Time, Education & Rephotography

I am examining the ‘time‘ aspect of my narrative, amongst other things.

In an earlier post, I noted that a young boy that started in a grass-roofed school near Trapeang Prasat is now doing a PhD in Law, at Nagoya University, Japan.

We first visited that school in 2000.

My wife and I subsequently funded a five room structure, with library, which opened a little later in 2000. Here’s an image from a 2001 visit.

Well, I have now made contact with Mr. Chinket Metta, thanks to a Facebook connection, courtesy of his mother, Mrs Chheng Den.

Amazingly, I took a picture of him in his classroom, in March 2000. I had shared the galleries with Metta, and he recognised himself. He was born in 1991, so was 9 years old at the time.

He’s circled, below.

Metta first visited Japan in 2012, on a  summer seminar, for 2 weeks. He subsequently completed a Masters, and is now on his Doctoral Degree – all tuition in Japanese.

In chatting with him on Facebook, he recalled the library that we had built in the school, and remembers reading the books. Here’s a recent picture of Metta.

Unfortunately, when Metta went to the Trapeang Prasat Secondary School in 2004, there was no library. He told me that the Cambodian Student Association at Nagoya has just (a few days ago) made a donation for kids books back home. Seems to be a ‘circle of life’ moment.

In another fascinating twist, the grade one teacher, Keo Saroeurn, in the original grass-roofed school is now the school principal.

I have pictures, then and now. Saroeurn is wearing a white shirt, alongside Sarath, in a black t-shirt, in 2000.

And here Saroeurn is, today, with Mrs Chheng Den.

Inspired by this photographic detective work, and Gary’s prompting on considering ways to use rephotography, today I created a simple collage. It uses images from 2000, 2001 and 2018, on the same spot – the Kroursa Yates School.

In searching my archives, I also have images of the school from 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2009. But it was not really different to 2001, other than extending the facilities for vocational, agricultural training.

However, there has been substantial building fairly recently, hence the modern gate, walls and driveway. Here’s the collage:

And I couldn’t resist doing another version in the style of some of my ‘old’ Pop artwork.

Would be interested in any feedback.