Sarou’s story tells of a family’s financial difficulties, as millions of children experience them on a daily basis. The book is set in Banteay Chhmar, a village in northwest Cambodia, which I first visited in November 2006, as a member of the Hong Kong delegation of Children of the Mekong. Then, several months later I went back to facilitate a training in money management for Soieries du Mékong. In December 2013, RFI journalists chose Banteay Chhmar, the Soieries du Mekong and a+b=3 as the theme of their report – an unexpected opportunity to revisit the village and the weavers I met six years earlier. RFI videos are still online. The temple we explored in 2006 had been partly cleared of vines and a community group had emerged to promote tourism.
The illustrations in the book are based on my photos taken in 2006. The Mother appears almost until the end of the book in shadow, to celebrate the long Khmer tradition of shadow theater. On the penultimate page, everything is reversed: Sarou appears in shadow and her Mother in colour. The spinning wheel and the loom are the thread 🙂 of the book as the Mother weaves the scarf. A silkworm appears on each page, as well as a chicken. I was fascinated by the chickens pecking under the looms while scarves with extraordinary shimmers were taking shape barely a meter above them.
The temple is an integral part of the story, and Sarou and her friends walk past it every day on their way to school:
When the moat of the temple is covered with water lilies, one of the weavers explained to us, it means that the water is drinkable… So I added a few water lilies to the illustration where Sarou stops on her way, tired, at the edge of the moat. The big Buddha statue is close to the temple, if I remember correctly.
The market is the heart of the village :
A little girl who probably dreamed of going to school also appears in the story:
Sarou’s house, with the red altar, like those found everywhere in Cambodia, and the jars for rainwater, is surrounded by greenery:
And of course, the letters of the Khmer alphabet are woven in the book from the first page to the last.
More information on the book: Sarou
To buy the book, click here.