle to move forward in the wake of hardship.

"Can you imagine what it must have been like for them. Imagine if you and I were the only two people left in the family," said Luise. And I had tried to imagine, but it's odd how you cannot. You can read the horrors, see the pictures, look into the eyes of a person who has lived through torture, through the death of his or her entire family, and yet you still won't understand. Just me and Luise left out of our lively family of over 70 people? Impossible. To see these professors teaching as they can, pushing for what resources they can grab for their students, is to see at once the damage that so many external and internal forces have inflicted, and to see the power of hope and creating a better future.

I asked why Luise was no longer teaching. She explained that consistent attendance was a problem in the university. Because she had many responsibilities, she could not always make it to class. Even though the students still would have benefited from her instruction, she judged that this was not worth setting a bad example of poor attendance, so she devoted herself more to administrative and advisory role.

On our way back to the offices we popped into the back of a computer class. A student hid a photo on his computer of a half-naked woman a second too late. Don't let a nun catch you at that. The professor strolled over to meet us. "This one was looking at naked ladies," Luise reported. I had a feeling the professor would give much less retribution than Luise would have.

At coffee time we met the university's resident ex-pat professors. A psychologist, a chemist, and a handful of other PhD's had come from their respective countries to teach here. Ken, the chemist and biologist, explained how Khmer children were taught never to ask why. The first talk he gave in his class was on learning ask why. "Your experiments won't work sometimes. You have to ask why and try to figure it out." He said they learn that lesson quick. These are smart kids. They test into the university through one of the few honest testing systems, and come from all over Cambodia.

The latest high-tech innovation in the school was a basic database that had been set up by an outside organization so that the university's only IT worker could alter the structure. He showed us how they could now track students' grades and demographics in the database. This was a great time-saver over recent times when each grade was logged by hand in a notebook, and certainly leaps ahead of the library's marble system. My boyfriend reflected a few days after that at that moment he may have been the most advanced programmer in the entire country. It was strange to realize this was almost certainly true. RUPP hosts Cambodia's most educated and we'd met the best IT staff of the school. I say this by no means to devalue the professors at RUPP who have been pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I'm simply highlighting that anyone educated here could put his/her skills to excellent use bringing Cambodia up to speed. If you ever wonder if you can make a difference in the world, go to Cambodia and you'll see you can.