Lessons from Cambodia

By Roger Phillips
Record Staff Writer

STOCKTON - There was a photograph of a rural house that sits on stilts to protect it from flooding. There was a picture of a savory plate of noodles and vegetables cooked by a street vendor, a healthy dinner for 75 cents. And there was a photo of a traffic jam in Phnom Penh that looked as congested as anything one might find driving through rush-hour traffic on Interstate 205.

This was part of what Katie Schubert spoke of during her 35-minute slide show Sunday afternoon on Cambodia to about 150 congregants at Central United Methodist Church.

Schubert, 30, also was spreading the word about the purpose of the three months she spent in Cambodia late last year. The Stockton native who attended Central Methodist as a child was in the Southeast Asian country working for the nonprofit agency Project Against Domestic Violence. The organization held a 16-day anti-violence campaign leading up to world Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

"People often think (domestic violence is caused by) alcohol or poverty," Schubert told her audience. "Those aggravate it, but they aren't the causes. It's really about aggression and power."

Schubert made her presentation as audience members lunched on egg rolls and other foods prepared by some of Central Methodist's Cambodian congregants.

During her stay in Cambodia, Schubert said she and her group visited villages and held forums to educate citizens about the effects of domestic violence. Schubert - who is pursuing a doctoral degree in ethics from the Claremont School of Theology in Southern California - said she is particularly interested in finding ways to use religion to empower women.

Though she comes at the subject from a Christian perspective, one of the photographs she showed was of three Buddhist nuns in largely Buddhist Cambodia. She said the nuns are active in teaching their country-men about human rights.

Toward the end of her program, Schubert fielded a few questions from the audience. Asked to describe her best experience on her journey, she said it was finding ways to communicate with citizens in Cambodian, a language in which she is not fluent.

Her worst experience, she said, was bargaining with merchants. She said she focused on trying to negotiate fair prices, but in retrospect the process made her feel "terrible."

"Take a couple of steps back," said Schubert. "My quality of life is great. I have so much more. ... I felt terrible about the inequality."