City student travels to Cambodia

Katharine Marshall has been sponsoring a Cambodian child since she was 11 years old.

On Feb. 4, the 16-year-old City High senior got to meet that child, Mom Chinda, now 16 years old herself, when she and her father, Jeffery Ford, traveled to Cambodia.

Marshall said that five years ago, she and her family got involved with Friendship with Cambodia after a representative of the group spoke at a Rotary Club meeting in Champaign, Ill., where Marshall and her family were living at the time. Friendship with Cambodia is a non-profit group that, according to its Web site, promotes cultural understanding of Cambodia and supports humanitarian projects in the southeast Asian nation that is still reeling from the mass killing of about 2 million people, roughly a quarter of its population, in the late 1970s.

It was after that Rotary Club meeting that Marshall began to sponsor a child through the organization, sending $360 a year to them to help cover a girl’s education, uniforms, textbooks and school supplies.

“Lots of times, their education is pushed back because of income,” Marshall said.

A recent newsletter from Friendship with Cambodia prompted Marshall and her father to decide to travel to Cambodia and meet Chinda in person.

“My family likes to travel a lot, so my dad and I decided to go,” she said.

Leaving Jan. 25, the pair flew into Siem Reap in northern Cambodia. They visited the ancient temple at Angkor Wat as well as the capital city of Phnom Penh and Kampot in the southern part of the country. Marshall said she was happy that they were among those who were taking a “socially responsible” trip that did not involve the thriving sex trade in Cambodia, but was amazed at the poverty she saw.

“It was amazing how poor it was and how hopeful everyone seemed,” she said. "They were really welcoming and it was great to see.”

After a three-hour taxi ride from Kampot, they arrived in Chinda’s village, where she met Mom and her extended family. Despite the language barrier, they got along well during the four-hour visit.

“She was really shy and quiet, but you could see she was really intelligent,” Marshall said of Mom. “She was very pulled together. It was like meeting a sister almost. (Her family was) proud that she was getting an education.”

Marshall and her father returned home to Iowa City on Feb. 6, and Marshall said she plans to continue to sponsor Mom as far as she goes in her education, even through college if the opportunity arises. She said she was impressed that the country was coming together after years of war and severe poverty, with hope for the future.

“There’s no way out for some people,” Marshall said. “Their programs are becoming self-sufficient, so that’s great to see.”